Alcohol is a major problem for the country, with a recent UN report estimating that 13 per cent of the country's population are alcoholics.
The church has been involved in helping people out of addiction through support and recovery groups, using the 'Celebrate Recovery' material from Saddleback Church in the United States translated and contextualised for Mongolia.
ISAAC member Jungmi Park has been instrumental in nurturing the work with those affected by alcohol in churches in different parts of the country, and also in encouraging one particular person to work through her vision to start the first Christian residential rehabilitation centre in the country.
"I was amazed to see the difference in the recovery groups on my latest visit to Mongolia.When I first visited there were only eight churches involved; now there are 14. This work is becoming more and more a ministry of the local churches rather than an idea from outside. God is clearly working in Mongolia through these groups," said Treflyn Lloyd-Roberts.
ISAAC has also been instrumental in encouraging the vision for a residential rehabilitation centre in Mongolia.
Through an ISAAC training consultation in Sweden in 2004, Jungmi met leaders from a project in Kazakhstan. Jungmi and her team were then invited to visit Kazakhstan, and as part of this were able to see Teen Challenge's centre in the capital Almaty.
One of the team, a former alcoholic himself, was inspired to want to start a similar centre in Mongolia. In 2006 with ISAAC's facilitation he was able to visit England to see other centres and explore deeper how he might go about starting a centre himself.
He also attended the ISAAC congress in Egypt that year, where ISAAC introduced him to the leaders of Betel, one of whose centres he had seen in England. This meeting resulted in an invitation to spend a month at one of their projects in India.
The month duly completed, he returned to India for six months with his whole family to continue his hands on learning about rehabilitation. It is hoped that a centre will be starting in Mongolia early next year.
[Re-printed in Christian Today with the kind permission of ISAAC www.isaac-international.org]
