I visited Korea to officiate Ha-jun and Ha-young’s wedding on Saturday, and after the ceremony I was glad to meet former members of God’s Vision Church. Our dentist in the UK said our son’s permanent tooth needed to be extracted and kept us waiting nearly a year, so I brought him as well. With the jet lag, meeting people was not easy. I planned only to meet the pastor who will speak at the Christmas retreat (December 19 to 22) and a pastor to prepare for UK KOSTA (Korean Students All Nations – Christian Conference), which we are thinking of holding around April next year. Even without detailed plans, God granted many good meetings and times of fellowship.
We stayed at the missionary guesthouse of Shingil Waymakers Church (Senior Pastor Lee Ki-yong), an apartment five minutes’ walk from the church, and it was very comfortable. I had originally been scheduled to preach only at the church of the pastor who is coming as the retreat speaker, but Pastor Lee also asked me to preach at the fifth Sunday service, and we shared the Lord’s grace together. He is set to become the denominational president of the Korea Evangelical Holiness Church next year, so he was on a busy schedule, yet we still had time for fellowship over breakfast twice.
A few years ago, when he visited London, he felt a strong prompting from God that London is important for world missions. He returned so gripped by it that he said, “We need to establish a mission centre in London.” As we spent time together this trip, he affirmed that conviction, and I shared my usual thoughts on how that mission could move forward. At breakfast on the morning I left Korea, he said the church is planning meaningful projects for its 60th anniversary next year, and that an elder who was greatly blessed by my sermon had himself suggested partnering with God’s Vision Church in mission. He proposed that we continue to work together.
What is more, the day before, during a long call with a college classmate now serving as a missionary in South America, I learned that Pastor Lee had been three years ahead of us at university and had belonged to another Christian organisation that used the same club room. When I told Pastor Lee this, he said, “No wonder the name Youngjoo Lee sounded familiar,” and was delighted. He said that God had been preparing for my mission for 35 years already.
On Sunday evening, Pastor Choi Byung-rak of Gangnam Central Baptist Church came all the way to Shingil Church, where I was, and treated me to dinner at a fine restaurant. During my last visit to Korea I had preached at his church’s youth service, but he had been in the United States and unable to host me, so he travelled a long way this time to do so. He pastors the second-largest church in the Baptist denomination and he could have just called to say hello, yet, valuing the relationship, he came in person, which moved me. In Korea they have for years hosted a football tournament for immigrants from forty countries so that they might hear the gospel at least once. What is remarkable is not the size of the church but his distinctive passion for the salvation of souls. Over dinner we also had a deep conversation about diaspora mission for immigrants in Korea.
I thanked God for letting someone like me, with nothing to boast of humanly, meet and fellowship with such precious pastors who share a special zeal for mission. I do not know yet how we will work together, but I believe that if I quietly obey God here in London, where he has called me, he will bring new things to pass.
