photography – Jones Family – MANNA Missionaries

After we saw our Thailand team off we headed to Japan. We were met with an earthquake and a typhoon. Reaghan seriously thought I had snuck into her room and was shaking her bed not realizing it was an earthquake. I guess that’s going to happen when most of our time is spend in countries in the Ring of Fire. The team arrive the next day and we headed up to the mountains to work at a camp.

Every year this group comes and brings a team to help do renovations on a youth camp in the mountains several hours west of Tokyo. This year we replaced 30 year old carpet with new hardwood floors. Reaghan was my right hand helper too. In addition to the flooring, the team roofed an outdoor kitchen, worked on a rock climbing wall, and did a ton of cleaning. We had a big fellowship with Japanese churches around the Tokyo area and cleaned up the grounds with a chainsaw and a lot of helping hands. We headed back to Tokyo on Wednesday and the first campers showed up the next day. I know the kids really enjoyed the renovations at the camp. Before we sent them home we took the team on a tour of Tokyo and visited Mount Fuji.

Once we sent the team home we headed to China to help with another camp of sorts. We landed in Beijing and met up with a team who was working with kids, teach English and take them to visit cultural sites. We made a lot of new friends along the way. We took a high speed train to Xi’an and met up with the kids there. Around English lessons and programs we took them to visit museums, historical palaces and the Terracotta Warriors. The kids loved it!

After finishing the camp in Xi’an we flew to Shanghai and met with a school and a couple who works with orphanages and special needs kids. We are preparing to help them engage the kids and assist with additional camps for special needs and autistic children in China. All in all, it was an amazing trip and the kids in China will have a special place in our heart for sure.

We made it home and are moving our daughters back to college this week, as we speak. On Monday we are back on a plane as we take a medical team to Mongolia, then head to Thailand for a second team. We should make it home the end of September. I look forward to keeping you updated on those teams.

It would take a whole book to share all that happened on our trip to Mongolia. Medical teams are amazing, and this team was no exception. We knew it would be impactful when we spent 6 hours negotiating with customs for them to release our suitcases of medicine. We had the paperwork, but the agents at the airport didn’t want to accept it. However, the Lord gave us favor and they were released. In the process, we got to meet the head of customs and have a direct line to him now. The Lord uses everything.

We got to visit our orphanage in Ulaanbaatar and love on the kids for a while. It is the only orphanage that takes in babies and was recognized as the #1 orphanage in Mongolia. They even put out a documentary on the news, in Mongolian of course. The team also got a tour of one of the pro-life centers the missionary has.

Then, it was time for our 10-hour trek into the Gobi Desert. We stopped and checked out some camels along the way. Once we got to the village we got setup into our yurts, which became our home away from home for the next week. From there, we saw a crazy number of patients. We had people the travelled 50 km just to see a doctor or dentist. They were coming from everywhere. We also had the opportunity for some of our team to go to the schools each day and provide health checkups and fluoride treatments to around 600 kids in the village. We even got to put on a clinic in a second village, 3 hours further in the Gobi and see Boldmaa. 20 years ago she was a 6 year old girl, and our very first MANNA kid at the nutrition center. Today she is married, has a son and is a teach in the school. God is good.

In the evenings the schools hosted us to put on hygiene clinics for the parents. We got to spend time with friends, star gaze at night (the Milky Way is incredible in the Gobi), and make new friends. We even had a famous Mongolian throat singer give us a performance after we treated his child.

Thank you for your prayers and support for our family. I wanted to share some pictures of our trip into the Gobi. In a little less than 2 weeks I’ll be leading a team to Guatemala, then we head to Thailand and Cambodia until Thanksgiving.