Lost Opportunity

In her classes on the history of missions, Yvonne Wood of the U. S. Center for World Missions, describes what she calls “the biggest lost opportunity in missionary history.”

There was a thirteen-year-old in Mongolia who inherited a bit of land from his father. This boy was a precocious warrior with instinctive brilliance as a military strategist; he was also ruthless, and he formed fighting bands that went from village to village until he was ruling over two million people in a Mongolian Empire that stretched from China to India, and from Siberia to edges of Western Europe. They gave this young man the title of Genghis Khan and he ruled over more territory than any man has ever ruled.

Meanwhile, at the same time in Western Europe, a great revival was occurring under the preaching of men like St. Francis of Assisi, and thousands were becoming Christians.

Following Khan’s death, the bulk of his empire eventually went to his grandson, Kublai Khan, who established his capital city in Beijing. He had two Italians in his court named Polo, the father and the uncle of famed explorer Marco Polo. They began to tell Kublai Khan about Christianity, and the great ruler became very interested. He sent the Polo brothers back with a request for 100 missionaries to tell the Mongolians and the Chinese about Christianity. “When we learn about Christianity, there will be more Christians in my empire than in all Europe,” he said.

The Polos returned with the message, but no one was interested in going. Finally two friars agreed to go with the Polos (and Marco Polo accompanied them) but along the way the friars got fainthearted and turned around and went home.

When they got back to Kublai Khan, he said, “Where are the missionaries?” No one came. Eventually the church did send a small handful of missionaries, but by that time the opportunity had passed.