The Miracle of the Ger

April 12, 2010

The Miracle of the Ger

A couple of weeks ago, a young woman came into our office.  She said that a few years ago, her mother and her sisters were without a home.  They were really destitute.  Someone from the Church in the states donated money to her family so they could buy a ger.  They were eventually able to move into a little home on the same property, but are now planning on moving into a better home and they wanted to give the ger back so it could be used buy someone else who needed it.  The ger had been dismantled and was being stored on the property.  The family was going to be moving in about two weeks and the ger had to be picked up before they moved.

We had Battsegtseg call one of the branch presidents in that part of town who told us he knew a couple of families who needed a ger and he would make arrangements for one of them to have it. 

However, this morning our translator Battsegtseg received a phone call from the young woman who had contacted us earlier.  She said that no one had come to pick up the ger and the family was going to be moving today.  If the ger wasn’t picked up today, we would lose the opportunity to give it to someone.  Immediately we had Battsegtseg call the branch president that she had talked to earlier.  He said he couldn’t get in touch with either of the families who needed a ger and they hadn’t been to church lately.  He said for us to try to find someone else who might need it.

Elder Lasson had Battsegtseg call the new district president, President Altanzukh, who said that there was someone in Sukhbaatar Branch who needed a ger.  It was a woman and her three children.  She is a member of Sukhbaatar Branch where he lives. The older daughter is a return missionary, the teenage daughter is a member who is the conductor of the Ulaanbaatar East District choir, and the son who is about 23-years old and who is not a member of the Church, has been taking missionary lessons and wants to be baptized. Currently, the two older children can’t go to school because they have to work to help with family expenses.

President Altanzukh called the branch president and then called us back to confirm their need.  The branch president told President Altanzukh that the branch had tried to buy the family a ger, but the gers were too expensive.  They had also tried to find a used ger to buy, but were unsuccessful, so the family was living in a small room that they rented from a friend who they paid 24,000 tugs a month to.  It doesn’t seem like much, but for a single mother in Mongolia, it is still very expensive.  To have their own ger would be a blessing to their family.  The mother of the family used to have a ger, but her brother needed one, so she gave her ger to him and now that she needed one herself, she didn’t have one. The branch president who is a guard and was just finishing a 48-hour shift said he would bring a another man with him and they would help Elder Lasson move the ger.

We said we would call our trucker, who has helped us many times to move wheelchairs, to see if we could hire him to help us move the ger.  We called him, but there was no answer.  We waited a little while and tried again, but we needed to go when the family was still in the fence of the ger and when our help was available, but still no answer.  We hated to try another trucker because we trust him and have established a friendship with him.

Suddenly, Battsegtseg received a phone call.  It was our trucker Choijantsan.  She told him of our need and he said he was available and would be right over.

It was good to see him again, and he was happy to see us, too.

While we waited for the others to arrive, he visited with Battsegtseg.  He told her that his cell phone was broken.  He showed us the screen.  It was blank.  He said that he couldn’t receive phone calls nor could he make phone calls.  He then told us that he just felt impressed to call us.  So he went to a street vendor who had a phone and paid the vendor for the phone call. 

We all looked at each other in amazement.  The Lord knew that this sweet family needed a ger and he knew that we would need Choijantsan’s help, but we were still amazed that even though Choijantan’s phone was broken, he had received an impression that we needed his help and that he had acted on that impression. 

When Elder Lasson, accompanied by Elder Clark, Battsegtseg, the Sukhbaatar Branch President and the other man who came to help, took the ger to the family, the mother invited them into her small one-room apartment to have something hot to eat.  That morning she had fixed goat meat and some vegetables.  She said that she usually doesn’t cook during the day, but this morning she felt like she should cook, and she didn’t know why; she just did.  She didn’t know she was going to receive a ger, but she was grateful that she had something ready to serve so she could show her gratitude to her guests.  She also said that since her son has been taking missionary lessons, her family has received blessings.  She felt that the ger was another one of those blessings.

I have no doubt that this is the Lord’s work. I am grateful to be on his errand, and I am grateful to be a witness to the miracle of the ger.