God has blessed us tenfold since we have been here in Erdenet, Mongolia! From a great apartment to a missionary couple from America who have been our sudo parents, God’s favor and presence is overwhelmingly obvious here.
The lesson I have learned this past week especially is obeying God can be fun and full of joy. I hadn’t realized immediately when I signed up for this trip that a part of me was expecting to be asked by God to do a lot of things I didn’t enjoy or particularly like. God quickly corrected my skewed expectancy by showing me how I could serve the Kingdom of God with my talents and desires.
After church— outstanding by the way to know feelings of amazement and gratefulness and words like Hallauah are universal— we went to a coffee shop and cafe called Zayas. We were fortunate enough to speak to the owner. I had the honor of hearing her story of salvation and how God has called her to do missions. For her privacy I will refer to her as Sarah. Sarah‘s story stared when she first began to hear about God and His Son Jesus in her country. She believed it was a Russian religion invading her home country of Mongolia. Sarah was very angry and wanted to protect Mongolia’s way of life from foreign influences. One day she was arguing about Christianity with a man and a younger woman walked up to her and asked, “sister why are you so angry? Have you ever read the Bible?” Suddenly Sarah felt ashamed. Here was this young woman reminding her that it’s not fair to denounce something you don’t understand at all. So she decided to get her hands on a copy of the Bible and read it. Now this took place in 1998 when only the New Testament had been translated into Mongolian. Even then, it was difficult to get a copy of it. She found someone who agreed to lend her their copy. That night she read all twenty-seven books in the New Testament! She told me with great gusto, “I thought it was the stupidest thing I had ever read! It made no sense to me!” Sarah said as much to the person who had lent her the copy. The person explained that she couldn’t understand it because she did not have the gift of the Holy Spirit yet to help her interpret the words. This was the first time she had ever heard of the Holy Spirit. The person explained that if she would pray to God for understanding, then she would receive it. To pray all she had to do was have a conversation with God like she was talking to a friend, and she should end the prayer by saying, “In Jesus’ name.” That was important. This idea of conversational prayer was new to her. Sarah was raised by Buddhist parents and had only known about the repetitive impersonal chanting Buddhists would do in an effort to achieve spiritual enlightenment. She said, “ok I will try this prayer.” She prayed, “God I want to understand what this book says! Will you show me? In Jesus’ name, Amen!” Then she opened up the Bible and began to read. When she read the verse John 14:6 “Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” It resonated in her soul in a way nothing had ever done before. Suddenly she was able to feel the weight of her sins. She wasn’t sure what her response should be to such a revelation, so she urgently ran down to the local church and told them about the verse. Sarah asked for more insight. One woman there was able to give her a small pamphlet all about that particular verse. She took it home, read it, and gave her life to Christ that day! Since then her mother and brothers have come to accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior and follow Him. When God called her to become a missionary and go to countries in the Middle East, she did not hesitate. With no formal college education or missionary training, she became one of the first Mongolian women missionaries. Her stories of how God has used her on the mission field for His Kingdom deify human logic. By human standards, Sarah should not have been successful. However, she was tremulously successful in reaching the lost and showing them God’s love. Her love for God, His people, and zeal for life is evident in every word, every gesture, and every facial expression she makes. She is back in Mongolia just starting up her cafe in hope to support other missionaries in the race to share the gospel to the ends of the earth. Sarah says God is raising up the churches in Asia to become more outward focused because they have an advantage over western missionaries. Asian missionaries can get more easily into closed countries than most western missionaries can.
I had the good fortune to also help out in Zayas kitchen and teach them how I make chicken salad. They were thrilled! I also got the chance to bake a few things for the coffee shop cornerstone where we teach English classes. Now I see I can serve God while still doing things I love to do like cook and bake! Maybe one day I could even get involved in a coffee shop like Sarah’s. One can hope!
