A Chronicle of Evangelism in a Non-entered City 

in Mongolia

by Carlos Martin,  December 20, 2000

I write this letter on my way to Beijing. After spending two weeks in Mongolia offering a series of public evangelism, my flight to Korea was canceled! The problem is that there are only two trips a week directly to Seoul. I will arrive home two days after I had originally planned, after making a detour to China. I take advantage of this unpleasant circumstance to write to you with news about the evangelistic series in Darkhan, the second largest city of Mongolia.

Even though it has a relatively large territory, Mongolia has a small population of about 2.6 million. It is one of the highest countries in the world, with an average elevation of 1,580 meters (5190 ft). Mongolia is sandwiched between the godzilla satates of Russia and China. When Soviets left in the early 90's the country was left without an infrastructure and support. Today they have a democracy. The names of its key people are somehow typical of all Mongolians: The Republic President is Natsagiin Bagabandi and the Prime Minister is Rinchinnyamuyn Amarjargal.

Ten years ago there were no Adventist in Mongolia. Brad Jolly came under the sponsorship of Adventist Frontier Missions in 1992. Robert Folkenberg came to officiate the first baptismal ceremony of two in 1993. When Brother Jolly died from cancer in 1998, Pastor Dale Tunnell assumed the leadership of the work. Until one and a half year ago all the members were in their 20's. Three parents were baptized so far.

Most of the members joined the church through personal evangelism. An evangelistic series in 1998 did not produce baptisms and a second one in 1999 helped 8 to join the church. Presently the membership of Mongolia Mission Field is 67. In Mongolia there is one organized church and five other incipient congregations, mostly established by missionaries sent from the Ulaan Baatar church.

In December 1999 I came to Mongolia for the first time to offer a training session on evangelism and church growth. We discussed about public evangelism and they arrived to the conclusion that the best time would be during winter since Mongolians will use their short summer to travel, visit relatives, and go to the countryside. We agreed to offer an evangelistic series in Darkhan, and all the participants of that training session promised to help in the planting of a new church.

Bold Batshuk is 25 and he was chosen by the church to be their Mongolian pastor, according to the law of the land. He volunteered to go to Darkhan to pioneer the church in the city. After a few months he already had a small group of people who gathered every Sabbath to study the Bible. About six months ago two volunteers of the 1000 Missionary Movement joined Bold and his wife in Darkhan. For one year Bold offered Bible studies and offered Sabbath services. By the time of my arrival there were 13 people ready for baptism and he had many others people studying the Bible. In my experience I have learned a simple rule of thumb, that at the end of my series there will be a total of baptism equal to double the amount there were ready before my arrival. Thanks to Bold’s excellent ground preparation we could expect great results in Darkhan.

Bold designed a beautiful brochure, organized the distribution of 10,000 invitations, and put 500 posters in strategic places. Because there are only two flights a week to Mongolia, I arrived to Darkhan four days before the opening night. At the time of my arrival to the missionaries’ house in Darkhan, I found about 15 non-baptized people praying over piles of invitations that they were about to distribute. They even assigned me a partner and sent me to the streets, to knock doors of the huge apartment buildings of the city, typical of the comunist era. While distributing brochures I saw a man from the countryside unloading two camels carrying sheepskins; he allowed me to take a ride on a camel ...

Darkhan, as well as all Mongolia, is covered by snow. The country has a very long winter of about seven months and a short summer. During these two weeks temperatures fluctuated between -12 C at noon on the warmest day and -31 C   (-21 F) on the coldest night. The average annual temperature in Darkhan is 30 F       (-2 C). Mongolians have learned to survive their harsh winters. It is very common to see people talking on the streets, families taking a walk, children playing on the ice. Perhaps more than one fourth of the population in Darkhan use a traditional dress which may be described as an overcoat with a yellow belt, which is very warm. Everybody uses boots, hats, and long underwear.

For more than 70 years Mongolia was under the influence of the Soviet Union. Russian trrops entered into Mongolia in 1921 and soon it became the world’s second communist country. Children in primary schools were taught Russian. All religious practices were forbidden and Christianity was proscribed. Soon after the fall of the Soviet Union, Mongolia relaxed its laws and the first missionaries ventured in the country in the early 90's, Brad Jolly among them. The unbroken communist rule ended on June 30, 1996.

Darkhan is a city of about 100,000 but it does not have houses: it only has huge, monotonous apartment buildings with virtually the same facilities. As a legacy of the communist system, the state still provides free heating system and free hot water. The communist era also left a mark on the people’s mind, with many professed atheists; however it also created a void in the people’s soul. They were one of the targets of our evangelistic effort.

Tibetan Buddhism adopted elements from shamanism, the traditional religion of Mongolia, and developed its own forms. Lamas, or Tibetan monks, are very influential in Mongolian society. Lamaism is divided in two major sects: the "Yellow Hats" follow Tibetan Buddhism but the "Red Hats" have incorporated many forms of witchcraft and sorcery. Most Mongolians claim to follow Buddhism. They were the other target of our this evangelistic series.

The meetings took place in the Darkhan Cultural Center, the only public auditorium in the city. It has a capacity of 900 seats. The building was initially built for meetings of the Communist Party. Our hearts were filled with gratitude to God when the main floor was totally occupied with 550 and the balcony partially occupied, with a total of more than 600 on Friday night! The topic of the first night explored the universe in search for clues on the existence of a personal God.

In my presentations I use a giant screen of 10 x 4 meters (30 x 12 ft), three video projectors and three computers which I handle by a single remote control. I spent days and weeks studying, researching, and searching for Mongolian pictures that I could use in my PowerPoint presentations. I used my own digital camera to take pictures of the Mongolian Bible, people, and scenery. I related the gospel as much as posible to their culture and history. I avoided as much as I could pictures showing Western people. The goal was that Mongolians could see themselves on the screen in order to facilitate their acceptance of the gospel message. Of course, all Bible texts were in modern Mongolian, which use Russian characters.

Pastor Dale Tunnell attempted twice to get to Darkhan but in both occasions his vehicles got broken while traveling and he had to return. A broken car hald way between Ulaan Baatar and Darkahn is very dangerous. Pastor Tunnell almost got frozen while walking 20 kms under a temperature of -25 C. Finally he made it for Sunday.

The third night, on Sunday, I answered an apparent contradictory question: Is it possibly to have eternal happiness? Buddhists say, no! Happiness, they say, is a temporary illusion because life is suffering. Nirvana cannot be easily describe because it is not a conscious existence. In Nirvana there are no emotions–it is not a happy place, but for sure is the end of suffering. I showed to them the hope of the second coming of Jesus and tried to describe the glories of the new earth, where there will be no more death, no more tears, no more pain, no more suffering, and where there will be eternal happiness. Did they want to know how to secure a place in heaven? Then they had to come back the following day! And they did!

During the week we had a consistent attendance of about 500. I visited several homes, accepting a customary meal. I had a Question Box that soon received so many questions that I was not able to answer all of them on the platform. So we invited those who had questions to come to our apartment. Every night we had between 30 and 50 people seating on the floor, asking questions! Nightly presentations during the week dealt with the Plan of Salvation, Forgiveness, Law, Sabbath, Church, Baptism, Death, Health, and Stewardship. During the time of Questions I explained the Sanctuary, Millennium, and Spiritual Gifts.

Every morning I offered classes on Church Leadership to 23 Mongolians (several of them not yet baptized). Of course, I also gave them instructions on Personal Evangelism so that in the afternoons they went out to visit people in their homes. Their reports were so exciting! Many said that several had stated that they were searching for an opportunity to become Christians! Others shared with the Bible workers that our presentations made sense to them. The found many who were willing to accept God’s forgiveness through Jesus and willing to keep God’s commandments. We were willing to receive them with open arms.

The auditorium was available for us at 5:00 pm, when many were still working. However, that facilitated the attendance of people from the countryside. They came dressed in typical Mongolian dresses. Many Mongolians have rosy cheeks, but they don’t like when people mention it because many think it is a characteristic of herders and countryside folks. Most of them had never been exposed to Christianity before. Some even said that they had never heard the name of Jesus in their entire life! But the gospel attracted them and kept coming.

 

Starting on the third night I made public appeals to signify their acceptance of Jesus as Savior. In a progressive way I led the audience from raising their hands, to stand up, to fill out a decision card, to come forward, to request baptism. On Friday night I showed several video clips of baptismal ceremonies and I invited them to be baptized. A crowd of more than 100 responded! About 50 of them were children and early teens. I encouraged them to be faithful to Jesus, but I explained that the law forbade us to baptize people under the age of 16.

On Sabbath we went to our new church. A few days earlier we had rented a meeting place that we now share with three Protestant congregations which meet on Sundays. We built a baptistery and on that Sabbath 38 were baptized and 4 joined the church by profession of faith. Praise the Lord! The youngest person was 17 and the oldest 65. With 10 adults the new Darkhan church now has more adults than the Ulaan Baatar church! This is a blessing because adult Asians in general do not like to join a "youth club." Age is very important. Being young is a disadvantage. Seniority counts. I review the doctrines and Pastor Tunnell took the baptismal vow. I was aware that I was in the presence of a miracle when the group responded "Amen! to his questions, and I could not avoid some tears of joy.

Almost unconsciously, the first to be baptized was the senior group and the youngest were the last. Some expressed their joy with tears, many with smiles, and all baptisms were celebrated with the clapping of hands. At the end they received not only the baptismal certificate, but also a Mongolian Bible, a book with all doctrinal studies, and a T-shirt saying "Jesus loves you" and "Darkhan Adventist Church."

Among the newly baptized, one man was different. He was born in Mongolia but does not belong to the ethnic majority of Khalkh Mongols (86%) but to the Muslim tribes of Kazaks. He has green eyes and yellowish hair. He is a 25 year-old University student and a practicing Muslim. Several nights he attended the Questions and Answers private meeting in our apartment and bombarded me with sincere questions. Honestly, I did not expect to see him coming to the front on Friday night. I already gave him a couple of simple sermons I want him to preach as soon as possible. I am praying that somehow the Lord will open the door for him to study Theology and return to his unreached ethnic group. A Kazak girl is also requesting baptism...

We still had one more meeting on Sunday. At least five people said that they were not ready to be baptized on Sabbath, but that now they wanted to do it. The church we rented was fully booked by the three Sunday congregations, so they agreed to be baptized this coming Sabbath. On this last meeting we announced the new series, The Mark Finley’s ACTS 2000 series, which would start on Wednesday. When I came to Mongolia I brought with me the dubbed Mongolian version of the series we had in November this year in Korea. This series will be excellent for the follow up. Pastor Bold will also offer PowerPoint presentations using materials I left with him. Please, keep praying for Pastor Bold Batsukh. You may encourage him by writing to his personal e-mail address: b5555@mongol.net

After spending a night in Beijing, I am now approaching Seoul. My heart overflows with joy even though my body is still tired. I am praying for the new converts but I have a heavy burden for the hundreds of Mongolians who attended our meetings but did not make a decision for Jesus. An evangelist is never satisfied. I felt that your prayers strengthened my ministry in Mongolia, for which I thank you very much. Now praise the Lord for what He did in Darkhan!