Bold Batsukh was ordained August 4, becoming the first Mongolian to enter the Seventh-day Adventist Church ministry. The ordination service took place at the country’s first-ever Adventist camp meeting, held August 1 to 6 at the Selenge Campground near Erdenet, northern Mongolia.

The ordination marks a significant milestone for the Adventist Church in Mongolia, says Michael Ryan, Global Mission director for the Adventist world church.

“Ten years ago, there were no Adventists in Mongolia,” says Ryan. “But today, thanks to the dedication and enthusiasm of frontline mission workers such as Bold, more and more people in this overwhelmingly atheistic country are finding hope in Jesus Christ.”

Ryan, who baptized Batsukh in 1993, says the Mongolian church is a very young church; most of its 207 baptized members are in their early to mid-20s. 

Some 3 million people live in Mongolia; 80 percent are under 30 years of age. The majority of young people are atheists, while many older people retain ties to Buddhism.

In the early 1990s, as Mongolia emerged from more than 70 years of religious repression under communism, two missionaries, Brad and Cathie Jolly, began establishing a small Adventist community in Ulaanbaatar, the capital city.  Since then, other Adventist groups have flourished in the capital as new believers started small group meetings in their homes.

Batsukh, now in his mid-20s, pastored at the main Ulaanbaatar Adventist church for two years until August 1999, when he moved with his wife, Otguh, to the city of Darhan, an industrial center with a population of 80,000.  In December last year, 38 people were baptized in Darhan, forming the first Adventist company outside the Mongolian capital.

Douglas Clayville, associate secretary at the Adventist Church world headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland, United States, and Dale Tunnell, Mongolia Mission Field Director, led out in Batsukh’s ordination service.