Seventh-day Adventist world church president Pastor Jan Paulsen joined celebrations this week in Mongolia of the first Adventist language school there and the 1,000th member of the Mongolia Mission Field (MMF).

Paulsen’s visit bolstered the emergent Adventist presence in Mongolia, said Paul Kotanko, MMF director. Local members, he noted, “were impressed by [Paulsen’s] comments, especially how [he] invited people to come to church and see that the church is good for young people and good for the community.”

During his two-day visit, Paulsen also met with Mongolian national president, Nambaryn Enkhbayar. The two discussed the Adventist church, noting in particular its activities and involvement in community affairs.

“We are a relatively new community in Mongolia,” Paulsen informed President Enkhbayar. “I would like the leaders and the public to come to know the church as a community and service that benefits the people, particularly the youth.”

Paulsen also emphasized the church’s keen interest in supporting freedom of conscience and its desire to work for the good of all citizens. “Globally, Seventh-day Adventists are a law-abiding people and are not political activists. We will work with the government for the betterment of all people,” he said.

President Enkhbayar affirmed the country’s support of religious freedom and said that the government wants all religions to be free and no one restricted in their worship or expression of religious conviction in public.

Later that evening, Paulsen appeared on Mongolian national television as the guest of one of the country’s most popular talk show hosts.

Paulsen also spoke during the inauguration services for the new Adventist language school in Ulaanbaatar, which expects an initial enrollment of 500 students. The school is a satellite of the main language school in Korea, which currently serves some 50,000 students from 39 institutes.

Paulsen’s talk show interview was rebroadcast the following morning and elicited inquiries by locals. Kotanko says people called the TV studio and asked about enrollment procedures, giving the school “a very good boost.”

The Mongolian language school aims to be the best in the country, Paulsen said. According to school officials, those who attend are not compelled to subscribe to Adventist beliefs. However, language instruction is done by teachers who hold values that will hopefully benefit the students.

Following a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the new school, Paulsen—accompanied by leaders from the church’s Northern Asia-Pacific region, including its president, Jairyong Lee, and education director Chek Yat Poon—met with Mongolia’s Minister of Education, Culture, and Science, O. Enkhtushvin.

The Adventist leadership in Mongolia revealed that the church is planning to build an elementary school with prospects of becoming a secondary school. The curriculum will emphasize vocational training over classical education, which will be in harmony with the country’s educational master plan, Minister Enkhtushvin noted.

After Paulsen outlined the scope of Adventist education, Minister Enkhtushvin welcomed the church’s initiative and offered his full support. Enkhtushvin also expressed appreciation for the Adventist Church’s religious tolerance. “I personally have no religion,” he said, “but [I] believe everyone should be free to choose.”

To celebrate the Mongolia Mission Field’s 1,000th baptized member, Guan Bold, Paulsen joined Adventist leaders and church members at the Ulaanbaatar church. A candlelight ceremony marking the milestone in membership signified both the spread of the gospel in Mongolia and the work yet unfinished, local church leaders report.

For more than 70 years, Mongolia was ruled by communism with religious practices forbidden and Christianity proscribed. Soon after the fall of the Soviet Union, laws were relaxed and the first missionaries ventured into Mongolia in the early 1990s. Brad Jolly, an Adventist from the United States, went to Mongolia in 1992 under the sponsorship of Adventist Frontier Missions, an organization that sponsors missionaries to the more remote areas of the world. The first baptism took place one year later.

“It is important to say thank you to all the missionaries who have given their lives to spreading the gospel in the far reaches of Mongolia,” said a local church elder, Elbert Kuhn. Church work remains difficult in Mongolia, due to a largely secularist society.