.jpeg)
Bryan: Today's episode of Ask Missionary is a little bit different. If you've tuned in to the show before, you've heard Chad, a pastor of a sending church, or Brooks, a missionary to an unreached language group, answer questions about the Great Commission. In this episode, we're turning the microphone around to hear firsthand what happens when Christians go and make disciples.
Anna: So, I was born in Northern Asia. At the time of me being born, it was a communist country. And growing up, going to preschool and elementary school, I remember that we had special classes where we were taught what it meant to be a communist. And I remember one time our teacher said, "Can't you see how beautiful our universe is? These pictures were taken by our spacemen—but do you see God there?" And all of us in the classroom said, "No." She said, "Yes, that's true. There is no God. As communists, we do not believe in something that we cannot see. When we can see something, when we can touch something, that exists. So whatever we cannot see and cannot touch does not exist."
So that was in school. But when I came home, I saw my grandpa doing his Buddhist prayer beads. Sometimes he burned incense in front of a small statue of Buddha, especially during times when we had sickness in the family or a big event was coming up. And I also knew that he secretly went to the Buddhist temple outside of our town, because one time I overheard my dad whispering to him, "You need to stop doing that because it's bad for our family. You're going to get in trouble and get us all in trouble." And when I visited my maternal grandma, I observed her doing shamanistic rituals—appeasing the spirits, asking them to protect us and give us health and overall well-being.
So you can imagine that growing up, my worldview was very mixed up, and it was confusing what was true and what to believe in. In my teen years, communism fell. And I remember that my dad announced to my family, "We are Buddhists and we're free to go and worship now because we have freedom of religion and freedom of speech."
And I remember the first time we went to the Buddhist temple that was outside of our town. My dad said to us, "Just follow me and do everything that I tell you to do." And he started pushing the prayer drums that were along the pathway that we followed. I asked, of course, why we needed to do that. And he explained that in each prayer drum there is a book of prayers written in old Tibetan. Of course, we couldn't read this language, and that's why we push the drum— and the drum spins this book of prayers and it counts as our prayers, and they spin and go up to heaven.
And when I heard that, I thought, "Wow, that would be so cool to get into this drum, get the book, and look at it—even like to hold it in my hands, and also to read it. Being able to read it would be so cool, to understand what it's all about, how these prayers even sound." But I followed my dad and we finished the circle that we had to do clockwise around the temple and we entered the temple itself. It was the first time for me, and I was so overwhelmed with everything that I saw and everything that I heard at the temple. The only familiar thing was the burning incense that my grandpa did at home.
So when we came out of the temple, I had tons of questions to ask, and I bombarded my dad with all sorts of questions. He actually tried to answer them, but finally he told me, "I do not have all the answers. It's our first time at the temple. As we start coming here, we will learn more and hopefully we will answer your questions." And it didn't satisfy me completely. I was disappointed. But again, I thought to myself, well, our grandpa was a Buddhist. We're Buryats, so we're Buddhists, too. And this is our identity. So from that moment on, we started coming to the temple—but not regularly, not every week. It was just several times a year, especially during big events in the family or sicknesses and stuff like that.
When I was in college, my freshman year I had to take a required class called World Religions. Our professor announced to us that he was a professing Buddhist, and that's why we were going to spend a bulk of time learning about Buddhism. And we were excited about that. I was actually excited because I thought to myself, finally I'm going to learn what Buddhism is all about, because I couldn't find the answers. And we started reading a lot of articles and textbooks, and to my surprise I came to the conclusion that Buddhism is not a religion—it's a philosophy. It's a kind of philosophy that you have to earn merit. You have to follow the path of Buddha, the enlightened one. You need to follow his teachings, and there is also reincarnation—you need to keep earning merits so that you can reincarnate into a better being. Hopefully you will reincarnate as another person, but you can reincarnate into a material thing like a plant or a rock if you lived a bad life. And just reading about this and learning about Buddhism more, I was just more confused. I thought, that is not religion. I do not see God here. It's more like philosophy.
And I was again disappointed. But I thought to myself, that's how my family lives. We're Buryats, so we're Buddhists, and this is our identity. I just decided to focus on my academics and social life in college. I was a part of a student club for mountaineering and hiking. And in that club, my friend—actually my best friend—and I had a mutual friend who approached us and asked if we would be interested to meet his chemistry professor who was an American. The thing is that he was hosting a group of American college students coming from the States and wanted them to meet local students. We met the chemistry professor, and eventually met the college students that arrived to our hometown, and we had a blast spending time together, sightseeing around our town, and had a really good time together and became friends. Then I left to go on a hiking trip, and my best friend went to help the American college students with translation—just to do some work at a kids' camp. Actually it was a camp for deaf kids.
So when we got reunited with my friend at the end of the summer, she announced to me that she had become a believer—a Christian. A couple of weeks later, she invited me to a Bible study that would be held at the American professor's house—the one we had met earlier. He and his wife were arranging a Bible study for whoever was interested. And I didn't want to ruin my relationship with my friend, so I said, "Okay." I really liked those people, those Americans. They were very nice, and there was something in them—in the family dynamics and between them—that I had never seen before. Not among my relatives, not among my neighbors. There was something that I couldn't put my finger on. They were really nice people and I wanted to get to know them and become friends with them. I also wanted to improve my English speaking ability, and I thought, okay, cool, I will have this opportunity to practice speaking English with them. The Bible part was less attractive. I wasn't interested, and I was thinking, well, might as well for general education—I can learn about the Bible some, but they're not going to change me.
And the very first Bible lesson, we talked about how the Bible was written and why it was worth opening the Bible and reading it. And from just that talk—I had never heard about that before—I was hooked. I was really interested. Hey, that's worth reading, that's worth knowing.
And then the American professor who hosted the group passed out Bibles to each one of us and said, "It's a gift for you. You can take it home and then bring it back, and we will read it during the Bible lessons." And then he proceeded to tell how the Bible is written, that there are two parts—Old Testament and New Testament—and there are books, chapters, and verses.
And I was holding the Bible in my hands and it was the very first time that I held the Bible in my hands. And what really shocked me was the fact that the Bible was in my heart language. When I opened the Bible, it was in the language that I could read and comprehend what it said. And then the leader of the group, the American professor, he asked us to find the first book of the Bible—Genesis, chapter 1, verse 1. He asked if somebody could read the first verse, and somebody read, "In the beginning, God"—and the leader of the group said, "Stop here. Let's talk about it." We talked maybe five to ten minutes about what it meant "in the beginning" and what it meant "God." And I was sitting there listening to this discussion, and I was just blown away by the fact that the very first words—the very first three words in the Bible—talk about God. The God that I couldn't see in shamanism and that I didn't find in Buddhism.
And then from that verse, we started reading the Bible chronologically, verse by verse, story by story. And the fact that the God of the Bible was the main character in each story—the creation story as we were reading through that, I saw His loving character, that He created everything out of love and how He did it. Even from the first Bible lessons, for me, I just started receiving answers to questions I had from my childhood. All of a sudden my questions were answered, right from the get go, right from the beginning of the Bible.
And also the character of God—the God that I knew from shamanism was a God who created everything but then left everything on its own because it was so sinful. Here in the Bible, I saw a God who didn't leave people. He led them out of the Garden of Eden. They couldn't be in His presence, but He provided a way for them to still come to Him and worship Him. And He pursued them. He wanted a relationship with them still, but on His accord, on His rules.
And then when we came to the story of Noah and the ark, that just really again showed me how God wanted to save His people. He saw Noah as the only righteous man on earth and started communicating to him that the flood was coming, that everybody would perish if they didn't listen to Him and if didn't follow what He wanted to say. And He was telling Noah how to get saved from that by building an ark and gave him all the instructions—everything, how to make everything for that. And I was just blown away by the fact that God wanted to save His people.
Actually, during that time, now looking back, I can say that it was probably the Holy Spirit that started working in my heart, because it was the first time that I applied a story to my own life. Around the same time, my parents had a rough time. They were arguing with each other for a long time, and I understood that I couldn't help them. My brother couldn't help them. They couldn't help each other. Nobody in the whole world could help this situation.
And I remembered one thing that happened at the Bible study. One of my friends who came to the Bible study came emotionally distraught. When the Bible study leader asked her what happened, she said that her grandpa was in the hospital and she was really sad about it because she didn't know what the outcome would be. And he offered her to pray for that. When I heard him say that, I thought, interesting—how is he going to do that?
Because in my mind, prayer was a very complicated process. You had to go to the Buddhist temple to order the prayer, and then the Buddhist monks would chant a prayer for that. You had to pay money for that. You had to travel to get to the temple. Then for my friends who were Orthodox believers, they had to go to the Orthodox temple, buy candles, and find an icon of a saint responsible for healing or something—and also pay money for that. That was very complicated for me in my head, this process of prayer. And I was like, how is he going to do that?
So he closed his eyes as I was watching him and he started talking, like having a conversation with a friend, as if this friend was sitting right there in the living room with all of us. And I just couldn't believe that you could simply start talking with God. And at the end of the prayer, he said, "In Jesus's name. Amen."
At that moment, when I was listening to my parents arguing, I felt that desperation. I felt that nobody could help me in the whole world. And I remembered that prayer. And I thought to myself, what if I pray to God in Jesus's name, like our friend prayed—that American professor who did the Bible studies? And I remember addressing it to Jesus. I said, "Jesus, if You hear me, if You are really God, that You can help this situation. Please help my parents make peace with each other." And then I could concentrate on my homework, I continued my life after that, I forgot about the prayer.
Maybe a couple of days later, I was sitting again in my room getting ready for my classes. And the door to my bedroom was open, and through the crack of that opening I could see my parents. They were sitting in the living room next to each other, watching TV and peacefully talking with each other. And right at that moment, I remembered my prayer. I remembered what I had said to Jesus as God. I asked Him to help my parents. And that was the first time—the first ever time—that my prayers, addressed to Jesus, not to a Buddha statue, not to anything else, but to Jesus as God, and that prayer was answered.
I was in shock and in awe. I was sitting there, not kind of believing what I had just experienced or what I had just seen with my own eyes. And all of a sudden there was that feeling that somebody that is bigger than the whole universe was in my bedroom with me. And as if He was saying, "I see you. I hear you. And I care."
And after that moment, I was going to the Bible study just to know more about Jesus. I thought, how does He fit in the biblical narrative? I want to know more about Him. I enjoyed the fellowship. I enjoyed the friendship that we made with this American couple. But I wanted to know more about what the Bible says about Jesus.
The following semester, I was going to go on a student exchange program to China because my minor in college was Mandarin Chinese. My suitcase was packed, my tickets were bought, everything was done—except my medical certificate. And two days before my train left, I got the news that I got tuberculosis and I couldn't go. My doctor said I had to be in the hospital for six months. I took a leave for one year from college and had to go to the hospital. My parents were devastated. The condition of the hospital was terrible, and my dad didn't want me to be in the hospital. But the doctor really insisted and said that she would get all the medical care that they could provide.
I was in the hospital. It was the month of February. It was a dreary month and I was lonely. Friends and family—whoever learned that I got TB—didn't want to see me. It's an infectious disease. They didn't want to be in close proximity to me. So I felt really isolated and alone in the hospital, though I was in a small room with eight other ladies.
So on one of those days, my nurse called my name and said that there was a visitor for me. I didn't know who it was, because my parents usually came but it was an unusual time for them to come. So I went downstairs and I saw the last person that I expected to see. That was the American friend, the leader of the Bible study group. And I was worried for him. I was glad to see him, but I was worried for his health. And he said that it's okay—he just wanted to know that he had heard I was in the hospital and wanted to know how they could help.
So the next time he came, he brought my best friend and another friend who had also become a believer at that time too. And they started coming regularly, just to see me, to give me a word of encouragement, and to pray with me. And on another day, he came with his wife and with his kids actually, who thankfully stayed in the car, and they brought me a study guide on the Gospel of Mark. I started reading through it, and in chapter 5, I read the story about the lady who had been sick for a long time. The commentary said that in Jewish culture, she was considered unclean and was ostracized from her family. And I was reading that and thought, wow, that just matches my situation perfectly. I'm here feeling isolated. I'm kind of ostracized from my family. Nobody wanted to come and see me or even touch me because I had an infectious disease.
And I started reading further. That lady, when she heard the word about Jesus Christ, decided to go and just touch His garment and be healed. She did it, of course, and Jesus turned around and asked the crowd who had done it. She admitted that it was her. She fell on the ground in front of Him, and Jesus told her, "Your faith has made you well. Go in peace, my daughter."
And that phrase got stuck in my brain, in my mind for a long time. I continued reading the gospel, but that question was like—why did Jesus address her as "my daughter"? She was probably His age or even older. And then He said, "Your faith has made you well." What did she believe in? And I continued reading the Gospel of Mark—how He displayed power over sickness, how He displayed power over demons and evil spirits, He displayed power over nature, and what He taught His disciples, and how He interacted with the people around Him and the Pharisees that were surrounding Him too. And then how He was accused and taken to the court and judged, innocently, and then how He suffered on the cross and died, and then He rose back to life.
And as I was learning all of that—His life on earth—I was thinking about that lady and what she believed in, what kind of faith she had. And all of a sudden this blurry picture started becoming clear. I understood that Jesus was not just born 2,000 years ago, He just appeared 2,000 years ago. He was God from the very beginning, because the lady believed who He said He was—the Son of God. And since He was the Son of God, He was from the very beginning. He just stepped down from heaven. He left everything in heaven just to make His way to earth, to be here with sinners, like me, to suffer for sinners like me, and to die on the cross for sinners like me.
The lady came to Jesus with to be healed with her physical need. But Jesus addressed her spiritual need: that she was a sinner and she needed salvation through Him. And He called her "my daughter" because He was her Creator. And just everything that I had learned through the Old Testament and what I was learning in the New Testament in the Gospel of Mark—everything just came together and the blurry picture became clear. That's why Jesus had to come to earth. He was the way to redeem us back to God.
And I was coming to God in prayer, asking people to pray for my health. I came to Him with my physical need. But actually my main problem was the problem of sin. That I couldn't get rid of it. I couldn't cleanse myself. I couldn't bring any sacrifice to God. And that's why Jesus came—because He could deal with my sin. He could deal with death because He was God. He had power over it. He conquered it and came back to life. I realized that Jesus Christ came to save me, came to redeem me back to God.
I was sitting on my hospital bed and thinking through all of it, and I imagined that if everything crumbled down around me, I would be just fine, because I was in Jesus's hands. I was with Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior. And from that moment on, I have a true identity. I'm a child of God because of Jesus Christ.
And I remember on one of the visits, the American professor—our friend, whom I learned afterward was a missionary in our hometown, living just with the purpose of sharing the gospel with whoever wanted to hear the good news—told me, "Sometime in the future, you're going to look back and say that was the best time of my life, being in the hospital." And I looked at him and chuckled. I was like, there's no way I'm going to say that. But today is that future that he was talking about. Today, looking back, I can say that it was the best time of my life—that I got to know Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior.
Bryan: To hear more missionary stories, visit missionary.com, where you can find hundreds of videos, podcasts, articles, and more. If you have a question you would like to hear answered on Ask Missionary, comment, post, or email us. And don't forget to subscribe to be notified when the next episode, "Send to Survive," airs next week. Thanks for listening.