About the company in Mongolia

Last week, I went early in the morning to visit a friend’s coffee shop. Daniel gives me a free coffee whenever I come and is continually inviting people out to our English church services. So I like to go by and see him once a week or so.

I arrived a few minutes early at the coffee shop to find that there were two customers already waiting by the door for it to be unlocked. I didn’t see Daniel inside, so I stood there patiently waiting for Daniel to open the door.

I had waited for a minute or two when another customer walked up, passed me, went by the two men waiting at the door, and tried the handle. I’m embarrassed to say that the door had been unlocked the whole time.

Mongolia is somewhat like that. There are things that seem difficult or impossible to accomplish but once you try it, you find out that there are ways to succeed at what God has called you to do.

Some years ago, a missions agency began calling countries to which it was difficult to send missionaries, creative access nations or CAN. This emphasized that there are ways to reside in a country if you are creative and indomitable. Mongolia is one of those creative access nations. They don’t encourage missionaries to come, and some people will tell you that proselytizing is illegal though I’ve never seen such a law or heard of anyone being prosecuted. In fact, most Mongolians will insist that the constitution of Mongolia guarantees freedom of religion.

[Of course, freedom of religion in some countries means freedom to practice your religion in private. In such countries, freedom of religion does not mean one is free to tell others about his religion or to convert from one religion to another.]

Getting back to the topic, Mongolia is one of those CAN places. You CAN come to Mongolia and do missions work. However, you probably cannot come as a missionary. Therefore, most Christians who have come to Mongolia specifically to be a witness for Jesus Christ find that they also must do some other work, as well. Initially, I worked as an English teacher. Later, I worked briefly under another independent Baptist missionary’s organization as a store manager.

Several years ago, following the examples of several other missionaries, I decided to found a legitimate company in Mongolia. The company would do woodworking. There were three reasons that I selected a woodworking company. First, in my years in Mongolia I had never found a satisfactory carpenter shop. Second, my father had many years of carpentry experience and offered to come to Mongolia to train some workers after he retired. Finally, God had provided me with a gifted carpenter: Ganpurev. I had seen what he could do with scrap pieces of wood. I imagined that he could do much better with real wood.

Founding a company also provided a legitimate way for me to construct a building. The first floor would be the carpenter shop. The second floor could be space where the church could meet.

By being the company president I could request a visa and residency permission to reside in Mongolia. For the past five years, I have received my visa and residency permission through my company. The company constructed a building and hired workers. All of this was done legally and legitimately.

Just last week I received another year’s residency permission. In the month leading up to requesting residency permission, I had heard of five cases where residency permission had been refused or where people had to change the organization that they were with before requesting residency permission. So I was grateful to God that I received my residency permission so easily.

Then the company has given Ganpurev a job where he can work 35-40 hours a week and make a living wage. Many people in Mongolia have jobs that require them to work 60-70 hours a week. While there is nothing evil about working hard, it would be impossible for Ganpurev to work such a job and pastor a church. This allows him to do both. Ideally, we look forward to the day when the church can pay Ganpurev’s salary. But for now, it is not possible, and Ganpurev will have to be bi-vocational.

Which leads me to my last praise: this past month the company has had plenty of work: work that pays well.