Ninety percent of Mongolian people believe in Lamaism and 5% believe in Islam. Protestants and Catholics have attempted to been spread Christianity throughout Mongolia  since the 1990’, but there are still many difficulties which prevent christianity from taking root in mongolia. I am not a Christian and had never had an interest in Christianity or  missionary work. Because I had a negative impression of Christianity, it didn't make sense to me to go to Mongolia for missionary work. However, I did want to visit mongolia, and I had  the opportunity to do so if I went with a missionary group and reported on my experience in the Soongsil Times. so I came to join ‘Impact 13’last summer vacation. ‘Impact’is a missionary team that has been dispatched to foreign countries every vacation since 2000 under the supervision of the Soongsil Chaplain Office. My special journey, through this trip, I came to have a greater and much more positive, understanding of christians. with Christians began by joining this team.

  The first step in preparation for the missionary work was to join a prayer meeting every morning that began in the middle of exam period. Once you were chosen as a member of the ‘Impact’team, you had to attend this meeting every weekday morning. Most of the members of the team had had no missionary experience, so they had were able to prepare their mind through these prayer meetings. After that they had time to train and prepare themselves for each of the missionary activities.

  The official training time was from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. but the training time became a little longer as the date of the departure approached. As a result, team members became increasingly exhausted. I couldn’t understand why they were doing this hard work. As they got tired, their voices and passion for prayer became more intense. What I really couldn’t understand was that they thought the main reason for being tired was because of Satan’s disturbance and lack of their longing for God I simply attributed it to physical fatigue. Anyway, they kept on preparing for missionary work, solving psychological another troubles they faced through prayers. Prayer was their method of recovery.

  Finally, ‘Impact 13’ boarded an airplane for Mongolia on Tuesday, July 24th to carry out what we had prepared. The team was composed of 17 members including students, the Head Chaplain Yun Yo-han from the Chaplain Office. The Chaplain Office Section Chief Kim Ji-hyun, Architecture department Professor, Kim Nam-hyo, Baek Ji-sook from English Literature department, a manager Ann Myung-hoon, three Mongolian interpreters and reporter Jung Bo-mi from Kidokongbo (a Christian magazine). The Luke Missionary Association team whose chairperson is the president of SSU, Lee Hyo-gye, also

joined the team for medical missionary work.

  Preaching the gospel in a region where it isn’t approved brings various hardships. For this reason, Christians should preach the good news through other indirect, not direct, methods. What ‘Impact’ chose as the methods were medical and cultural missionary work, and Korean and English camps.

  The first activity was the medical missionary work in MIU (Mongolia International University) in Ulaanbaatar, the capital city of Mongolia. The team was divided into a dental team and an Oriental medicine team.  The doctors and students in each team cured the sick and poor. In Mongolia, it isn’t easy for poor people to go to hospitals, because it is expensive. The medical missionary team gave a lot of help to them. Although there was a fierce controversy about the kidnapped  missionaries in Iraq I am sure they went there with good intentions. Christian missionary in many countries are honorable in that they spend their money, time, and effort in doing difficult work without any compensation.

Likewise,I think the Impact team not only healed the body and gave medical treatment, but they also healed the mind. Some students MIU helped us a lot. Although most of them are not Christians, they participated in all the programs. From this, I learned that Christians are not narrow-minded as others consider them to be. I learned Christians and non-Christians can work together in harmony in spite of religious differences.

 The second activity was cultural missionary work. It was carried out in Sergelting Dawalga Church and Sergelt Church in Ulaanbaatar, and the Culture Hall in Selenge. Cultural missionary work was composed of CCD(Contemporary Christian Dance), a violin concert, samulnori(Korean traditional percussion music), a cappella, drama, singing together, and other similar activities.

  Each performance was done by the students themselves, not led by any director. The students became their own directors and made plans and practiced on their own. For the Mongolians, our performances were very special events. They probably had a great impact on Mongolians who have little opportunity to watch performances.

  Though we didn’t have enough time to prepare the performances in Korea because we had many other things to prepare, we tried to do our best at all times.

  The third activity was the Korean English camps. ‘Impact 13th’ carried out this program with all our heart and soul because we placed a great importance on it. The camps were done in the Forth School in Selenge for children who have not much opportunity to learn. Even though there were communication barriers between teachers and students, we overcame them and finished the five days of programs successfully with MIU students’ help love and affection toward students, and passion for God.

Although we came back to Korea after finishing all the programs, our work is still not finished. We should keep a record of events, make afternotes, have a prayer meeting once a week and a conference once a month for at least one year. This is for remembering the attitude of our mind before going to Mongolia and for preparing and praying for the next ‘Impact’ team. The work of ‘Impact’ which began in 2000 continues.

  Most non-Christians in Korea have a negative view of Christians. So did I. Those who persistently preach the Gospel persistently on campus and those who consider their improper belief as a proper one deepened this negative impression of Christianity. However, I wonder why I didn’t remember the phrase “It is a matter of difference, not of good or bad”

  The difference between Christians and me comes from the belief of the  existence or nonexistence of God. Those who believe in God always try to take God into consideration. Their speech, thoughts and behavior are all influenced by their belief in God. What is impressive to me is that Christians, when they face problems or fail to achieve what they want, desire to solve the problems through prayer. Their ways of solving problems are just different from mine.

  They prayed not only for the sick members, Mongolians, but they also prayed for all activities of missionary work. At the beginning and the end of every activity they prayed. Prayer was in the center of their works and God, who they believe in, was in the center of their prayer. They believe in and lean on God in such a way that I lean on my father in every situation.

  The last thing I want to say is what I learned from them. What I couldn’t understand at first was that Christians made plans for their goals and were not reluctant to support the poor even though they weren’t sure of their success. I have never prayed for those who I am not familiar with. I realized that I could also pray for those who aren’t familiar with me and have no relation to me. I took part in almost every program in the schedule. However, I could not participate in the prayer meeting because I was not accustomed to prayer and felt prayer was difficult. However, I prayed to God to take care of the people marked with poverty and hurt when I left for Korea after finishing all the missionary work. All the members of ‘Impact’ believe in God whose existence I am not sure of because He is invisible like fine dust in the air. However, I learned a little about prayer from them.

  Prayers for the people in Mongolia and for the next ‘Impact’ team will go on and

the impact on them will also continue.