We are privileged that God called us to live and minister amongst the Mongolians in Mongolia. We first moved to Ulaanbaatar in April 1993. Then, we were young naïve Christians with a heart to be involved in what God was doing, although we weren’t exactly sure what that was.
We arrived to find a country in transition. Seventy years of Soviet Socialism had ended in 1991 and people were hopeful that the nation would pass through the lean times and grow into a robust democracy. The church, which had been very small, was growing at an amazing rate as God brought gospel seed, planted years earlier, to fruition.
Thirty years later, much of that hope and excitement has dissipated. Broken promises coupled with the government’s seeming inability to follow through have left many people disillusioned. Plus, the democratically elected government appears to govern through patronage networks, so few gain any benefit from inward foreign investment or the burgeoning mining sector. And in this, an election year, many cannot believe that their personal economic fragility and social vulnerability will change at all.