Ms Mongush’s father died when she was four and she and her brother lived in a village on the Mongolian border with their mother, who worked for the Communist administration. The family practised Buddhism in secret because the authorities repressed all religions.

“We had a lot of things that we used in our worship, including books, candleholders and idols of Buddha,” Ms Mongush remembers. “The statue of Buddha was the centre of everything and I spent a lot of time in front of it.”

She remembers her uncle, a high lama, performing Buddhist ceremonies in their home and giving her a sacred conch shell to ward off evil spirits. But she also remembers him being shot by the authorities for practising his religion.

Her mother remarried but the couple began drinking heavily. Her stepfather also got involved in illegal activities, her mother was conned out of a lot of money while drunk, her brother fell seriously ill and her uncle was shot dead. Her mother and stepfather got divorced.

Trying to change her fortunes, her mother rejected Buddhism and turned to shamanism.

“My mother hoped the shamans could change things but shamanism is a religion that can only give you fear, not hope,” Ms Mongush declares. “They deal with spirits of mountains, lakes, or forests, and usually they are evil spirits that must be placated.”

Ms Mongush moved to Kyzyl, the capital of the Tuva Republic, to attend music school. One of her teachers was a woman named Zinaida Kazantseva, who was also a leader in the local Baptist church. This woman was a mystery to the young music student.

“I couldn’t understand why she sold her dacha house and garden (a holiday property outside the city) to pay for the publishing of the Book of Jonah in the Tuvin language*,” she remembers.

Her old superstitions were still strong, however, and when a bird tapped on her window one day, she took it as a bad omen. She decided to attend one of the Bible study classes run by her teacher.

“I thought that Zinaida was a fortune-teller and could tell me what the bird meant,” she says.

Happiness

She arrived as the group started a discussion about the meaning of happiness.

“I was asked if I was happy,” she recalls. “I couldn’t tell them I was happy because I was too worried about that bad sign. Then I was amazed to hear people praying and I kept hearing my name being said. That was a good feeling – but it was something new for me.”

Ms Mongush began attending the Bible studies regularly and eventually became a Christian. And although she sometimes found it difficult to understand the Russian Bible because it was her second language, she says she found “a fullness and a joy” in God’s Word.

After graduating from music school, she turned down the opportunity to study further and instead returned to her village to teach music and share her faith.

“I was the only Christian in my village but I didn’t show a very good example,” she admits. “I continued to drink and I slept with a boyfriend. But I saw my sin and called out to God.”

She started teaching and organised a Bible class – only to discover she was pregnant.

Curse

“You can imagine how difficult it was living in a small village as a Christian and pregnant with no husband,” she says. “I even questioned whether to have my baby. Finally, I decided that I should, but other people in the village could see me growing daily and saw it as a curse.”

Ms Mongush’s mother is now a Christian and shares with others her experience of what false religions did to her life. Ms Mongush teaches music and Bible studies in Kyzyl but she also has her eyes set on a new goal.