May 2005
Dear Friends and Family,
Christ is risen! We came back from Nepal the day before the birth
of Christ, celebrated the resurrection, and now we are waiting
for the Holy Spirit to come upon us. The past four months has
been a joyful period of seeing old friends and making new ones,
including fellow diabetics. In Hastings, Nebraska, we even met
a canine diabetic needing two insulin shots per day.
We also miss several old friends who went to the Father’s
house while we were in Nepal. We miss them, but we rejoice for
their rich lives and the eternal peace they found. We have to
admit our life in “itineration” is more hectic than
it was in the “field.” Almost every week we are in
different towns sharing our story. Though physically tiring as
the travels are, it is truly a joy and privilege to share the
stories and to learn that so many have been praying for us and
others. We are humbled to be an object of such a support.
We will not be returning to Nepal for a long-term assignment.
Instead, Simon will probably visit Nepal for consulting assignments
in support of many UMN projects we assisted during the past term.
Simon is asked to be a consultant for partner churches and institutions
in wider geographical regions to help enhance their administrative
capacities. Haejung will concentrate on communication with more
than 300 Korean congregations within the PC(USA).
Simon’s first assignment is to assist in efforts to “update”
Presbyterian Women’s health ministry projects in Africa.
While the needs of the people and the institutions that care for
them remain, we need to study ways to benefit from the communications
revolution of the past decade. It promises to be a wonderful opportunity
to learn together. Similarly, Haejung’s work is to help
improve the quality of information going from the General Assembly
Council’s offices in Louisville to the Korean congregations
in order to enhance the impact of partnership in mission.
As we look back on the short seven years since we began our mission
journey, two things stand out as “lessons learned.”
We often think of mission as doing things for less fortunate people.
We learned it really is not about “doing” but “being.”
Being “creative” to find ways to overcome difficulties
and see God’s love in all circumstances. Being “open”
to different flavors of God’s love. Being “humble”
to leave room for Jesus to work through us.
We learned that one doesn’t discover God’s love is
by changing the circumstances but by realizing that God has been
loving people everywhere since the beginning.
The second component of being in God’s mission is not to
insist on our own vision and hope. Certainly, being able to envision
possibilities is important, but one must take care not to be fixated
on our vision over that of our local partners. After all, our
mission is to assist our brothers and sisters to be in God's household
and enjoy Him forever. Most of us “missionaries” entered
this profession with strong conviction that God calls us to be
His workers. This conviction can contribute to the misunderstanding
that our ideas and vision are the same as God’s vision for
the people. We learned to appreciate that God can and does give
dreams and hopes to His poor, uneducated, and suffering children
as often as to missionaries. It took us a long time to realize
that the proper question isn’t which of the missionaries
has the correct vision, but how we can help the poor and oppressed
to articulate their hopes and to discover and realize God’s
plan in their lives. This posture requires patience, humility,
and complete trust in God.
These days we are visiting churches and sharing our stories.
The visits help us relate our field experiences to faith life
in the pews. We learned that creativity, openness, and humility
are not only the necessary characteristics for being missionaries,
but also for being Christians. We learned that to be near the
center of God’s mission often makes us struggle against
divisive forces among us and against our natural selfish tendencies.
As we reflect and grow from these missionary experiences, we thank
God for His forgiving and abundant grace.
Until we decide on a good location to base ourselves as regional
consultants, we are working from our log cabin in beautiful Brown
County Indiana. We picked this location for several reasons besides
its beauty. Being 100 miles from the Presbyterian Center in Louisville,
it is not too far yet not too near. Consultation with the staff
at the Center is only a day trip. Also it is quite near Indiana
University for our continuing education and new opportunities
to work with young servants. We hope you will consider visiting
us when you are in central Indiana.
As always, the joy of coming home is the opportunity to be together
with John and Kevin. We spent Christmas all four of us together
for the first time in eight years. And last week they drove for
14 hours each way to spend two days with us at our new cabin.
It is obvious that God was with them while we were overseas and
we all grew to appreciate our blessings all the more.
We promise to write more often as our interpretation visits slow
down and we gain more field experiences to share. In the meantime,
stay creative, open, and humble before God.
Grace and peace,
Haejung & Simon
The 2005 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p.
118
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