Bill and Amy Stearns, in their book 20/20 Vision, relate how the gospel came to Mongolia:

In the 1870s Swedish missionaries arrived in Mongolia—what was called "Outer Mongolia." After four decades of several teams' blood, sweat, and tears, not a single indigenous church had been established. Then in 1921 Mongolia earned the dubious distinction of being the only country in the world to voluntarily invite the Soviets to bring communism to their country. In the ensuing purge, every vestige of Christianity—as well as any other religion—was erased, and more than one million Lamaisric Buddhist priests were slaughtered. Religion was dead in Mongolia.

In 1980 a young Mongolian whom we'll call Yi (Mongolians traditionally have only one name) went to study at a university in Moscow. Yi received an English-language Bible from a fellow student from Tanzania. "You can study English with it," the Tanzanian student explained. Yi then studied the Word for seven years, returning to Mongolia and rising to a top English interpreter position with the government. In 1987 Yi was assigned to an American big-game tourist group, which had come to Mongolia to hunt bear. Doug Coe, a Christian, was one of the tourists.

During the hunting trip Yi found the opportunity to secretly ask Doug, "Do you know God?" Doug nodded.

Three hours later, Yi was able to whisper, "What is his name?"

"Jesus Christ."

In bits and pieces of stolen conversations throughout the rest of the big-game hunt, Doug was able to introduce Yi to Jesus.

"Don't worry," he told Yi. "I know it's illegal to be a Christian, and it will be hard for you. But friends will come." Then the foreign hunters left Mongolia.

Three years later Yi was assigned to another foreign tour group—a cowboy team of Navajo, Winnebago, Cocapaw, and other Native Americans who came to Mongolia to perform in the national nadim, a competition in horsemanship. Of course, the group was a Christian Native American cowboy team. So Yi translated their testimonies on national TV and interpreted their explanation of the Gospel to press groups and officials. Several Mongolians responded to the team's challenge to receive Christ, and Yi spent hours and hours drinking in everything the team knew about the Word. Then they too had to leave Mongolia.

Yi began discipling those who'd come to Christ through the cowboys' ministry. Then another tour group came, a few members of which happened to be pastors. The ministers, after days of intense discipling, realized the depth of Yi's Bible knowledge and the unusual bursts of his spiritual insights. So they all gathered in a hotel room in Ulaan Bataar one very cold day in November 1990 and ordained Yi as an elder of the first Mongolian church in the history of the world!