ANUU GREW UP in a wealthy family in Ulam Bator, Mongolia. Her father was an architect, her grandfather a professor and map-maker with an office-construction business. The family business did well and Anuu's family wanted for very little materially.

Yet some cold currents moved under the easy flow of life in a rich, urban elite. Trouble in her parent's marriage culminated in divorce. Anuu's father went through a series of relationships, had a number of children, and eventually traded his traditional Buddhist faith for membership of an esoteric Japanese sect that believed in psychic powers.

Such unexpected conversions to fringe religions weren't, perhaps, quite as unusual in Mongolia at that time as it may seem to a British reader. For decades religion of all kinds had been repressed under the Communist regime, creating a spiritual void. The collapse of Communism in Mongolia in 1991 brought sudden freedom and many who had been spiritually starved under the authoritarian political system rushed to fill the gap.

The Christian Church, too, underwent something of a revival in Mongolia in the early 90s, though it was still small when Anuu's uncle and aunt became Christians in 1994. They took Anuu along to a little church. Seven-year-old Anuu heard, for the first time, the Christian gospel - that Jesus was "God with us", that through faith in Him a person can be saved.

Anuu believed it - but she had no idea how to put her new-found beliefs into any kind of practice.

"I knew that one day I would be a really serious Christian," she recalls. "That was my desire."

But it was a desire which lay dormant as Anuu's church attendance grew more and more sporadic. Partying and clubbing with her friends seemed higher priorities to teenage Anuu, though she remembers feeling a definite sense of God's protection over her: "God protected me from falling into things that would have harmed me like smoking and drinking."

Anuu quit school when she was 14. Her vague plan to go to High School in America became rather lost as she spent the days having fun with her friends. However, Anuu's sister lived in the UK and, at the age of 15 and a half, Anuu came to Oxford to do a foundation course in the hope of studying in an English university afterwards.

But Anuu had missed so much school she struggled with the foundation course. And she felt homesick, separated from her friends and family. As a result, she began to reach out the God she'd believed in as a child. Reading the Gospels, she remembers being moved by a new discovery of who Jesus was and what He did: "I cried as I realised that Jesus died for me," she says. "I realised, 'Wow, this is all true.'"

Anuu decided to go to church again. But which church? Unlike recently Communist Mongolia with its fledgling churches, Oxford had centuries of Christian tradition in its history and, it seemed to Anuu, churches on every other corner. But a few visits to traditional churches left Anuu feeling empty and disappointed.

"I found it difficult," Anuu states simply, adding "I wanted a church where people were 'real' and truly loved each other like in Asia." Liturgies and five-hymn sandwiches weren't doing it for her.

She was to find what she was looking for in an unexpected way. Strapped for cash, Anuu got herself a job as a papergirl. Delivering a newspaper to one typically large house on Woodstock Road, the main road into the city centre, Anuu found out that the house was "Living Faith", a Jesus Fellowship house, where Christians live together in community.

The simple conclusion to the story would be that Anuu found the church she was looking for, joined it and lived happily ever after.

In fact, she quit her newspaper job two days later and didn't think much more about Living Faith.

Not, that is, until Anuu got a ticket for a student ball. But she had no money. A memory stirred of a house full of generous Christians. And all of a sudden she sensed God saying she should go and see them. "Perhaps they'd lend me some money" she thought as she made her way to the Woodstock Road. This time she met Jake, one of the leaders of Jesus Fellowship Oxford.

Jake remembers it well. "Here was this young Mongolian student who we didn't really know at all, standing on the doorstep and asking for twenty-five quid to go to a ball! But I had a strange feeling that God was in it. So I gave her twenty-five pounds of common purse money. I felt she'd be back."

And, sure enough, when Anuu came on Sunday to give the money back she found herself deeply drawn to these loving people who lived together in Jesus' name. She began to come to Jesus Fellowship meetings.

"I saw the church as an answer to my prayers and heart longings." Anuu saw what the kingdom of God was about - a people living lives of love, given to each other and to God. That summer, she was baptised in the back garden of Living Faith.

A month later, Anuu had to go back to Mongolia. But it was a very different Anuu who returned to her family. "I'd decided not to pursue my old life with my friends; I wanted to walk a straight path with God."

Her testimony had a big impact on her family and friends. Her grandmother died in the Christian faith and at her funeral Anuu's mum and stepdad found faith in Jesus. And Anuu has faith for her dad to become a Christian, too.

When Anuu came back to the UK to study at Oxford Brookes University she continued her involvement with the Jesus Fellowship. Over the next few years came the challenge of reconciling the demands of her studies, her vision of the kingdom of God in community life - and her life back in Mongolia. There were ups and downs, but in the summer of 2007 Anuu moved into Living Faith for a Jesus Army training year (see below). "It was a step of obedience to the Holy Spirit" says Anuu. "Since I stepped forward, God has expanded my spirit; I have found a way into living the committed kingdom of God lifestyle that I was looking for."

Jake adds: "Anuu is a great asset to Living Faith: a source of joy, lightness and Holy Spirit inspiration."

Anuu became a committed covenant member of the Jesus Fellowship in February this year. She doesn't know all that the future holds, but, as Anuu herself puts it, "I know that I will be 'seeking first the kingdom'."