Today would have been her 25th birthday.
I would have sent her a note through Facebook Messenger letting her know how much she meant to my family, how much we loved her. Depending on her day, she would’ve responded with a “Love you, miss you bro” or a “Really?!”
I actually would have preferred a “Really?!” because it was always an invitation to expound. No doubt, I would have stopped whatever I was doing to pour Carlie’s and my heart for her into that keyboard. I’m not sure what direction I would have gone but the destination was always the same.
Battsengel passed away after an unexpected stroke last summer at just 24 years old. There will be no more birthday messages, updates on her latest job, or chances to say, “We love you more than you’ll ever know”. But she’s now living fully in that Love that Carlie, New Hope, and I were only able to offer her in part.
Carlie and I first met Tsengel when we she was 12 years old during our first visit to New Hope Children’s Home in Mongolia, long before I became WEGO’s Director. Many years before that, she was found on the streets as a small child and no one was able to locate her family or where she even came from. No history. No birthday. No name. Just a lost soul no one seemed to be looking for. By God’s grace, she was placed in WEGO’s home for children just like her.
Upon entering our doors as an 8-year-old, a new story began to be written. Her birthday became the day she first arrived, March 17th, and she received the name ‘Enerelt Battsengel’. Mongolian names are typically the father’s name followed by a given name. Not knowing her father, she adopted the name of our home, originally registered in Mongolia as ‘Hands of Mercy’. Enerelt means Mercy.
Through our ministry, Battsengel heard about Jesus for the first time and responded in faith. She began to discover who she really was. She finally started to learn her real name.
During that first visit to New Hope, Carlie and I spent a couple months with her and the rest of the kids at the home. She was always bright-faced, tender-hearted, curious, and ready to laugh. One of my earliest memories was a holding a Mongolian baby while it peed all over me. Tsengel started laughing and said that meant I’d be pregnant soon, apparently a Mongolian old wives’ tale. She was only half wrong as Carlie took a positive pregnancy test just a few days later. This was actually the first of two such Dodd-baby-prophecies. The second came during a trip in 2015 when she once again told Carlie and I we were pregnant. Unaware of the connection, nine months later we named that baby Mercy.
Over many trips and visits, it became clear to us that Battsengel was more than a kid we met overseas. I can’t even explain it. She was a part of our family, she was our sister and daughter. It was never official but we all knew it to be true. We were able to walk with her through many seasons of sadness, pain, doubt, and a lot of deep-belly laughter. “Jokey, jokey!” was her favorite phrase and life’s mantra, one my family will carry on.
Looking back, we always had one real agenda in our relationship with Battsengel. We just wanted her to know that unconditional, no-matter-what love of Jesus. I remember a conversation she had with Carlie a few years ago, “Will you still love me if I _____ or what if I _____ or _____?”
“Yes!”
How beautiful is that? How profound? That’s what we all want, isn’t it? We all long for a place to be fully known, yet fully loved in spite of what is found out. She was testing the boundaries of our love and trying to find her worth. She just wanted to feel safe. She needed to know we weren’t going anywhere even when we were often thousands of miles away. There were chapters of her life she didn’t even know, but I pray with all my heart she knew she was loved.
One of my last moments with her in Mongolia was in 2019 when she tagged along for a full day of meetings and meals with friends and local pastors. We had just finished a meeting when I asked her and my Mongolian pastor-friend to stay back. Tsengel and I often spoke in sparse English so I wanted to clearly pour out Carlie’s and my love for her in a language she could better take to heart. My friend translated as I let her know the depth of our affection for her and how we hold her closer than anyone we’ve ever known, alongside our own children. I’m pretty sure I cried. I just wanted her to know how loved she was, no matter the “what ifs”.
As Carlie and I watched her burial through the lens of a friend’s FaceTime call, I thought my tears were finally all dried up. We were silent and somber as they tossed dirt on her casket and offered prayers of gratitude for her life. They finished her service and finally removed the purple cloth draping her headstone. I lost it when I saw what was unveiled. It was just her name, the years of her life, and a single cross carved into the stone. In a country of less than 2% Christian, there is a cross above her grave.
No longer an orphan, street-wanderer, or ward of the State.
No longer a New Hope kid, waitress, or an unofficial Dodd.
No longer Enerelt Battsengel.
She now knows her real name.
She is Loved.
That’s all that really mattered anyway.
