Moving in Mongolia - Explore Archived World Race Alumni Blogs

Last month, my team and I moved roughly ten times to travel around the country of Mongolia and serve with different ministries. It was a bit exhausting, to be honest. Traveling around the world with a backpack and only a slight idea of what’s going on — that’s something I’m used to. But packing up all of your belongings every few days as opposed to every few weeks makes for a significant difference (and not one that I was very eager to experience). August was a month of saying hello and saying goodbye; it was learning new surroundings, figuring out how to communicate, and nearly passing out five thousand times over when blowing up my sleeping pad to make a new bed on an unfamiliar floor. We were moving, moving, always moving.

But wow, what a cool opportunity we had. We were able see Mongolia in a way that even the people who do have the chance to visit this beautiful country do not quite get to experience. As a team, we had the chance to make dumplings with our Mongolian mom, lay concrete for little feet to run and skip and play upon, cook on a wood stove, propel down a rock face, worship in two languages alongside our Mongolian brothers and sisters, picnic in blue-gray skylight above the twinkling glow of the city below us, drink milk tea in family homes, watch, from the window of our broken down car, the most spectacular moon rise, wash our hair by the river next to a herd of yaks, build a fence with metal rods and tree trunks near our little brick cabin on the most beautiful, untouched land, pick fistfuls of purple wildflowers in the valley, eat fresh cream and pray for healing in cozy gers dotted along the countryside, watch the sun dip low, low, low from our spot on the mountaintop, introduce a forty-five-year-old man with hands made rough from a lifetime of hard work to our queen, Beyoncé, ingest sheep brains, fermented horse milk, and curd popsicles, among other things, ride camels, build a new squatty potty, see Vladimir Putin, get locked in a squatty potty (not the one we built), and take about four showers total.

It was a beautiful month in a beautiful country, made more beautiful still by a beautiful Father at work. We lived with four different pastors, and that gave us the sweet opportunity to see what’s happening within the Kingdom in Mongolia, and here’s what we saw — God is moving. Moving, moving, always moving. And that’s the point, really. Like the nomads, we were continually creating home in a new space, and it was a hard, beautiful, tiring, unique experience that I wouldn’t trade for anything, but what made it special is that we were blessed with glimpses of the way God is moving in a country far from home.

Meet Mumbo, a pastor on the outskirts of the capital city who made a quick decision to open up his home to a group of seven strangers when our original plans of heading to the countryside didn’t pan out. His lack of knowledge of the English language didn’t stop him from pouring out an immense amount of love for us. He made sure we had everything we needed, pulled out all the English he knew in order to get to know us, gave us seats at the coffee table where we ate our meals as he sat on the floor, brought out his traditional Mongolian clothing for us to play dress-up with, and took us out for a nice dinner later on in the month when we moved back to the city, somewhat near his home. He and his wife showered us with gifts like towels, face masks, candy, and bracelets. Mumbo is passionate about the Gospel, and he is pouring into the lives of a generation that will grow up knowing who Jesus is. His home and church are a beacon of light in the community, a place where children can come and receive love, a place where adults are discipled, a place where teenagers are welcomed in the living room and assigned the word “daughter”. It is a house filled with love indeed.

This is Pastor Bolgi’s family. Bolgi didn’t make it in the picture because he was gone most of the week we were at his home, off at another church, sacrificing his time and comfort to make sure others are reached with the name of Jesus. Bolgi is passionate about being the hands and feet of Jesus and about seeing Kingdom come here on earth. The night we arrived, darkness was just beginning to seep into the sky as he hastily loaded our guys up in his Prius and took them on a wild trip as a thunderstorm raged. They stopped outside of a small ger wherein an immobile, elderly man was lying on a cot, covered with a tarp, beneath a leaky roof. Bolgi sprung into action, covering up the holes by wrapping the whole ger and setting up a furnace so the man wouldn’t be left alone and shivering on a cold, wet night. Bolgi epitomizes the church in action; he is a man who works hard and leaves no space for hesitation when someone is in need.

This is Gumba — pastor of Nomadic Church and hard-working, humble servant. Gumba knows only a few more words of English than we know of the Mongolian language (in other words, next to none), but you don’t need words to dig a hole next to someone and you don’t even need words to see that someone is on fire for the Lord, either. During our stay in the countryside, we saw Gumba take on task after task to make things better. He instructed us in fortifying a wall, building a fence, picking up trash, etc., but he has a heart that seeks more in all situations. We saw this heart as he drove around roadless hills, stopping to visit his church members just so he could sit and listen and pray for their needs. His passion was clear to see as he drove hours to teach the truth of the Word to a congregation composed of individuals he loves. His selflessness shone through when he drove another great distance to deliver a goat to a missionary friend. Gumba loves people hard, and he loves the Lord even more. My favorite moment was when we were driving home after one of those long rides to a far away destination, and he was singing shamelessly along to the radio. A few lines in, my teammate and I realized the song was “Lord, I Lift Your Name on High”, and the three of us sang the same song with different words at the top of our lungs as we went barreling down dirt roads.

Here is Boldo…and his Prius. Everyone here drives a Prius. Who would’ve thought? Pastor Boldo was our actual “ministry host”, and in the time we spent with him, it became clear that he lives his life with a pure, sacrificial love. Everything about his lifestyle screams “sacrifice”. We helped him with some work around his home because his own needs had, for a long time, been pushed to the side in order to give and give to not only his own church that he is pastoring but to a whole community of believers around Mongolia. He offers support to each pastor I’ve already mentioned, and he has created this network of leaders because he is passionate about how God is moving in Mongolia. In fact, he just finished hosting a worship conference because he cares so much about God being glorified by his people. Boldo is giving — from taking us on a free rock-climbing trip to buying us ice cream (sort of…nothing in Mongolia tastes quite like you’d think it should), to paying for extra little shampoo packets at the public shower to declining to take a salary while the church is hurting, he gives in all that he does. He sees God as a provider and knows that that is enough.

I see Jesus in each of these men. I see the Holy Spirit speaking in quaint churches with few members and healing in gers where hope is palpable in the warm air. I see God moving all across Mongolia, where love is shown to strangers and people who think they are forgotten are brought under the spotlight of God’s grace and seen. I have seen a river where I think baptisms will take place one day, and I have trudged up a mountain with young girls who just might change the world in some way, and through it all I can see that God was moving in Mongolia long before I ever was.