Provided with food from Germany - Jona Friede
Jona Friede is currently undertaking „Alternative service abroad” with HELP International Mongolia instead of military services in Germany. Below he describes his recent personal experiences.
It is winter time. It took quite while but now the winter has arrived. The average day temperature goes down to -5°F and at nights down to -13°F. This appears to be nothing compared to the time when there will constantly -13°F during day time. I’ll see how I am going to cope with it. Playing soccer in the snow at such a temperature is not that much fun any more, but it works. To live or even sleep outside does not seem to be imaginable any more..
There are a lot of homeless people on the streets of Ulaanbaatar, usually alcoholics, mostly men, but sometimes even women and children. Some of them work on the black market during the day, and for the night they crawl into holes in the canalisation system and the district heating tunnels. In case they fall asleep drunken on the streets, they often never weak up again. As far as I know, the government does not do an awful lot about it, anyway what can be done at all. One of the most exiting and - as I see it - one of the most challenging ministries of HELP comes in here. Three days a week they provide a place for those people.
The smell is awful and gets even worse while the room is getting crowded. Around 50 men and a few women find a place to sleep here. On mats on the floor they prepare their bed. Nobody has clothes to change but at least it is warm so they can take off their coats. I sit down with them. The best thing I can do is to talk to people, just simply show them that I care. To be honest I don´t understand much of what they say, but I get the impression that talking is some kind of a comfort for them. During the last two days there was somebody who spoke a few words of English. So we just talked about sports, horse riding and the length of my stay.
He told me that he, or was it a friend of him, once worked as a DJ in a famous club. He lost everything because of the alcohol - a great power here in Mongolia. People here know, that it is wrong how they life their live, but very few are willing to do something against it. A lot of them are happily singing along when we start to worship and listen carefully, when we tell them that people can be freed and changed by the power of God, just as it is happening in our rehabilitation centre. Only a few are grabbing our helping hand and are willing to trade their current lives. After the message they have food, people can take a shower, undergo medical treatment and then it is time to sleep. It is a short night, talking of me.
One night, my friend Sebastian an I stayed for the night. Our little room had no door and constantly people were passing by to see the bathroom. I hardy slept. As early as 6 in the morning they have breakfast, which had to be prepared. After that, people leave to disappear into the cold. Our turn is cleaning now. Even though it is tiring, there is nothing more beautiful and important than to share the love of God with those people. I would really like to talk to them properly, but I don´t think this will happen this year. Maybe I'm going to help out in a similar project in Germany.
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