Tsoogii

 August 19, 2020

This morning I received some photos and a short video from Mongolia. Seventeen years ago, Linda and I traveled halfway around the world at the invitation of a young Mongolian man we met in Colorado Springs. We had flown there for some counseling training; I went a week early and met Tsogoo at the hotel breakfast bar when he asked if he could sit with me. He was there for the grand opening of Every Home For Christ’s national headquarters there, and introduced me to the assistant to Dick Eastman, the president of the organization. They invited me to join them over the weekend, and when it was all over, Tsogoo decided to stay for a week at the training Linda and I were attending. Since we had a rental car, we drove him back and forth from the hotel to the seminar location, and at the end of the seminar, Tsogoo invited us to come to Mongolia with Every Home for Christ. 

They say one’s first mission experience holds a special place in one’s heart, and our experience is no exception. I visited Mongolia twice before deciding that it was more important for me to bring people to the mission field with me than to go alone. Halfway around the world is expensive, so I accepted an invitation to work in Cuba, where I’ve worked ever since, usually with anywhere from four to eighteen people joining me. But Mongolia still tugs at my heart, and the photos from Tsoogii (Not Tsogoo) today were just another pull on the strings.

To put it bluntly, Tsoogii was a thug. While in prison (which in Mongolia, is not anywhere you would want to be), he came to Christ when some Christians visited and witnessed to him. He ended up marrying one of the workers when his sentence was done, and was working on the EHC team when we were there. And now, seventeen years and four children later, he is still at it, traveling all around the wild countryside sharing the Gospel. Linda and I have been blessed to be able to support Tsoogii and his wife Tsengel in their work. It’s been fifteen years since we’ve been together; I would dearly love to see them once more. He had only been a Christian a short while when we first met, and through an interpreter he called me his spiritual father. I have often felt that I’ve not been a very good one, but miles do impose their limitations.

The pictures Tsoogii sent are reminders that even though we cannot be there in person, we can still have a part in reaching the Mongolian people with the Gospel, We give and we pray, and some day, I hope to meet brothers and sisters in Christ that we had a small hand in bringing into the fold.