Inside Story for Friday 31st of January 2025

By Andrew McChesney

American missionary Joanne (Park) Kim locked herself in her apartment after being attacked by four drunken strangers in Mongolia. She was hurt, scared, and crying. She wanted to return home to the United States.

Image © Pacific Press

After two days, another missionary came to see her. She thought that he had come to comfort her, but instead he scolded her. “Seriously, Joanne, did you come all the way over here to witness to your closet?” he said. “Do you want Satan to win?”

It was just what Joanne needed to hear. If the missionary had comforted her, she would probably have wallowed in her misery, given up, and gone home. But now she reflected on why she had come to Mongolia. Initially, she had planned to go to Uzbekistan, so she had started learning Russian, including the Cyrillic alphabet. When the plan had fallen through, she had ended up in Mongolia, where the Cyrillic alphabet was the same, but she couldn’t understand a word. For the first couple of months, she had tried unsuccessfully to learn Mongolian. Without the language, she was struggling to witness. Without the language, she couldn’t ask for help or speak up for herself when she was attacked by drunken strangers nearly every week. Complicating matters, people kept assuming that she was Mongolian and spoke Mongolian because of her Korean ethnicity.

Joanne still wanted to share the love of Jesus in Mongolia, but she didn’t feel that she had any love left to share after multiple drunken attacks.

“Lord,” she prayed, “if You are serious about me staying here, please give me a way out of this mess. You need to protect me, or give me a way to handle these situations, or get rid of these drunken men.”

She decided to stay in Mongolia and wait on God.

The drunken attacks didn’t stop. But God gave Joanne a tool to defend herself. Within just three months, she learned to speak Mongolian fluently. It was a miracle. Joanne was able to give Bible studies in Mongolian, and she could speak up for herself and ask for help when she was attacked. But she couldn’t love like Jesus. The pain from the attacks ran very deep.

This mission story offers an inside look at American mis­sionary Joanne (Park) Kim, who helped start the Seventh-day Adventist work in post-Communist Mongolia and continues to serve as a missionary there. You also can participate in the mission work through this quarter’s Thirteenth Sabbath Offering, part of which will help open a recreation center where children can grow spiritually, mentally, socially, and physically in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. Read more about Joanne next week.

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