by Rahel Hesse
It all started with a world map. A distant country stuck out and captured my attention. Two years later I visited it for the first time, and immediately I knew: this is where God is sending me! But who do I want to 
reach – Children? Poor people? “No,” I thought. “I want to reach the influencers –teachers, businessmen, people in the government . . .”
So after graduating from the University of Zürich as a teacher, I began looking for a mission organisation and came across Campus für Christus. While talking with Hanspeter Nüesch, the director, I quickly realised that this is where I fit in. I worked in the Swiss campus ministry for a time, to receive training, then finally, seven years after my first visit, I arrived in the “land of my dreams” to stay long term. Mongolia has captured my heart!
Towards the end of my first year, the Mongolian Teachers Ministry asked me to help lead a seminar for teachers. Afterwards, I knew I wanted to reach out to teachers. They are important influencers of the Mongolian society. In fact, apart from the family, a teacher is the most important person in a child’s life. This ministry, therefore, seeks to reach out to society through teachers. It helps them bring Christian values into Mongolian classrooms.
Mongolia has been and still is greatly influenced by Buddhism, Shamanism and Socialism. Only after the opening of the country in 1990 could Christians come in and share the gospel. Since then, however, God has done a great work in Mongolia. Where there were only about five known Christians eighteen years ago, we now know of more than 20,000 believers, with many well established Mongolian churches.
In talking to English teachers I was surprised to learn that many of them could not lead a conversation in English. In fact, some could barely say one or two sentences. How could it be that these teachers have so little English? It’s because until 1990, English was only taught at three schools in the capital. Then overnight, English became more important than Russian. Many teachers of Russian were given a year of training, then assigned to teach English – a language that has virtually nothing in common with Mongolian! To this day, many English teachers never had a chance to learn the language properly.
By providing an opportunity for them to speak English, and to learn new ways of teaching, we can meet a great need. And by sharing the gospel in these camps, we can meet a much deeper need for love, truth and salvation.
All of this motivated us to organise English camps for teachers. At a typical camp, a team of teachers from Switzerland holds conversation classes in the mornings, organises games and workshops in the afternoon, then explains the gospel in the evening. “I was deeply touched by the willingness of these English teachers to learn and their great thankfulness,” writes Christa, a member of this year’s Swiss team. “We had a lot of fun playing language games and the teachers were eager to learn new teaching methods they could use with their students.”
“The varying levels of English ability surprised the team,” adds Tracy. “We couldn’t imagine having to stand in front of a class with such little understanding of the material we were supposed to teach. This gave us all greater appreciation for the basic education that we received in Switzerland, Germany, the U.K. and the U.S.A., as well as for our own pedagogical training.”
In our first camp a year ago, Ganaa and Enkhmaa came to Christ and soon after started to help with the evangelistic Teenagers Club at their school. They also reach out to other teachers. Their changing lives, their new values and new ways to relate to fellow teachers and students are a living testimony of our Lord Jesus. This year, they helped in our camps by leading small groups and, with big hearts, helping wherever help was needed. May many like Enkhmaa and Ganaa come to Christ and may Mongolian society be changed through the power of our great and awesome God!
To the Last Nomad
