Pastor Kwon JohngHaeng

Adventist Mission Director, Northern Asia-Pacific Division

As the saying goes, “no cross, no crown,” and there can be no sincere amen from the bottom of the soul without challenges and adversity.

It’s been five years already since Pioneer Mission Movement (PMM) started, and its missionary pastors have found the strength to go when God’s call to mission work is given.  PMM missionaries have left their familiar pastoral environment and thrown themselves and their families into unfamiliar cultures, religions and languages.  It’s not even easy to nurture the members of an already existing church, but PMM missionaries have to plant one where there is none.  It is tough to deliver a sermon or give a Bible study in one’s mother tongue.  Even then, it is tough to give people enough information and lead them to make a decision.  But PMM missionaries must start out by learning a new language, like a child.  The process of learning a language alone makes them thoroughly humble.

God puts them in a tough place so that they know they can’t live a day without prayer.  They daily experience things that can’t be accomplished by might, nor by power, but only by the Spirit of God.

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PMM missionaries often shed tears that are unrecognized by the souls they are trying to save.  They constantly bring prayers and requests to God for these souls, who are more precious than the universe.  But despite their dedication, cultural misunderstandings and feelings of loneliness and separateness weigh heavily upon them.

It is such a touching moment for a pastor to stand by a lake with his baptismal candidate, but it is also a thrilling moment when a soul is born again in a mission field.  Missionaries experience this only when they walk with the Lord every day, believing that He will be with them until the end, and they eventually witness His works through His flawed yet courageous servants.  This book talks about churches planted in weary lands.  It talks about souls that were once perishing without the hope of salvation, discovering eternal life in Jesus Christ because of the missionaries.  It also talks about the wonderful hope of Jesus’ second coming, which we may hasten, and it talks about a great number of people from every nation, tribe, language and people meeting Him in the clouds, to which number we may add.

I would like to join the 41 PMM missionaries in giving glory to God, who started PMM and is completing His work in the Northern Asia-Pacific Division.  We also express our gratitude to our parents, who have sent their children to mission fields and prayed for them day and night; our fellow pastors and church members, who have sent their coworkers to mission fields and supported them with humble prayers; quite a few sponsors, who have helped us despite their meager financial situation, choosing to put their treasure in heaven; our conference and union conference leaders for their administrative support; Dr. Jairyong Lee, president of the Northern Asia-Pacific Division, who drew up this movement and takes the lead in arranging and organizing it; and Dr. P.D. Chun, former president of the Northern Asia-Pacific Division, who continues to support it with visits and articles even after his retirement.