A letter from Simon and Haejung Park in Korea
March 28, 2010
Friends,
It’s been so long since we have written, that I don’t even remember the exact month we last wrote. Put your mind at ease — we are well, healthy and quite engaged in mission. Nevertheless, we offer our apology for not writing more often.
Now that you have accepted our apology, allow us to bring you up to date, at least the first steps. Unlike our past terms, we have been reappointed to Korea for another three-year term that ends in 2012. Haejung now has an additional duty of being the site coordinator for the brand new Young Adult Volunteer (YAV) site in Korea. The YAV program was started sixteen years ago to offer a one-year mission experience to the twenty-something members in the Presbyterian Church. They serve in many social witness programs during the period of discernment for their career and life journey. They serve in the United States and internationally, and we are offering opportunities in Korea for the first time this year.
Each site has a theme and in Korea, it is to “shine God’s light and warmth into the shadow of globalization.” Everyone knows the story of Korea’s phenomenal economic growth during the past two decades and its important place in the global markets. During the past several years we became keenly aware that global markets fall short of developing global communities for all. Migrant workers, brides from Southeast Asia living in rural areas, their children are all who suffer in the shadow. Our YAVs will be working in partnership with Korean YAVs to share God’s love with these children of God. We are certain that Haejung and Simon, the YAVS and the children we minister to, and our partners will all grow closer to God through the experiences we share. The Presbyterian Church of Korea and Hannam University are institutional partners, and we will be working with local congregations, after school programs, and community service programs.
Haejung and Simon participated in the placement event for the YAVs and are delighted to share with you that the young face of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) will be represented by Becky Francisco, Jennifer McArdle, and Katie Patterson beginning in September. They are all very different from each other, but together they make a wonderful team of disciples. They will live together in the mission station on the Hannam campus, continuing the mission started 56 years ago. We ask for your prayers for them and the program. Each YAV serving in the international sites is required to raise $9,000 to help defray the cost and to share the story of mission. We will share the ways you can help in our future letters. If your congregation has any uncommitted funds in your mission budget, may we ask that you save some for these young missionaries?
Haejung is in her final semester of the Christian counseling masters program and working hard to keep her perfect grade in the program. She wishes that being mentor and mother to the YAVs would be as easy as studying for the examinations, but she knows that she will be blessed in many ways through her struggles. When we went to northern Quebec for French language study when Simon was 52, we controlled our fear by claiming “anything is possible in God.” Nine months later we went to Congo still claiming a slightly modified version, “ALMOST anything is possible in God.” A dozen years have passed and we know the same God helps us when we attempt things beyond out own abilities in his name for his children. Thanks be to God.
Simon continues to serve as a management and financial consultant for the Church. Much of his effort is to help restructure mission offices to function under new partner relationships and with reduced number of field missionaries. Whenever possible we support in-country partners rather than leading the programs. In countries like Korea and Japan, we work with partners to expand our common vision. We are developing mission strategies to include “mission from” these countries in addition to “mission in” the country in ways to pool our resources and capacities for God’s mission. Of course Korea and Japan partners have been active in overseas missions, but not together with PCUSA. It requires high trust levels and good deal of coordination, but the result is well worth the efforts.
In our next letters we will share more details on many of the topics, we just wanted to let you know that we are well and still in the field. We promise to write more often.
Wishing you a meaningful Holy week and a truly Happy Easter.
Haejung and Simon
Palm Sunday, 2010
The 2010 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 138
