When God calls you to do something, I suggest you obey. It’s worth it. Most recently for my team and I that something looked like going on a two week horse trek through the untouched Mongolian wilderness to reach the last reindeer herders in the world. Yes, reindeer are real! I had no idea. That is, until my friend and teammate, Emily, told us about her dream to go see them and meet the Tsataan people who spend their lives herding the reindeer. The Tsataan people group is a small tribe of people who live off of the land and what the reindeer provide them. They move around each season in order for the reindeer to graze and live in portable teepees. They give high value to the beautiful earth and spirits and have their own holy book. There are zero Jesus followers among the Tsataan.
It wasn’t going to be easy to reach them and it didn’t seem like this would be possible. First off, our World Race Budget was significantly lower than the amount of money that we needed to hire a trekking company. When I say significantly lower I mean multiple thousands of dollars lower. But nonetheless, my teammate Shea dug into the world of trekking online, sent a million emails, and found a way for us to lower the daily price from $70 per person to $20 per person. At less than a third of the price this seemed miraculous to us, yet still more than our budget allowed. We were still $1500 short of what we needed to be able to go. Thats when two of our leaders with AIM said that their church heard about our mission to the unreached Tsataan and wanted to fund the rest. Hurdle number one, crushed.
Next, there was the issue of communication. You see, none of us speak Mongolian (shocker I know) so we would have no way to communicate with our guides or the people we desperately wanted to reach. A translator through the trekking company would be an additional cost that we couldn’t afford so God decided to take care of it for us. On a walk back “home” from the Mongolian Immigration Office, a few of my teammates were stopped by a car that offered them a ride. While in the car my friends shared what we were doing in Mongolia (sharing Jesus) and that we were planning a trek. Without any mention of our need for a translator the woman in the front seat said that she has a seventeen year old daughter who wants to travel and could go with us by paying her own way. “She speaks English very well,” she exclaimed! With approving glances toward each other the team decided that she would come with us. And just like that, we no longer had a translator problem, but a new friend and trekking companion.
Now my favorite part of the story is that God provided us with Mongolian Bibles. The Bible has only been translated into Mongolian since 2008 and through God’s clear directing, and really through nothing we did of our own will, God provided us with about 30 copies. And on top of that God protected the Bibles from being left behind as we rode away and from water that damaged all the other papers in the bag when it was left out in the rain. Seriously, God wanted these Bibles to get to the Tsataan people and nothing my team and I did, or failed to do, was going to get in the way.
When we originally planned the trek we understood that our team would have at least three days to spend with the Tsataan people. We would trek for about five days, stay in the Tsataan community, and then spend a few days trekking back. Thats not what happened. After eight days of riding hourseback for 6+ hours a day we finally reached the community. I’ve never been more excited to see teepees in my life. So with soaking feet and freezing bodies we rode into the camp, met one family, and went to sleep. The next morning we were so excited to start meeting and speaking with people, praying over them, and sharing Jesus. So we were shocked, disappointed, and sad when our guides came in and told us that in order to finish our trek in time we needed to get back on our horses and start heading home that same day.
What? How were we supposed to see God heal and tell all the people about the saving love of Jesus? Clearly God had different plans so we got up, grabbed the Bibles and gifts that we had brought and went to give them out and pray over the community. We were only able to spend 16 hours with the Tsataan (most of which we were sleeping or many of the people were out of camp herding the reindeer).
Although my team had different expectations for the trek, God clearly knew what He wanted from us. We thought that we would be spending days with the Tsataan people and sharing about Jesus through our translator, but we couldn’t even spend one whole day with them and could barely communicate. Instead we left them with gifts and Mongolian Bibles. I rode away that afternoon with peace and contentment in my heart. I learned that God lovingly invites us into making His glory known, but that doesn’t always look like I want it to. And praise God for that! He knows what people need and He lovingly allures them. He pursues in ways that are greater than my ways and He is pursuing the Tsataan people with His Word – His words that He preciously wrote for us and preserved for thousands of years, the clearest form of His saving grace that has changed millions of lives. God will speak to the Tsataan people and I fervently pray that they will recognize His voice and one day in heaven we will worship together because God’s Word changed our lives.
Isaiah 55:11
“So shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.”
Check out this video of the trek that my friend Preston made:
Prayer Requests and Praises:
1) A completely unreached people group now has the Bible!!!
2) I am home in America! I arrived two weeks ago and have officially moved back (for now:) ). Praise God for all that He has done in me this year and how I have gotten to experience Him all over the world! I can’t even express what a huge life changing blessing this past year was.
3) I am in a time of total transition in many different aspects of my life. Please pray that God will give me direction on the next steps to take in my life and making Him known.
4) Its hard to be finished with the World Race and to be reentering America. I often feel sad, out of place, and lonely (all typical symptoms of an international missionary coming back to the states, but also not so fun). But I am thankful for the people I have to walk through this season with me.
I am so enormously thankful for your partnership this year and for the ways that you have influenced eternities of people all over the world! I pray that you are blessed for your work in His kingdom.
Until our next adventure,
Lauren
P.S. Let me know if you want to get together and hear more stories of God’s work this year 🙂
