Mongolia, although perhaps not too well known outside stories of Ghengis Khan, is one of the biggest, yet most sparsely populated countries in the world today. Placed between Russia and China, it sits in a great location. The capital, Ulan Bator, houses around 40%  of the population, with many others in the countryside, often living in traditional Mongolian gers. In September, I had the opportunity to go visit this country for the first time, spending a week there with Malcolm Kayes and Tim Brown from the Coign Church, Woking.

One of the main reasons for my visit was to share the Ephesians 4 Ministries model with pastors  in Mongolia. They had previously built to a "Pastor Model",  but hadn't stressed the importance of Apostles, Prophets and Evangelists. They had had a visitor who suggested an Apostolic Model to them; however, it was regarded with some suspicion  as the teaching  seemed to imply an hierarchical rather than relationship-based model. However my teaching seemed to be well-received by the pastors I met and some certainly saw the need for all 5-fold ministries to function. We also took a leaders' conference on apostolic foundations and an open conference for in which I gave a big picture preach on the mission of God from Genesis right through to Revelation, and it only took three and a half hours! Malcolm Kayes taught on Hearing God's voice today.

Although it was a pretty packed schedule, we did manage to make it into the countryside for a day, visiting a ger. They have stayed the pretty much the same for centuries, except now they have one solar panel to work the satellite TV! It was in the ger that one of the highlights of the trip happened, as I was given a solid lump of clotted cream to eat straight off, and had a large bowl of fermented mare's milk to wash it down with, which I actually really enjoyed. We also went out to a Nature Reserve and saw the rare Pzewalski's Horses, which are still on the WWF's Red List, but has been reintroduced into the wild successfully.

Overall, it was a great trip, and I look forward to connecting more with Mongolia, and hopefully seeing an Apostolic Movement raised up there.