We were able to start a bread project this spring after the lunar new year. In the province north of Bayankhongor there is a bread factory run by other Christians who bake the bread over a wood fire. Bayankhongor Development Partnership Team (through our project funds) were able to bring them down to Bayankhongor and have them build a stove and show us how to use it.
After a few months of getting the permissions. (Apparently the Mongolian government has to make sure we are not poisoning anyone, go figure). We started baking bread and selling it to local shops. We have learned that the most important thing is having the right people working. We now have 3 full time young people working throughout the week baking bread. They have also started attending church on Sundays where we have just started a very active young peoples program.
Right now we have realized that in order to make a profit and have our workers earning a decent income we need to build a bigger stove. This first smaller stove cost around 1,000 USD. The church sold an old Russian van and will take that money to build the bigger stove. We can not sell the bread fast enough, our major bottleneck is that it takes 3 hours for the yeast to rise. Not a bad problem to have at all.
We praise God that he was able to provide the funds and workers to make this project a success, at least so far. We are hoping that we can take this concept and reproduce it in the countryside where bread is not always available and more expensive.
