Tsogoo

 June 9, 2023

“Tsogoo is going to next trip to Zavkhan province in 19th of June for 10 days and this time he is leading big group 120 people from Ulaanbaatar and team from Erdenet 60 also 20  people from Uvs province. Totally 200 believers would go door to door to share Gospel.”

The English isn’t perfect, but the message is clear, and in a small way, Linda and I get to be a part of it. 

It was 2003; I was in Colorado Springs attending two weeks of continuing education. One morning I was sitting in the hotel breakfast area when a young man approached and asked if I minded if he sat down at my table. His name was Tsogoo, and was the national director for Every Home for Christ in Mongolia. He was in town for the dedication of the new headquarters for the organization, and invited me to the weekend ceremonies where I met people from all over the world. Tsogoo decided to stay an extra week to take classes, so Linda (who had joined me for the second week of training) and I offered to shuttle Tsogoo back and forth from the hotel to the church where the classes were held. At the end of that week, Tsogoo invited us to come to Mongolia.

There we met Tsogoo’s team, which included another Tsogoo. This Tsogoo had been a thug and spent time in prison where he met Tsengel, a Christian who was a part of an evangelistic team, and whom he eventually married. During my two trips to Mongolia, Tsogoo and I became close even though we couldn’t speak each others’ language. He began calling me his “spiritual father,” beginning a friendship that has continued  these twenty years.

Over the years, we’ve supported the Mongolian ministry with our prayers and our gifts, helping Tsogoo travel all over his country preaching the Gospel and seeing hundreds come to Christ. Whenever I’ve felt a bit ineffective in ministry, I think of Tsogoo and the work he is doing, and thank God to be able to be a part of it. We have been blessed more than we deserve and with more than we need. What better use of that with which we’ve been entrusted than to know we’ve helped hundreds of evangelists spread the Good News of Jesus Christ so people we’ll never meet in this life we’ll meet in the next?