We flew about two hours on Mongolia Airlines out to the city of Choibalsan, a city of 45,000 on the eastern border of Mongolia. China and Russia share a border within about 100 miles of this major city. The airport is about ten or fifteen miles out of town. Mongolia is mostly flat with a few rolling hills in the east and mountainous in the west.
The airport is out in the middle of nowhere, with literally nothing around it except green pastures. As we were coming in I thought we were going to land on the grass until a concrete runway appeared only seconds before we touched down. As we made our way up to the main building (there is only one building), I notices a herd of horses just off the runway and was grateful they did not decide to cross the runway as we were coming in!
We got out on the tarmac. There were no other planes at the small, concrete block building called Choibalsan International Airport. There are about 40 people in the airport waiting to get on the plane to fly back to UB. Mongolia Airlines flies out to Choibalsan and back twice a week. Surrounding the airport are several man-made hills that were used by the Russians as underground hangers when Mongolia was a satellite of the old U.S.S.R. You can still see the doors and the way they used to be camouflaged. Today, it looks like some of them are used as barns.
We got our bags and went out to the front of the building. There is one lone dirt road that leads from the airport toward the city of Choibalsan in the distance. There are seven of us in all; our team of four from the states, Pastor Amara who is one of the leading pastors in central and eastern Mongolia, and two young ladies who are our interpreters (students of David’s when they were at the university in S. Korea.
One of the young ladies is from Choibalsan but has not been home in several years. Her name is Bogie. When she left home to go to Korea she was not a Christian. Her family still lives there. They are the ones who told her that they thought there was a Christian church there. She called her father to come get us. He told her that he found a Christian missionary and that he would be coming out to get us. In just a few minutes, Ganah, a missionary from UB, drove up in a rented van to get us. He and Pastor Amara went to seminary together in UB and have a surprise reunion. We drove for about thirty minutes on the main road into Choibalsan weaving around mud holes and ruts.
Choibalsan is an old mining town, heavily influenced by the Russians. Its buildings are square and rectangular concrete structures with little architectural decor. Ganah lives in one of the many “apartment houses.” These apartment buildings are what you would picture in the rough part of Brooklyn or Detroit. Just outside his building is a man completely passed out with an empty bottle in his hand. We went up five flights of stairs to his small apartment. His apartment is a one bedroom, one bath, kitchen/living room set up. Ganah and his wife have three small children. We learned that he came to Choibalsan as a first generation home missionary to Mongolia.
When the U.S.S.R. fell apart in the late 80’s, South Korean missionaries started coming into Mongolia. They have been the ones to lead the revival and spread of Christianity across Mongolia. Ganah represents the first generation of Mongolian children “raised in a Christian home” to now take the lead in the church in Mongolia. His vision is to see a strong missionary church in Choibalsan for eastern Mongolia that can easily reach into Russia and China with the gospel. He told us that there is one strong church of about 60 members in Choibalsan with three house churches connected to it. In all about 100 believers. He also told us there are several cults in Choibalsan including the Moonies and the Bahia, an offshoot of Buddism.
Ganah made arrangements for us to meet the leaders of the main church and the house churches for dinner that night (Friday). He also said that the five men could stay in his apartment. The two ladies would stay with Bogie’s parents in a much nicer apartment several blocks away.
Ganah’s apartment is very small. As we left to go to dinner at a restaurant nearby, I looked around and could tell that one of us could sleep on the couch and that there was just enough room on the floor for the rest of us. Terry is a couple of years older than me, so we all knew who would get the couch! As we got up to leave, Greg’s backside was wet. He told me that one of the little ones must have been sleeping on the couch. We didn’t tell Terry. In the next blog I will tell you about the surprise at dinner. Stay tuned.
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