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United Methodists build mission center in Mongolia

 


United Methodists build mission center in Mongolia

Aug. 9, 2004       

LINK: Click to open full size version of image
Helen Sheperd (left) visits with Darkaanbataar (center) and his mother inside their home at the site for the new United Methodist Center in Ulaanbataar, Mongolia.

By Linda Worthington*

ULAANBATAAR, Mongolia (UMNS) -- The taxi bounced and bumped over the narrow potholed and gullied streets in Ulaanbataar, taking Helen Sheperd to the Sharhad section of the capitol city of Mongolia.

Staff from the United Methodist Board of Global Ministries completed negotiations for a 900-meter parcel of land in early July, beginning the process of building a United Methodist mission center there. It is being funded in part by the Korean United Methodists, as a gift from their 100th anniversary celebration last year.

Sheperd, the board’s missionary in Mongolia and a hospice nurse, uses inexpensive taxis to take her where she needs to go -- usually in the crowded “hashas,” where she visits her patients each week. “Not only are cars too expensive to buy, but with the bad roads, they often need repair. It’s just easier and cheaper to use taxis,” she said.

Now that the dream of a mission center in Mongolia, sometimes referred to as ‘the end of the earth,’ is becoming a reality, she will be spending time at the site, overseeing construction and working on the myriad details to meet the country’s requirements for opening a Christian center.

She was greeted by Darkhanbaatar, the caretaker, a small friendly dog and the caretaker’s mother, who shares some of the 24-hour-a-day responsibility for keeping the property safe. They invited Sheperd into their ger (yurt), the felt igloo-shaped home that is the main housing for thousands of Mongolians throughout the vast Gobi Desert, which covers about a third of the country.

Gers aren’t so common in the city, but many poorer people live in them. Ulaanbataar, or UB as it is referred to, is a city of about 800,000 inhabitants, a third of the population of the country.

In addition to the ger on the property, there is a small abandoned brick restaurant building, which, once the roof is repaired and renovations made, will serve as the offices and administration building for the United Methodist center. It will also have a comfortable room for worship, with a source of heat in one corner, a necessity in the long winter months that last until April.

One of the offices is for a new missionary, the Rev. Millie Kim, who will join Sheperd this September. She will work with children and youth, and perhaps begin a program with the thousands of street children in the city.

LINK: Click to open full size version of image
A UMNS photo by Linda Worthington.

The new United Methodist Center in Ulaanbataar, Mongolia, will serve people in this Gobi Desert area.

Since February 2002, Sheperd has worked as a hospice nurse in an overcrowded “ger section” of the city, where thousands of Mongolians live. As the rural population, made up primarily of nomadic camel, horse, yak, goat and sheepherders, migrate into the city, they usually can’t afford city prices. They bring their gers with them – a herder can dismantle his whole home in a half hour and put it on camel back to move anywhere.

Land is not owned in Mongolia but the aimag (province) government issues permits, at a cost, to the herder who wishes to move, whether into city or from summer grazing grounds to winter grounds. The densely populated city ger areas sometimes have no electricity. Water is scarce and must be carried from a common source. “A ger district is where life is very hard,” Sheperd said, “especially for hauling water.”

Sheperd tends to sick patients in the end stages of life. She visits most of her 30 patients at least twice a week. Most are dying from cancers; about 75 percent have liver cancer, perhaps because of a high prevalence of alcoholism.  When a patient dies, there are many more to add to her roster.

The United Methodist ministry in Mongolia, which cooperates closely with the Korean Methodist Church and its presence in the city, also includes two full-time doctors and a full-time nurse who work out of an apartment office, with a Mongolian director. The staff is Korean and Mongolian. Two chaplains visit patients once a week.

For Sheperd, the cooperative spirit of working with the Koreans comes naturally. She was a missionary in Korea before coming to Mongolia.

Christianity is a very small part of the Mongolian culture, which is predominantly Tibetan Buddhist. The few temples and monasteries that remained after the Soviet purges of the 1930s are filled with images of the Buddhist deities in many forms. Since the fall of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, Mongolians are expressing new interest in religion, and are restoring many Buddhist monasteries. 

Mongolia has a long history of Nestorian Christianity, which came in the 8th century. The great Chinggis Khaan (Mongolian spelling) who unified the Mongol Empire in 1206, was married to a Christian woman, and several of his descendents were Christian. During the Communist years, Christianity was largely wiped out. As with Buddhism, there is an upsurge in Christianity, largely from fundamentalist and Pentecostal groups, and UB has a large new Catholic Center and Seventh Day Adventist headquarters.

A small percent of the population is Muslim, largely in the northern and western parts of the country. Shamanism and ancestor worship are also strong religious components, especially in the countryside. Throughout the Gobi Desert and Steppes, one sees piles of rocks draped with bright blue or white scarves and other items. These are the ovoo, abode of the local spirits, built by passersby to entice good spirits.

To support the work of Helen Sheperd, the board’s Mongolian initiative and the building of the United Methodist Center, send checks to Advance GCFA, P.O. Box 9068, GPO, New York, NY 10087-9068, and note on the check that it is for “Helen Sheperd-Advance #011810-4.” To make a credit card donation, call (888) 652-6174.

*Linda Worthington is on the communications staff of the Baltimore-Washington Conference. She vacationed in Mongolia in July.

News media contact: Linda Bloom·(646)369-3759·New York· E-mail: newsdesk@umcom.org.


 

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