As I settled into my seat and fastened my seat belt for my flight from Beijing to Ulan Batar, the young woman by the window stirred. She was attractive, trendy, and sleepy! As the plane lifted off the ground, she stirred, smiled at me and in perfect English with a slight accent that I couldn’t quite place at first, she told me she had been traveling for almost 36 hours—from Dublin (in Southern Ireland) of all places. Of course, I told her I was from Scotland and for the next hour or so we chatted non-stop about Scotland and Ireland and about life in general. Little did I realize that she would give me a fascinating orientation to her beloved homeland. She was Mongolian!

She had been in Ireland for some years and was studying Business Management. She was a single mom and had left her 10-year old son with her mother. Every available extra hour she worked in a store in Dublin so that she could send money home each month so her son could go to a good school, learn English and perhaps escape the poverty, alcoholism and substance abuse that are the curse of Mongolia she told me.

“People feel helpless and hopeless nowadays, especially since the Russians left. (I guess she was too young to remember the harshness of that particular era in her country’s history). Children went to school then and adults had jobs. Now it’s desperate.”

A Faithful Buddhist

I learned that there are about 500 Mongolians in Dublin! A Buddhist monastery in rural Ireland provides solace, refuge and a sense of identity in a culture so different to home.

As the conversation turned to religion, I asked her if she had ever been to church in Ireland, thinking perhaps that she had slipped in to a Catholic church, of which there are many, or that one of the organizations that connect with International Students might have crossed her path.

	"The younger generation was finding their identity in Buddhism."

Her reaction took me by surprise. "No," she said. She didn’t like Christians. Many Mongolians had been “deceived” by missionaries, especially her mother’s generation, she said, and she gave me all sorts of examples. No, the younger generations, her generation, were finding their identity in Buddhism—she was Buddhist inside and that was that.

One Who Was "Different"

As gently and clearly as I could, I told her that I followed Jesus and that I found in Him the answers I needed for life. She listened respectfully and then somewhat apologetically told me about one missionary she knew who was different. "She neither coerced or bribed or tempted people to convert—she just loved them and visited them and helped them in the name of Jesus. She made you want to know more," she told me. I thanked God in my heart for this unknown missionary.

As we prepared to land and her excitement at seeing her family grew, I prayed for her quietly and asked the Lord to use someone, maybe in Dublin, to attract this beautiful, friendly young woman to Jesus.

With that, my orientation was over. Since then I have not been able to forget the frankness and intensity with which she expressed her rejection of Christianity and affirmed her Buddhist identity. I pray for her often and ask God to equip missionaries to reach this globally connected generation of Mongolians with the Gospel.

There are many opportunities to serve God in Mongolia. Find out how God can use you