Participants:
Series Code: AFM
Program Code: AFM000007
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00:12 Hi, I'm Clyde Morgan.
00:14 What does it take to enter a closed country with 00:16 the Good News of Jesus Christ? 00:18 And what results might you 00:20 anticipate from such an effort? 00:23 What you are about to see is 00:24 the incredible account of a young couple who 00:26 did just that. 00:28 They entered a closed country 00:30 more than twice the size of Texas - 00:31 this country of Mongolia. 00:33 At first they didn't speak the language 00:35 and they knew no one. 00:37 Here is a story that truly only God could write. 00:48 This expansive country has always been known as 00:51 wild and untamed. 00:56 Early in the 13th Century Ghengis Khan led Mongolians on 01:00 conquests that resulted in the largest empire the world 01:03 has ever known. 01:05 The great khans ruled from Korea to Poland. 01:10 They governed this vast empire until they were conquered by 01:13 the Chinese in the 17th Century. 01:16 Mongolia remained under Chinese control until 1911 01:20 when the last Chinese Dynasty fell. 01:23 At that time, outer Mongolia became independent of China. 01:29 In 1924, the Mongolian People's Republic 01:33 a revolutionary and communist state was formed. 01:38 Tibetan Buddhism has long been Mongolia's principle religion. 01:43 However, in the 20 years following the Soviet Union 01:46 takeover, Communist persecution slashed the ranks of Buddhist 01:49 clergy from 150,000 to only 200. 01:56 Christianity was also prohibited. In fact, 02:00 in 1990, records indicate there were fewer than 10 known 02:04 Christian believers in Mongolia. 02:09 In July of 1990, something dramatic happened. 02:13 Protests and riots led to the first free elections 02:16 in Mongolian history. 02:18 With a new government in place, the doors that had been closed 02:21 for so long began to open. 02:37 It's been years since I stepped off the train in Mongolia, 02:41 but I remember it all. 02:50 I was 24 years old when I first met Brad Jolly. 02:53 God, in His perfect timing, had Brad's first quarter at 02:56 Andrews University be my last quarter there. 02:59 He made it very clear that if the relationship was to continue 03:04 I had to be willing to be a frontier missionary. 03:07 Little did I know of the adventure God 03:08 had in store for me. 03:14 We were married in 1989 03:16 and we were still living at Andrews University as 03:18 Brad wasn't finished with the seminary. 03:21 But yet, he was concerned that I wasn't enthusiastic 03:24 about missions. 03:25 Well I tried to explain it's hard to be enthusiastic 03:27 about something that's nebulous. So I tried to corner him. 03:30 "Now, where would you like to go?" 03:33 He'd had a good experience as a student missionary 03:36 for two years in Japan, so he thought, "Well, Asia. " 03:39 And so I said, "Ok, Asia's really big! Where in Asia?" 03:44 So finally he thought, 03:46 "Well, there's a lot of need in China. " 03:48 We got Chinese language tapes and we would listen to those 03:51 at supper time. 03:52 At that time, Albania was a closed country, 03:57 North Korea, and Mongolia. 03:59 And I knew that being a United States citizen 04:02 there was no way we could go to North Korea 04:05 and Albania wasn't part of Asia, 04:08 but Mongolia is really close to China. 04:11 And so I said, "Well why don't we go to Mongolia?" 04:14 And he looks at me with that kind of smirky smile 04:16 on his face, "But we can't go there; it's restricted. " 04:22 I kept talking about Mongolia. 04:25 One day the Holy Spirit convicted me 04:28 that I needed to be quiet. 04:31 The deep impression I got from the Holy Spirit was that 04:33 if I were to continue pushing, Brad would turn and look at me 04:37 and say, "Look at this God-forsaken country 04:39 you have brought me to. " 04:42 And so, I decided I wouldn't 04:45 mention Mongolia again. 04:48 That evening when Brad came home 04:52 he had checked out every book the library had on Mongolia 04:55 and brought it home with him. 04:58 And from that time on, it was 05:02 a project we worked on together. 05:04 Brad and Cathie earnestly began researching Mongolia. 05:09 They decided to team up with Adventist Frontier Missions 05:12 and began seeking a way into this closed country. 05:15 Finally they found a German missionary 05:17 who was willing to get Mongolian visas for them 05:20 if they would teach English with him. 05:22 Brad and Cathie wrote a letter 05:24 and mailed it to their wedding list 05:25 asking for support. 05:30 The day that we put it in the mail box 05:33 that evening he called and said 05:35 the whole thing was cancelled. 05:38 Most people would think, 05:40 "Ok, that means the doors closed we're not supposed to go. " 05:43 But for us, it was a sign that God waited 05:45 till we mailed the letters. 05:47 Because God still had a plan 05:49 and a way for us to go there. 05:53 Months passed. 05:55 Brad and Cathie and the rest of 05:56 the Adventist Frontier Missions staff prayed and continued to 05:59 trust that God had a way 06:01 for them to get into Mongolia. 06:05 While they waited, 06:06 Brad graduated from the Adventist Seminary 06:08 and they were introduced to a man in the 06:10 Mongolian Embassy in Japan. 06:12 Believing he could provide them with visas, 06:14 Brad and Cathie packed their belongings and boarded a plane 06:18 bound for Japan. 06:20 When they arrived in Tokyo, they visited their contact 06:23 at the Mongolian Embassy. 06:25 To their dismay, Brad and Cathie discovered he had no authority 06:28 to issue visas. 06:30 For the next several days, they called and visited the embassy 06:33 trusting that God would open another door. 06:36 A few days later, their embassy contact 06:39 phoned them and told them to meet with a Mongolian professor 06:42 working in Tokyo. 06:44 Perhaps the professor could help them get visas. 06:47 So we went there and knocked on the door. 06:50 And it's only his wife and his grandson there, 06:53 and they don't speak English very well, 06:56 neither did they know Japanese. 06:58 And so we understood he wouldn't be home till 07:02 you know, much later. More like 8 or 9 o'clock. 07:06 So we didn't want to just 07:08 continue being uncomfortable waiting in the house 07:11 so we said we would return. 07:13 Meanwhile we went and found a little coffee shop and 07:16 ordered some hot chocolate. 07:17 And when the time came and we returned and 07:21 very friendly professor. 07:24 He called the university and made arrangements and 07:27 we would have a visa and 07:29 if nothing happened within a few days, give him a call back 07:31 and he would call again. 07:34 God got us a visa. 07:38 It's quite a long train ride from Beijing to Ulaanbaatar. 07:43 As soon as it was light and we knew we were in Mongolia, 07:49 we had our noses pressed to the window 07:50 trying to see what our new home was going to look like. 07:54 It's pretty barren and desolate. 07:56 The people didn't smile when we would stop at little 08:01 villages along the way. 08:04 And they talked in a language 08:07 we could not understand at all. 08:10 God worked it all out. 08:11 There were no Seventh Day Adventists here to meet us, 08:13 to show us around, or anything. 08:16 So God arranged for the professor's son to do that. 08:20 The first place we lived in was the foreign student dormitory. 08:23 I think it was 4 stories, and we were on the top floor, 08:27 last room, and because we were two paying students, we got 08:30 two rooms which were connected with an entry way that had 08:34 a toilet off the side. 08:36 It was very bleak looking. 08:39 There was a communal kitchen. 08:43 And a communal shower. 08:45 At that time, there was not only shortages of food, 08:49 but the electricity and the water was very unstable. 08:54 It was so cold in our apartment 08:58 the window was lined with ice. 09:00 Probably at least an inch thick. 09:03 We were Mongolian language students at their university. 09:06 And the very first class, the teacher writes on the board 09:11 the whole alphabet and tells us the sound of them 09:15 It's all in printing. She erases the board, and from then on 09:18 she's writing in cursive. 09:21 And see, we're painstakingly trying to copy these letters 09:25 and we get back to our room and we're trying to 09:26 figure out now in cursive, 09:28 what letter is this in print? 09:30 And I can look back at our old notebooks and 09:32 underneath all the cursive is our painstaking trying to print 09:36 these letters underneath so we could then 09:37 try to say them. 09:40 Shopping was very difficult at that time. 09:44 There was potatoes when they came 09:46 There were little tiny green tomatoes 09:49 for a little bit, 09:52 cabbage, onions, turnips. 09:58 Everyone had a ration card at that time and 10:01 there were certain items that were on there 10:07 alcohol, flour, rice, and a lot of other items 10:12 that we never saw. 10:15 But you could only go and get your rations at 10:20 a certain assigned store. 10:22 And if you didn't get there 10:23 when they had your rations for the month, then 10:26 you just kind of went without. 10:27 But even the rations supply was not enough to carry a family 10:31 through a whole month. 10:33 We were blessed that our salary was $40 a month 10:36 and we could go to the dollar store 10:39 and buy, you know, white flour, white rice, oil, you know, 10:43 some of the basic staples. 10:46 And we had brought some beans with us. 10:47 We had a supply of that... so beans and potatoes. 10:53 Through that whole time we never went hungry. 10:56 God provided for us every day. 11:01 Living in the foreign student dormitory, we had a guard 11:05 at the door before you could go up to any of the rooms and 11:09 Mongolians were not allowed in. 11:11 There was one Mongolian couple that lived just beyond his 11:14 little desk, and I don't know all the details as why they were 11:19 there, but because they were past his desk, they could get to 11:22 know the rest of the foreigners. 11:24 We became friends with them and they became our tutors 11:28 and they even had a dictionary. 11:31 His name was Biasihen and her name was Ghierle. 11:36 They were a really neat couple. 11:39 Eventually the guy in charge of the dormitory decided 11:43 they needed to be kicked out. Well, we had two rooms 11:46 and we were only living in one of them. 11:49 So we said, "Well you come on up and you can tutor us more 11:52 and live in our extra room. " 11:54 And so that's what we did. 11:58 And it was a lot of fun because they had friends 12:03 and relatives they could introduce us to. 12:07 He was very curious about the black book we would read out of. 12:11 So we would we would share a little bit and Christmas came 12:14 and we put up a few decorations so when they asked questions, 12:18 we could explain about Jesus' birth. 12:25 We were unprepared to be able to share much spiritually and 12:30 really close to the university was a Mongolian Christian church 12:34 The Christians at this time were all trying to make it 12:38 a large interdenominational type thing, all the missionaries 12:42 working together. 12:44 So we went there, we found there was a New Testament that was 12:48 translated and we thought, "Great! 12:50 We have another tool to help us learn the language. " 12:53 And so we're trying to look at this New Testament and 12:57 our English Bible and they don't match. 13:03 It was very loosely translated and in such a way 13:09 as we found as time went on, we could not teach any of our 13:13 beliefs from this New Testament. 13:16 Meanwhile we were frustrated living in the student dormitory 13:19 because there was no way to invite people to 13:22 come to our home. 13:23 So we looked for another place. There was a Hope Center 13:28 and it was a home where they took runaway children and 13:31 street children and fed them and clothed them and also had a 13:35 little school for them. 13:38 We found another kind of two rooms with the same kind 13:42 of setup as the first place. 13:44 One room for us, one for the couple that was living with us. 13:48 Then there was this little tiny room that 13:52 seemed smaller than a love seat. 13:55 That was our little kitchen. 13:58 There was no stove, so we got a little plug-in burner. 14:02 We would squat and cook there. 14:11 The couple, especially Biasihen, was sharing with 14:16 his classmates other college friends about the Lord. 14:21 So soon there was a group who could teach them how to have 14:25 a relationship with Jesus. 14:26 So they started coming over and meeting in our room 14:30 till soon, it was very full. 14:34 By May, the group was desperate to learn more. 14:39 It was soon going to be summer vacation, they were going to 14:41 be going home and they wanted to learn all they could so 14:44 they could share with their family and friends 14:45 out in the countryside. 14:47 So it wasn't just once or twice a week. 14:50 It was now starting to be almost every day. 15:01 At this time, we still didn't have the language skills 15:03 to be able to teach. 15:05 Brad was teaching Steps to Christ in a very 15:09 easy way and Biasihen was translating. 15:13 Many of the other Christians started being jealous 15:18 and wanting to pull him to be a part of their group. 15:22 So they started telling him that Seventh Day Adventists weren't 15:25 real Christians and pointing out different 15:30 problem verses, and we weren't following the Bible and 15:33 all kinds of problems. 15:35 Well, he hasn't even read the Bible most likely, and he wasn't 15:39 in a situation where he could respond or even know how to 15:42 study to find out for himself. 15:44 But being a verbal person, anything, doubts or 15:48 these questions he would get from the other Christians, 15:52 he would blab that right out to the group 15:54 until soon there was just confusion in the group. 15:59 And at this time we were also expecting our first child. 16:03 And we were excited about this. 16:05 And we also had our first visit from Milton and Helen Lee. 16:11 They had been long time missionaries in China. 16:14 And it was just wonderful to have some Seventh Day Adventist 16:18 experienced missionaries. I think we talked their ears off. 16:24 The day they left was Friday 16:28 and we again had a group in our home. 16:31 And I began to miscarry. 16:35 The group's in our room. They're sitting all over the bed 16:40 wall to wall, just filling this room and 16:44 I had no place to go. So I was in the bathroom. 16:50 Finally, they got the meeting over and got them out so 16:54 I had a bed. 16:57 On top of the stress with these other Christians and Biasihen 17:01 and this group and to lose - to lose our first child 17:05 was just devastating. 17:09 That was June of 1992. 17:13 We were burned out. We were broken. We were sick. 17:18 Discouraged. We hadn't even been in Mongolia a whole year. 17:22 We lost that whole first group. 17:25 Eventually God did send two, I think, 17:29 that had been a part of that group up to meet us. 17:34 It was about a couple weeks after I got out of the hospital 17:37 Brad said we were going on a hike. 17:40 I don't feel up to a hike. 17:43 We take a bus down, I think it's by the agriculture school 17:47 and there's a steep hill that goes up and they put some 17:51 Mongolian vining on that hill. 17:53 So we climbed up that and then we went straight along the ridge 17:56 and we kept walking and walking 17:58 till soon we were in the trees 18:01 and we hadn't realized we would miss the sound of the wind 18:04 in the trees. 18:05 And we kept walking around the ridge and it turned 18:08 and there's this big rock and we sat on that big rock and 18:14 there you can see a panoramic view of Ulaanbaatar. 18:20 You can see the apartments that three different places 18:23 we'd lived up to that point. 18:25 Up above us, we could see the hawks soaring. 18:30 And suddenly we could see our apartment's only that big 18:35 It was a most healing experience for us to just step back 18:40 and get the whole perspective. 18:42 You know, our world is only so big 18:45 compared to the whole universe. 18:47 Yet God is in control of it all. 18:50 He's in control of what's going on, this big mess that we're in. 18:56 And He's going to work things out. We just need to 18:59 stay surrendered and keep walking with him. 19:02 And it was such a wonderful experience to be up there 19:07 and to realize we're just a little part of all of God's plan 19:14 When we got back down, we realized 19:18 several things that changed our ministry. 19:20 For one, we needed to not use an interpreter. 19:23 Brad needed to start teaching when he was able to communicate 19:27 properly in the language. 19:29 Also, the New Testament was not suitable and we could not use it 19:34 and we needed to start working on a Bible translation. 19:39 And so it totally changed our ideal of how the ministry 19:43 and how the mission should be. 19:46 Brad began writing baptismal studies at that time. 19:51 By that fall, my brother-in-law 19:55 was making a trip to China. 19:58 He brought in with him a computer for us and a printer 20:03 the whole Old Testament from 20:06 what they had used in Inner Mongolia. 20:10 So he brought that to us and we started transliterating it 20:14 from the old vertical script to the current Cyrillic. 20:20 At this time, I had been asked to teach Kindergarten at the 20:24 international school. They were just beginning. 20:27 And so I had agreed until they could find another teacher. 20:31 One Mongolian student came 20:34 and was trying to talk with me 20:37 and I found out she was studying French. 20:41 I said, "Oh, you've got to come meet Joanne! She took French 20:45 and she can help you. " 20:46 And so Ihe decide she would come and she did come to our home 20:52 on Sabbath. 20:53 And God arranged it so that no other Mongolian showed up that 20:56 Sabbath. It was just the beginning of our second group. 20:59 And we had the picture rolls hanging up on the walls 21:03 in the living room. 21:04 She started looking at those and we started telling her some 21:07 of the Bible stories. 21:10 Dabahu had been a teacher at the Hope Center for the runaway 21:15 children and she was a part of the first group that fell apart. 21:20 Eventually she made her way back up to where we moved 21:23 and visited us and we were able to continue 21:24 our friendship with her. 21:26 When we got the Old Testament, which was all in that old script 21:29 we were able to give it to her and she would write it in the 21:33 current Cyrillic script. 21:36 So she's probably one Mongolian who's written about, by hand 21:40 written out almost the whole Bible. 21:45 We remembered that stack of books Brad brought home 21:48 from the library. 21:50 Well, in there was a story of a missionary before the turn of 21:53 the century and he had spent 30 years in Mongolia 21:55 without a single convert. 21:57 That's the stronghold the Tibetan Buddhism had 22:00 on the people. 22:01 So that was what we were expecting when we came. 22:04 And exactly two years to the date of when we set foot off 22:08 that train was the first baptism 22:15 The next three years, Satan really attacked 22:18 after that first baptism. 22:20 There were some really hard times. 22:23 But there were some highlights. 22:26 Our two children were born. Eventually we also found 22:32 an office to rent, and so the office was able to move out. 22:35 That also made a change in our home, which had been the church 22:39 and the office and the library and everything else. 22:42 Grand Central Station. 22:43 And from that point on, home was able to be a home 22:47 and a retreat. 22:50 In 1994 when we were home on furlough, when Rene was born, 22:55 Brad had had medical checkups because he hadn't felt well. 22:59 Basically, he was told it was in his head. 23:02 So we head back over. The first signs of things not quite being 23:08 right was kind of like a flu bug, a stomach kind of flu that 23:12 he had in May of 1996. 23:18 Probably just before Christmas, he wasn't able to eat 23:22 anything. We had just seen the American doctor who said, 23:27 "There's different kinds of ulcers. I suggest you go back 23:29 to the States and they can check you out and have some 23:34 recuperation time, for about 6 weeks or whatever. " 23:37 So he knew he needed to go back but he wanted to get 23:41 some publishing jobs done that were just so close to being done 23:45 And so he kept waiting and waiting 23:48 thinking if he could get well enough, he could get down to the 23:51 office and finish the job. 23:52 It didn't happen. 23:54 They finally put him on a plane. I think it was January 17 24:00 and sent him home. 24:03 I saw him off at the airport. He couldn't handle the two kids 24:07 and I going with him because he couldn't help take care of the 24:10 kids. So it was just easier for him to go alone. 24:14 Then when I heard he was in the hospital 24:16 that was really hard for me. 24:18 Meanwhile, the missionary nurse 24:21 was reasoning with me. She said, 24:27 "Your husband is sick. If they do surgery, it's going to be 24:33 weeks before he's up and around and be ready to come back. 24:37 Do you really want to be separated that amount of time?" 24:39 "No. " So she strongly encouraged us to head home. 24:45 So when Sabbath was over, we packed up all our things 24:50 that we didn't want to leave out for others to use and put them 24:53 behind a door, behind a lock, 24:55 and we got on the first flight out of there. 24:58 On that flight home, the doctors walked into Brad's room 25:03 and said, "You have cancer. 25:05 We're doing surgery tomorrow. " 25:07 And I got to arrive just the night before, and to see him 25:12 before he went into surgery. And God worked it all out. 25:16 It wasn't too long after we were back, that he got another 25:21 computer and started doing the publishing. 25:23 He though, "Well maybe God just wanted me to do publishing here 25:26 in the States while I don't have all the distractions of 25:29 things over there, I can really focus. 25:31 Then when the cancer got too painful, to where he had to be 25:34 on stronger pain medication 25:37 and it would effect his thinking, he backed off. 25:41 And he did more training me of how to do some of the programs. 25:47 Hey, come over here. 25:49 These are for you girls, from Daddy. 25:54 You know what? You won't be able to use them for a while, 26:00 but these are so you can remember 26:05 what I desire for you. 26:08 And what is this gift? 26:11 Bible! 26:13 He was so sweet, all the way up to his death. 26:18 And so loving. 26:21 Just minutes before he died, he asked me, "What's the matter?" 26:24 I was upset about something. 26:26 "I love you. " 26:29 He died September 1, 1998. 26:35 In 1998, Adventist Frontier Missions handed the 26:39 Mongolia Church Planting Project over to the General Conference 26:42 of Seventh Day Adventists. 26:44 Pastor Dale Tunnell and his family moved to Mongolia 26:46 to continue the work that Brad and Cathie had started. 26:49 In 1998, we had one church in Ulaanbaatar. 26:55 Today we have four groups meeting in Ulaanbaatar. 26:58 And we have 18 groups meeting all over the country of Mongolia 27:02 Brad and Cathie really laid the foundation for us in three 27:04 different areas. First, they laid a foundation in the area of 27:07 leadership. The people that they chose to be leaders, 27:10 we are still using today. 27:12 Secondly, they laid a foundation in the area of publishing. 27:14 Thirdly, we are continuing to use the home group method 27:18 that they taught us. 27:19 I think we're called to live for Christ and to die for Christ. 27:24 And as we go back and study missions, 27:30 a lot of them went out, and they weren't out very long. 27:35 Their lives were very short and they gave all they had 27:38 for Christ. 27:39 There's nothing wrong with that. Praise the Lord. 27:43 That's what we're here for, to live for Him, 27:46 and if it includes an early death, the next thing you know 27:50 is going to be Jesus coming. 27:53 Brad and Cathie's experience here in Mongolia, 27:56 working on the front lines is a familiar one 27:58 to Adventist Frontier Missions. 28:00 We've been working among the unreached since 1985. 28:04 Every day our missionaries are at work where there is 28:07 no Adventist presence. 28:08 Our great desire is to see God raise up more missionaries 28:12 for the remaining unreached. |
Revised 2014-12-17