Breaking News from Ulaanbaatar
Baatarsuren Bayanmandakh (Baataraa), our alumnus from Mongolia, sent us an urgent prayer request on 11 Nov:
“Today we have the first local Covid-19 cases (4 persons) in Ulaanbaatar. The government announced total lockdown for five days. People are scared and confused. One of my team members is in the countryside (Dornod province) and cannot come back home during the quarantine period..”
Pray for Baataraa and his team, who regularly go out to the deserts to share the gospel, follow up new believers, and make disciples, among desert nomads. These herders, who live in gers or portable round tents, make up 25 to 40 percent of its 3.3 million people. The uncertainty of Covid-19, plus the harsh winter conditions – the temperature dips to minus 40 degrees Celsius at its worst – makes it harder to reach the the nomadic people. From the 2020 census, there are 1.3 percent of Christians in Mongolia currently (48, 859 people).
Preaching Training in Progress
This is the first of 2 semesters of the Expository Preaching course, a training ground for our students to be developed in their preaching. The pictures above show a time of sermon presentation where each student delivers a prepared sermon to the class and receives a round of feedback from the course instructor and fellow classmates.
Learning happens when classmates contribute observations from new vantage points, and also when the class engages in constructive interaction that helps each learner internalize and even debate over learning points that deserve additional discussion. It helps that everyone in the class is committed to be a conducive learning community where feedback is constructively given and received.
After this semester of looking into developing and delivering biblical messages, the next semester of Expository Preaching will look into a range of different types and genres of sermons, and also cover the use of technology to enhance sermon delivery. Sermon presentations will continue, and each student will be exercising skills and competencies developed over the 2 semesters of the course.
ABCs of Handling Zoom Fatigue (Part 4)
Here are more Zoom Relief Tips:
Audio – make sure you have good and clear sound.
Background – check your screen background. Keep it simple and pleasing to the eyes.
Connect – call up someone to chat, meet over cake & coffee, and cut down on back to back online meetings.
For more of our previous Zoom Relief Tips, click these links: Part 3, Part 2 and Part 1.
Taka & Eri from Tokyo
Takahiro and Eri Ueki (Taka and Eri), senior staff members of Japan Campus Crusade (JCCC), graduated with Masters of Divinity in Teaching and Exposition and Masters of Arts in Biblical Studies, respectively, in 2008.
Before joining JCCC, Taka had studied only for a year in a seminary in Japan. He stopped because he was diagnosed with incurable Hepatitis C. But God did the impossible for him. He healed him through a clinical trial treatment in 2001-2002. That was when he reconsidered further theological studies and came to EAST.
EAST Library Catalogue
EAST Populi
National Library Board eResources
The Digital Theological Library
