November 22, 2006

Friends,

We failed to write our monthly letter for October. A lot has happened since the beginning of October, and we are just settling in on this eve of Thanksgiving.

We started October by celebrating World Communion Sunday with new friends in Michigan. Simon went to Port Huron while Haejung worshipped with Gross Ile Presbyterian Church. On the following Sunday we bid au revoir to our friends at First Church in Bloomington, Indiana, by sharing during the adult Sunday school.

Simon and Haejung have been in different continents since then. Haejung took the responsibility of closing on the sale of our home, finding temporary housing, and packing and shipping the few items we will be taking to Korea.

“Korea?” you might ask.

Beginning in January 2007, we will be based in Taejon, Korea, until the end of our current assignment in December 2009. Haejung will serve as a missionary associate in the chaplain’s office at Hannam University, which was founded by the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) in 1956. The university has grown in physical and academic dimensions, but the distinct Christian spirit is not as strong as it was at the beginning. Haejung will be a symbolic presence as well as a bridge that connects the students and staff to our church. Specific tasks are yet to be determined, but we pray God will strengthen all of us to carry out this vital task. Simon’s responsibility of providing managerial assistance to partners remain the same, but now he will travel from a base in Korea and assist Hannam University when he is not on the road.

We will be living in one of the original houses in the mission station built in early 1950s. These houses look very Korean from the outside, complete with the Korean tiled roof, but inside the design is very Western. They have been designated as cultural heritage houses by the city of Taejon. We hope to live out the rich heritage of the mission, but in ways befitting today’s world and its needs. After almost ten years of mission service, we have finally managed not to put anything into storage. We are taking the essentials, a comfortable bed that will outlast us, and the dining table to serve as the gathering table around the Word. The rest we gave away to family and friends. It feels good to be free of many material possessions. The joy is not in having less, but in gaining the lifestyle of needing less.

We sold our house in the woods of beautiful Brown County, Indiana. We will miss the walks in the woods, the family of four deer who came daily to graze in our front yard, the flowers, trees, and birds. But we also know there are new joys waiting in Taejon for us to find and we know we will enjoy the history of mission, the new community, and new challenges.

While Haejung was doing all the packing, Simon went on a long trip. He went first to Korea to discuss plans with Hannam University leaders and even managed to speak to students about missionary life during their chapel services. He also preached in English at a local church for the expatriate students and the workers in the research park. For a visit without any specific agenda, it was quite an activity-filled three weeks.

Then Simon made a two-day visit to Cambodia. A large Presbyterian congregation in Seoul was making a visit to the country to explore appropriate ways to support the Christian community in Cambodia, and they asked Simon to join them and provide yet another perspective. It was a special opportunity to pray together, learn of challenges, and share hope in God. For a Korean congregation to carefully plan their mission work to build up the local church in the long run is quite unusual, and Simon was blessed to share some ideas along the way.

In spite of the busy meeting schedules, we made time to visit the monuments to the victims of genocides that happened under Pol Pot. During a five-year span (1975 to 1979), Ultra Communist Khmer Rouge Regime (UCKRR) went on a rampage of killing real or imagined opposition. In one area alone, Cheoung Ek, twenty thousand people were killed from 1976 to 1978. Today, the site holds the memorial for millions murdered throughout the country during the period. Many thoughts went through my mind during the two hours or so we spent at the sites, but two stand out.

The first is that the blood Jesus shed for the victims and the perpetrators of this unimaginable violence is exactly the same blood he shed for me, Haejung, and the rest of us. The second realization is that the seed of such violence and hatred is also in me. We are certain that the people who carried out this evil deed were also capable of loving their own children. It is only with the daily renewal of our relationship with God we are able to live as God’s children. Without this constant nurturing of God, our sinful nature reveals its ugly side in our words and thoughts. God forgive us, and we are grateful for your forgiveness.

Then, Simon continued onto Pakistan to participate in the board meeting of the Forman Christian College, which is a hope and pride of the Christian community in Pakistan. The only way to explain the miraculous resurrection of this institution, after its return to the church after thirty years of descending into ruin while in the government’s hands, is “in God anything is possible.”

Three days after returning from Pakistan, we participated in the mission fair at First Presbyterian Church in Champaign, Illinois. We made it to the Stony Point Center in southern New York to spend Thanksgiving with John, Kevin, and Sariah, Kevin’s fiancée. We are grateful for the opportunity to spend some time together with our children before our posting in Korea.

May you also have blessed and abundant holidays.

Haejung and Simon

The 2006 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, 261