Member Spotlight: All the way to Mongolia

Certainly, Samaritan members Brad and Ruth could never guess, in the beginning, what God would do with them through the years. They could not guess it when they began their college careers at West Point Military Academy. They could not guess it when they met at the end of their freshman year, or when they married the fall of the following year. They certainly could not guess it when they quit school and began working minimum wage jobs to make ends meet. They could not know how God would lead in their lives.

Brad and Ruth were both born in the Midwest (Brad in Indianapolis and Ruth in Peoria, Illinois). They began college at West Point in 1988, met at the end of that year, and married in fall 1989, leaving college to make a life together. While both were working low-paying jobs, Ruth became pregnant with their first child and the family began to grow. They started looking for a way to make enough money to allow Brad to go back to school, enough extra money to live on while Brad focused on his studies and enough to pay for his classes.

At some point, while they still had not found the answer, a pastor approached them and asked if he could pray for them. Brad and Ruth explained their desire to the pastor, and the pastor responded that he would pray “the job would come from God and in a way that could only be from God.” Soon after, they received the answer to that prayer. A school called to let them know about a co-op program they were offering. Brad could alternate working for a year, taking some classes in the evenings, and attending classes every other year. He took the opportunity and was able to get a degree in mechanical engineering.

With his degree, Brad, Ruth and their family could live comfortably and save. Their family continued to grow until there were six—Brad and Ruth and their children Abigail, Mark, Sarah, and Adam. Then, one year when their youngest child was only about 5 years old, they were able to save enough to fulfill one of Ruth’s lifelong dreams. She described it, saying, “One day Brad came to me and said, ‘If we’re going to do it, this is the year.’ He was right. It was the only year we had enough extra money to do it.” Brad and Ruth flew out of the country and adopted two children, 5-year-old Christine and 2-year-old David, from an orphanage in Haiti. Ruth said that there never came another year when it would have been possible. God gave them the opportunity, and, again, they took it.

When Brad had been working as an engineer for about 13 years, and he and his family were settled in a church family, and all were living comfortably in Peoria, God moved in their lives again. Brad and Ruth decided to take a class called “Perspectives on the World Christian Movement” because they were interested in adding the information to their regular homeschool curriculum. As Brad and Ruth sat in the class, a fire was ignited in their hearts. God was calling them out of their comfortable lives and telling them to go do something. They picked up their family and moved to Mongolia, leaving job and church and relatives behind.

Ruth said, “I don’t know what the final thing was that convinced us to move to Mongolia. Just through the class, we couldn’t rest knowing there were so many unreached people out there.” For Brad, it was “God’s glory and knowing that He deserved to be worshipped by everyone.” God was at work in ways they didn’t completely comprehend. Ultimately, they were convinced to leave behind everything comfortable and relocate to Ulaanbaatar, the coldest capital city in the world.

Communism fell in Mongolia in 1990 after the collapse of the Soviet Union. When Brad and Ruth and their family arrived in Mongolia, communism had left a disorganized chaos. The number of homeless children wandering the streets was staggering. Corruption was all too common. The streets were filthy and unkempt. Ruth said, “I had to choose either to look down at the filth where I was walking or to look up at the skyline.”

The sun’s light touching the buildings or dancing over the mountains in the distance can be a breathtaking sight. A change in perspective can reveal a lot. Mongolia’s government is transitioning. Things are improving.

It was about eight years ago that Brad and Ruth and their family moved to Ulaanbaatar, or “UB” as the locals refer to it. They have only their youngest three children with them in Mongolia. Brad now works as Country Director, recruiting, placing, training, and checking up on English teachers. Ruth is homeschooling their children in addition to teaching American Literature at a local school. They attend two churches, a weekly Bible study, a children’s Bible club, and help where they can, but do not lead. Ruth says, “I think of it like the part in the Bible where Aaron and Hur hold up the arms of Moses. We’re not leading; we’re just holding up the arms of Moses while the battle rages on. We encourage what’s going on with the national Christians. We hold them up.”

The daily routines of Brad and Ruth and their family could be typical, except that these routines take place on the other side of the world in a place that no American could really call typical. They are Christians living alongside shaman worshippers, Buddhists, people who worship their ancestors, people who worship themselves. Their day may sound similar to anyone’s—Brad going to work, Ruth doing lessons with her kids or piling everyone into the Land Cruiser so she can go teach at the school, dinner at home sometimes and out sometimes, the occasional movie or exercise time, church and church activities, holidays and gatherings. All of it could be done in the States. But insert all of the hiccups and hang-ups of living in a different culture, of building friendships with those whose first (sometimes only) language is definitely not your own, of the expectations that come with looking incredibly different from those around you. Insert poverty. Insert trying to explain that the worst poverty does not have to do with monetary wealth. Insert crowded buses and foreign faces and constant activity. This is the daily routine.

Brad and Ruth and their family currently live in a small apartment in the inner city of Ulaanbaatar. Previously, they lived in a larger home on a mountainside, but in January, as the new year began, God called Brad and Ruth to also make a new beginning when they lost their home to a fire. Even so, they continue their work. Could they have ever guessed what God would do in their lives? Certainly not.