Dear Friends and Family:

Long time no see, almost a year! We have been back here in Louisville, Kentucky, since June of 2001 and are preparing to start our new assignment as Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) missionaries, this time in Nepal.

We came back in early June to participate in the 213th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) where Simon served as a Overseas Advisory Delegate (his vote did not count) and also preached in one of the morning worships during the Assembly. All the worship services were wonderful and the meetings were, well, informative and interesting.

During the summer months, we concentrated on returning and reconnecting; Kevin and John came to visit us at the furlough home, we visited our home church in Denver (Central), and we tried to get used to the material abundance everywhere. We had our end-of-term physical, and Haejung left for Korea to see her mother in September. While she was on the plane crossing the Pacific, Simon learned that he needed a coronary bypass surgery immediately. All the mission interpretation visits had to be canceled.

Fortunately, John was visiting and he handled most of the communication and driving. Haejung cut her visit short and returned on September 11th. Her plane landed in Minneapolis rather than Chicago, but she was finally able to get to Louisville two days later. Simon’s surgery went well and he was able to go home after only three days of hospital stay. He has recovered well and his heart is back to normal, although the recovery from the surgery itself will take a while longer. We thank God for protecting us while we were at a place where these procedures were not available. The doctor thinks our healthy lifestyle in Congo kept the condition in check and prevented any damage to the heart muscle.

After six weeks of recovery, in early November we got back on the mission interpretation circuit and made numerous trips to west and east coasts and places in between. Simon even made a couple of short visits to El Salvador to work with a partner church there. We expect to continue with these visits until we leave for Kathmandu, Nepal. The more visits we make, the more we are convinced that it is all in God’s hands, and we are only a small part of the entire Church obeying God’s commands. We do not have any accomplishments to report, so we end up sharing what we learned during our preparation and stay in Congo. We know God will teach us what we can handle until the day he calls us home.

We are now called to serve with the United Mission to Nepal (UMN) for the next three years. Set up in 1954 by eight mission organizations, including the PC(USA), UMN has grown to include 51 member bodies and affiliated member bodies from 17 countries. When it was founded it was the first interdenominational, multinational Christian consortium of its kind in the world.

Nepal is located between India and China with a population of 22 million people. Being the only Hindu kingdom in the world, foreign missionaries are not allowed to proselytize directly to the Nepalese people, but we are invited to demonstrate the love of Christ through development, education and health ministries. What a challenge to walk the talk. We even made a short discernment visit to Nepal in January of this year. Simon will be working as a consultant for organizational and financial administration, and Haejung will be working with missionary children in their education. We have completed our physical and psychological evaluation and are waiting for the visa. We hope to be in Kathmandu by early August to start our language training, again. When we left Congo, we prayed for three things: no more malaria prophylaxis, telephone availability, and no new language. Two out of three is not bad!

Seriously, we found that language training is a good lesson in humility and a demonstration of our genuine concern for the people. Just like in Congo, we know the folks appreciate our effort regardless of our fluency in their language, and it opens the relationship. We expect our five-month orientation and language training period will be difficult and frustrating, but we pray that we can stay up-beat and trust in God.

Until we leave for Nepal, we will continue to visit churches and share our stories. If you would like to invite us to visit your church, we still have a few open dates in May and June. The PC(USA)’s policy is that the inviting church is responsible for our travel costs lodging, but since we are on the payroll of PC(USA) we do not accept honoraria.

We know we should be preparing for Nepal assignment, but more prayer and the right attitude is what we need most at this time. It is not our knowledge base or contacts, but the obeying heart God demands of us. We know when we go to Nepal, we are not going alone but with the prayers of all our friends and family. Please pray that we remain faithful and obedient.

We promise to write more often this year.

In Christ,

Haejung & Simon