Friday was a dark day for Inhay and Bodio. Thursday evening their little girl named Itgel (which means “Faith�) was happily laughing and playing as any four-month old baby would normally do. That evening she began to cry and would not be comforted. She began to run a fever. It was a long night for their family. In the morning, Bodio took little Itgel to Dr. Pham (our C&MA team physician). He prayed for her and said to take her to the hospital right away.
Pieter Theron had Bodio and Itgel get into his car to get them to hospital, and en route the crying stopped and Itgel went to be with Jesus. We aren’t positive of the cause of death, but in all likelihood meningitis is the culprit that took her life.
Today, as I type this, there is a funeral happening up in Darhan. Our team mate
Brent, along with a Mongolian co-worker named Dawaa will be performing the funeral.
Any time a baby dies a lot of questions come to mind - “Why?�, perhaps being one of the first. Babies are not supposed to die. Babies are supposed to laugh and play and get teeth and learn to walk and talk. They are supposed to eventually go to school and get an education and grow up to choose a career and get married and have more babies. Babies are not supposed to have funerals.
This is a hard thing for us to get our minds around. We know the theology. We know what it is true. But it still must be one of the most difficult things on the planet to grasp or to make any sense of.
I am thankful that as Christians who serve the God of all the Universe, we do have some rock solid truth in which to place our faith. God is good. God is wise. God is just. God is ultimately sovereign. God is working everything (even terrible, horrible bad things) for our good. He sees the beginning from the end and dwells outside of time and space. He is for us and not against us. He loves little Itgel and she is now happily laughing and playing in His presence.
I am grateful that the Christian understanding of sovereignty is far different from Mongolia’s predominate religion’s view of sovereignty. When we as Christians ask God “Why?�, we don’t end up in a place of rigid and hopeless stoicism. We end up in the arms of a God who has lived our pain. He knows. He is not a stranger to losing a child. We end up in the arms a Father who weeps with the childless. He’s not a Father who tells us to ‘buck up’ and ‘stop crying’. He grieves and empathizes with Inhay and Bodio today at the funeral of their daughter - and He can do that because He was at the funeral of His Son.
Here’s what has stirred my passions this entire weekend. God is using the death of Itgel to solidify my heart and my determination for working in Mongolia for the long haul. I have the preceding three paragraphs of truth to hold on to when suffering happens in my life. Indeed, I have a lifetime ... no ... thousands of lifetimes of truth. We in the Western world have 2000 years of Church history and 5000+ years of redemptive history to to help our faith hold when children die, or events of equal or greater tragedy strike our lives. There’s been a church in Mongolia for about 20 years (maximum). The Mongolian church is shallow and has been influenced by the shallow (i.e., heretical) stupid grins of prosperity teachers and their books and false promises. This church needs the ancient foundations laid. Inhay and Bodio don’t need to be told that if they’ll just pray and believe good things (and give their money) that they will have all of God’s blessings. They just want their daughter back ... and they need to know that this is not just some random thing that has happened. They need to know the deep truths of God. His goodness. His wisdom. His sovereignty. They need to know what it means to embrace the cross of Christ and to trust, and that in doing that they will find grace and peace and meaning.
Today we weep with our friends.
In the days to come we will need to point them to the depths of God and the historical mountain of truth that enables a soul to be steadied through difficult times. My prayer is that in the end, Inhay and Bodio will indeed find “Itgel� (Faith) in every sense, and that their final word in this will be worship of the One who infinitely loves and infinitely cares.
I personally have a deeper burden than ever for solid foundations in the Mongolian church. This is why we are here. This is why we will stay.