Strange strands

Over a decade ago I attended Camp Joy, a week of preparation for missions that all Baptist World Missions missionaries attend. It was a great week! While I was there, I met Ron Fruin. His burden at one time was to reach the Mongolian people. He began to accumulate materials about history and religion, the current situation, Bible translation into Mongolian, and even a paper another student had written.

But God had other plans for the Fruins. First the doors closed for them to work with Khalkh Mongols in Outer Mongolia; then the doors closed for them to work with Buryat Mongols in the Buryat Republic, Russia; and finally God called them to serve in Cambodia a continent away. When Ron heard that I would be headed to Mongolia, he gave me his Mongolian file. That was 1998.

Fast forward in time to spring of 2010. Kristie and I were traveling and visiting churches that support us. At one of our supporting church we met a man who had a hearty interest in Mongolia. We meet many people who sincerely pray for us are genuinely interested in the country where we minister. However, this man’s interest in us was only a reflection of his deeper interest in Mongolia. We spent quite a bit of time talking in the morning. Following the evening service, he invited us out to eat.

He told us that he had once had such a deep interest in Mongolia that he had written a report on the country while studying at Pacific Coast Baptist Bible College. He asked many questions about the country, our ministry, and opportunities for ministry that currently exist in the country. It was a pleasure to meet him, and we have kept in touch since that Sunday.

Yesterday, I was looking through my files for a document. I did not suspect that it would be in my Mongolia file but looked through the file anyway. You can imagine my surprise when I came across a document entitled “Mongolia.” Written in 1990 for a missions class at Pacific Coast Baptist Bible College, it was the paper my earnest friend had written twenty years ago. It must have come into my possession when Ron Fruin passed on his file to me.

The college is no longer in existence in the same way that it once was, having moved halfway across a continent and changed its name. The author of the paper has since been used by God in other places. And here I am more than twenty years later in possession of a college paper that I never wrote and having met the author. Funny, the ways that God weaves together the strands of our lives.