WALK BY FAITH. A Lesson from Mongolia.

 

***My teammate, Molly, made an awesome video about our time in Mongolia! Watch it HERE!

 

 

Mongolia was a wild ride. So many awesome mountaintop, faith-building experiences coupled with brokenness and hurt that I was not ready for. But boy, was this month a gift. And boy, did God show up in ALL the ways.

Before Mongolia, our team cast vision about things we wanted to do, see, or get out of this month. Some of the highlights included:

• Get out of Ulaanbaatar as soon as we could and if possible, stay out of the city for the rest of the month
• Stay with a family and live life with them
• Find someone to go along with, even if we didn’t have all of our plans figured out

And some of my own personal desires included:

• sharing the gospel with people who had never heard it
• Seeing a person healed physically through prayer
• Learning something new
• Interacting with real Mongolian culture, not just the kind that accommodates tourists.

There were a few more things brought up in that meeting, but these lists largely reflect our heart and mission for the country of Mongolia. And God answered us in ways we didn’t expect.

 

ULAANBAATAR

We had only gotten off the train that morning, but in the afternoon, our team went to the main square of the city to hang out. My teammate, Parker, ran into a Mongolian man named Bolod, who happened to be a guide.

Something you should know about treks and excursions in Mongolia: They are typically very expensive. You could easily drop a couple thousand dollars for a weekend trip out of the city. And they are very touristy. They will take you to nomadic families, but a lot of nomadic families work with these tourist agencies to give foreigners an experience that they expect, but not necessarily one that is truly reflective of Mongolian nomadic culture.

But Bolod was different.

He met with Parker and Brandon and explained that he was very passionate about introducing foreigners to true Mongolian culture. He didn’t work with a tourist service, He merely would take us wherever we wanted to go in the country, and he was confident in being able to meet nomadic families wherever we went. He was ready to go when we were and He was willing to escort us to the border town as well! So in summary:

• Get out of Ulaanbaatar as soon as we could and if possible, stay out of the city for the rest of the month. CHECK
• Find someone to go along with, even if we didn’t have all of our plans figured out. CHECK
• Interacting with real Mongolian culture, not just the kind that accommodates tourists. CHECK

So we said yes, and a week later, we said goodbye to Ulaanbaatar for a month, and joined our guide and translator, Bolod, to our first town of Byankhongor.

 

Our ride out to visit nomads!

 

BYANKHONGOR, MONGOLIA

We traveled to a small town known as Byankhongor, known for a hot spring area that people travel to from all over the country for healing. On our first day there, my teammate, Aaron, met a guy named Auggie, a local whos family lived in the area. By day three, we set up camp right next to his family’s ger. We were welcomed inside whenever we liked. They offered us hot water, snacks, a space to cook our food in shelter from the wind, and protection for our things as we traveled to other nomadic families throughout the day.

• Stay with a family and live life with them. CHECK.

It didn’t take long for our ger mom to open up to us about health problems she had been having. Through Bolod, she was explaining to my teammate, Jenny, about kidney problems she had been having, and the resulting back pain. Even though she wasn’t speaking directly to me, I knew that I was supposed to pray for her. So I asked and she kindly agreed. And I honestly let it go that night. Another day, I asked her how she had been sleeping and if she had felt any better. She responded that her back pain was still there and that she was having pain as she was doing her house work. I asked if I could pray again. She agreed. I prayed, then asked her how she felt. She responded, through Bolod once again, that the part of her back that I laid my hand on for prayer felt hot.

I asked if I could pray again, and she agreed. So I prayed, and after finishing this prayer, I felt Holy Spirit tell me to wait, and to let it go. We went back to our activities inside the ger, and about 30 minutes after the prayer had taken place, Bolod began talking to our ger mom again. He got excited and turned to us:

“She says that she has had no more pain since you prayed for her!” Even as she was bending down, she had no pain.

How cool is that!? The Lord created so much curiosity in Bolod to ask her that question, and I was blessed to tell them both that it was Jesus that healed her!

• Seeing a person healed physically through prayer. CHECK.

God is so faithful! I did nothing except act in obedience, and He came through with the rest. And one of the most amazing parts of this story is that was Bolod who asked her how she was feeling after I had prayed for her. This man was raised in Soviet times as an atheist, and he was curious about the power of prayer! Later that day, when we visited another family, he suggested to the family that we pray over them to have children. Despite showing little interest in our faith himself, he was the one who began initiating opportunities for us to share the gospel and pray for others! God is so cool and I’m still in awe that He would choose to use us in this way to pursue Bolod’s heart.

Our First Campsite!

BYANKHONGOR, ALTAI, AND KHOVD

The rest of our time in Mongolia was filled with so many cool and humbling opportunities. We visited at least five families that had never seen foreigners before. We saw a man hold a Bible in his hand for the first time. We were able to share the gospel in almost every ger we visited. Two of our taxi drivers asked for Bibles after spending time with us throughout the day. The Lord provided a ride when my team was literally stranded in the middle of a desert. The Lord got us through some of the coldest nights I have experienced. He gave me the opportunity to learn how to make noodles from one of our ger moms. And above all, He used our team to deliver 12 Bibles to nomads (and to our guide, Bolod).

• Sharing the gospel with people who had never heard it. CHECK.
• Learning something new. CHECK.

I want to clarify that it was never about a checklist or about the number of prayers God answered favorably for us. Even if He decided to withhold all of those blessings, He is still good and worthy of praise! But how amazing is it, that all we had to do was come to God with our hopes and dreams for the month, only to watch Him fulfill every. Single. One.

One of the nomad families we got to visit! The father held a Bible in his hands for the first time!

 

Because that is literally all we did. We didn’t know anyone in Mongolia, but God provided Bolod to guide us. We had no idea where we wanted to go, but God directed our steps. We had no idea what this month would look like, but we said yes as a team to whatever God had for us. And boy did He come through!

But it was also uncomfortable. We slept in our tents in the snow. We had to navigate how to share the gospel to people who had never heard the name of Jesus before. We had to step out in prayer even when it didn’t make sense. We cooked the same meals over a camp stove over and over again. We spent nights sleeping on buses that threatened to break down every 30 miles.

But I would do all of it again to see the Lord come through as He did. Where He calls, He equips. And where we lack vision, He goes before us. This month was all about walking by faith, and it has encouraged me to step out more in obedience, even when all the pieces aren’t put in place… yet.

 

Our last campsite. Mongolia will forever be in my heart.