Roughly 15 years after spearheading a drive to build the Arkansas House of Prayer in Little Rock, Episcopal priest Susan Sims Smith plans to raise funds again, this time to build a similar interfaith prayer center in Mongolia.
Sims Smith estimates roughly $1 million will be needed.
She initially intended to kick off the fundraising effort in 2020; the worldwide pandemic forced her to postpone her plans.
"The project is still in the making. Covid is the only thing that has interrupted it," she said.
The Venerable Thupten Kuten-la, the Tibetan state oracle and a spiritual adviser to the Dalai Lama, shared his vision for a new round meditation room while visiting Arkansas in 2016 at the invitation of Sims Smith. Known as Kuten-la, those who seek his guidance consider him a medium between spiritual and human realms.
The location for the latest center was never in doubt, she said.
"He told me the Spirit had told him that he needed to build it in Mongolia," she said.
"I asked him 'Why Mongolia?'" she recalled. "He said, 'There's a deep Buddhist presence there, and that there's a small interfaith community and ... to strengthen the country and the people, there needed to be a place for silence and prayer that could welcome people from different faiths."
Sims Smith said she told Kuten-la, through an interpreter, "I feel like the Spirit is nudging me to help you with your project."
GOING TO MONGOLIA
He invited her to travel to Mongolia in 2017 for his 60th birthday celebration; she was one of his roughly three dozen guests from around the globe.
"He said ... 'I want you to meet the people. I want you to get to know the people. I want you to tell them about the Arkansas House of Prayer. I want you to show photos of it. And I want you to tell them about the interfaith work that's going on in Arkansas and I want you to see about their culture and what the needs are there," she said.
She decided to go, accompanied by her husband and by Little Rock photographer Amy Carper. Carper also had captured striking images of Kuten-la's Arkansas sojourn.
The images will be used to help share the vision for a new interfaith center.
Mongolia, Asia's largest landlocked nation, has a population of roughly 3.2 million people, according to the CIA's World Factbook. About half -- 1.6 million -- live in and around Ulan Bator, the capital city.
Just over half of all Mongolians identify as Buddhists, with 3% embracing Islam, 2.9% Shamanism and 2.2% Christianity. Nearly 39% claim no religious affiliation, the World Factbook states.
When Mongolia was a satellite state of the Soviet Union, Buddhists were persecuted.
"It's been a country that was taken over by Communists. People were murdered for being Buddhist. They were murdered for being any religion," she said.
Following the 1990 Mongolian Revolution, Buddhism has experienced a resurgence.
Interfaith efforts can help create a bulwark so that the Communists "don't come in and take over again," Sims Smith said.
"When you stabilize the local people and allow them to worship in their own way and teach them to be friends with each other you stabilize the whole democracy," she said.
SHARING WITH DONORS
With Kuten-la's blessing, Sims Smith began crafting material that could be shared with potential donors, she said.
"I worked with Amy Carper and her staff to create the most gorgeous visuals you have ever laid eyes on for a development project," she said.
The information was presented to Kuten-la in late 2019 during his visit to California, Sims Smith said. It received his enthusiastic support, she said.
She was in India in March 2020 to meet with Kuten-la and help organize a fundraising trip to the United States, but she had to cut the trip short due to the fast-developing pandemic.
"I was there for only two nights," she said.
Since then, the project has been in something of a holding pattern.
Even so, pledges have begun arriving, she said.
"One Little Rock woman has donated $100,000 to make this building happen in Mongolia. And another Little Rock family has donated $25,000 and we haven't even started raising money yet. This just came from people who heard about it," she said.
Carper's "incredible" images will help advance the effort, Sims Smith said.
"She's very, very talented. She really captures the spirit of the people and of the country and of the essence of what is trying to be done," Sims Smith added.
Carper spent several days with Kuten-la and the monks that accompanied him to Arkansas in 2016. In Mongolia, she documented the activities of Sims Smith and Kuten-la, capturing the celebrations.
ADMIRING EASTERN RELIGIONS
Carper expressed admiration for the Eastern religion traditions she encountered.
"Western religion is great except they've kind of forgotten the mystery and the auspiciousness of many things," she said. "I love the auspiciousness, I love the uncertainty of God, I love the mystery of God. So, without the mystery, I'm kind of bored. 'Ordinary' just wasn't enough for me."
Once the work portion of her trip was completed, she traveled into the Gobi desert, riding atop a camel and experiencing a sandstorm.
The desert time was beneficial, she said. "What it taught me was the importance of solitude," she said.
The time spent with the Kuten-la and the monks in Asia was extraordinary, Carper said.
"It was a mind-blowing experience," she said. "The energy was just phenomenal."
The coronavirus subsequently threw a monkey wrench into the project, but Carper said she's determined to help it advance.
"I'm not going to let covid come in and shut down everything," she said.
As a Christian, Carper said she believes that God can bring joy in the midst of suffering.
"You have to go through the darkness in order to be brought out into the light," she said.
