“You gave them water for their thirst.”
[Sep.15.2022]The Bili Gramship Evangelistic Association (BGEA) held an evangelism rally in Mongolia. According to BGEA, more than 17,300 people attended the BGEA Hope Rally held at the Steppe Arena in Mongolia’s capital Ulan Bataar on September 10-11.
Mongolia, located between Russia and China, is a country with a population of about 3.3 million, has a long tradition of Buddhism, and recently, people practicing shamanism are increasing. BGEA said, “After 20 years of prayer by Mongolian church leaders, a Mongolian evangelism rally was held, and for the first time in history, hundreds of churches gathered for such a large-scale event.”
Pastor Franklin Graham, chairman of the BGEA, told the attendees, “He sent his son from heaven to this earth to save you. Are you hurt? Are you spiritually tired? Did you waste your life? “Please, come forward to Jesus,” he emphasized.
Then he emphasized “You need Jesus Christ. He is the only way to God. Jesus said, ‘I’m the way, and the truth, and the life, no one comes to the Father except through me.’”
At the end of the message, Pastor Graham invited, “Anyone who determined to believe in Jesus, please, come forward,” and more than 2,000 people responded. Among them was Chuluu, who y attended the rally after meeting BGEA employees previously. Chuluu was a Buddhist but didn’t follow any religion for eight years.
The 70-year-old Pastor Franklin Graham, who has met dozens of Mongolian pastors since 2018, also met some of the 450 Mongolian children who underwent heart surgery at the international Christian relief organization “Samaritan’s Purse.”
Organizers said that 1,400 people who were at the recent youth meeting organized by a local church attended the rally though the organizer anticipated about 600 youths might come to the rally. About 250 Mongolian churches, along with BGEA, helped with practical volunteer work. Two days before the event, BGEA provided free water to 50 communities, and many people from those communities attended the rally by bus.
Fifty churches and more than 400 volunteers worked together to fill containers with water and distribute water containers and shared the gospel. Pastor Graham said, “I am grateful to be able to take care of so many precious Mongolian children. Material needs are important, and I will do my best to meet these needs, but I think the greatest urgency of the human mind is spiritual thirst,” he said.
According to 2020 census data, about 40,000 Mongolians have converted to Protestant, Catholic, and other Christian denominations in Mongolia since the end of communist rule in the early 1990s, forms less than 2% of the population.
More than half of Mongolia’s population believes in Buddhism in some form, and about 35% are non-religious. According to Mission Eurasia, the majority of Mongol tribes (23 out of 28) still do not have access to the gospel (Source: Christian Today Comprehensive).
You gave your good Spirit to instruct them. You did not withhold your manna from their mouths, and you gave them water for their thirst. (Nehemiah 9:20)
Thank You, God, for allowing large-scale evangelical rally in answer to the long-standing prayers of the leaders of the Mongolian church, and for raising those who respond to the church’s unity and the gospel. May the thirsty souls of this land, tied to Buddhism and shamanism, come to Jesus Christ, who is the water of life, and experience a complete change in their life. May the church of Mongolia pray and share the gospel continuously for the rest of the unreached people so that they can be revived with manna and the living water of the LORD.
Prayer 24·365
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