Seto Church, Japan

Pastor Song EulSub

It was back in 2002, and I was serving Chunan SDA Language School Church as a first-year youth pastor.  News about PMM was spreading throughout the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Korea.  This movement was about pastors that had done ministry successfully for three or more years going to other countries in the Northern Asia-Pacific Division and doing pioneer mission work.  I thought it was such a meaningful missionary movement because the mission experience abroad would be a big help for not only the missionary himself but also the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Korea.  Of course, I didn’t consider PMM to be my calling until then.

I became a second-year youth pastor in 2003.  I kept hearing news about PMM through Everlasting Gospel and reading about the Holy Spirit working on the pastors that were taking Japanese language courses in Japan.  I said to myself as I read those articles, “Should I apply for PMM after I’m ordained?”  Then I personally thought of China as my mission field.  Of course, I had never been there, nor did I know much about it.  All I knew was that it was a huge country near Korea with a large population.  But one interesting thing is that I was considering China just because I thought I had to do mission work in a big field, just because I was a Korean man called by God to be a pastor.

One day, at the end of November that year, I was going down to Gwangju by bus with my fellow youth pastor to attend our pastor friend’s wedding.  He had studied Chinese language and culture in China for two years, so I was able to get good information from him as I was thinking of China as my mission field.  While on the bus, I got a call in the middle of our conversation on the Chinese language and mission.  It was from Pastor Kwon JohngHaeng, who was in charge of PMM at the Northern Asia-Pacific Division.

He said, “Pastor Song, are you interested in PMM?”

Back then, I thought every Korean pastor was interested in it.

So I said, “Of course. I am definitely interested in overseas mission.  By the way, what’s the matter?”

“Then would you apply for PMM next year?”

Though I was planning to apply after I was ordained, I couldn’t delay answering the call because I always delivered sermons on doing mission work and responding to God’s call.

So I said, “Yes, I’ve got to go anywhere God calls me to.  So do I apply for PMM in August next year and leave for the mission field in 2005?”  I was thinking it would be helpful to study hard about China and the Chinese language for a year.

But then he said, “No, you should leave for a mission field in March next year.  I would like you to take the place of a pastor who was supposed to leave for Japan but could not make it for personal reasons.”

Then I said to myself, “Does he want me to leave in March, five months from now?  I haven’t prayed or prepared for anything yet.  What’s more, he’s telling me go to Japan instead of China.  My, I have no idea about Japanese.”  Then I began to worry.

So I said, “I will go if you want me to, but I would appreciate it if you could give me some time to pray and talk about it with my wife.”

Then he replied, “All right.  Please get back to me by tomorrow since there’s not much time.”

I said, “Then I will discuss it with my wife,” and hung up. I began to worry about my situation because I was on the way to my friend’s wedding, and my wife was at her parents’ house and wouldn’t be coming home for a few days.

I have no idea how I spent that day.  I continued to pray and think about departing for Japan in March the following year.  However, I didn’t dare talk about such a big issue with my wife over the phone.  So I went to bed that night, thinking I would tell Pastor Kwon to call me back after I talked with her when she came back home.

He called me the next morning.

“So have you made up your mind?”

“Pastor Kwon, I wasn’t able to talk about this with my wife on the phone since she’s at her parents’ house right now.  So let me call you back when she comes back home after a few days and we discuss it together.”

Then he said, “I’ve already called her.”

My wife and I knew Pastor Kwon well because he was her advising pastor when she was serving in the 1000 Missionary Movement and my senior pastor when I was a sophomore majoring in Theology.

I asked him, “Is that so?  What did she say?”  In fact, I was expecting a negative answer from her since she couldn’t speak a word of Japanese.

But he said, “She was willing to go.”

I said to myself, “How can this be?  She said yes even though she knows nothing about Japan.”  However, there was no way to escape.

“If that’s the case, then I will go.  There’s no problem with me being a missionary as long as she says so.”

That’s how I made up my mind, but I was wondering how my wife had made up her mind.  So I called her right away.

“What made you say that you would go there?  Do you know anything about Japan or its people?” I asked.

Then she replied, “There’s got to be a way to evangelize with no tips.  What’s more, I said so just because you are a pastor.  You also preach on responding to the call of God all the time, so I thought you would definitely go.”

I felt so embarrassed at that moment.  I wondered if I was a pastor whose words were different from his actions.

“Good job.  I will go without any doubt as God is calling me.  I would have never preached on evangelism again if you had said you could not make it.  You did such a good job.  Thank you.”

My two days of struggling seemed very foolish now.  On the other hand, I was grateful to my wife for dealing with this situation from the perspective of a pastor.  I couldn’t help thanking God for granting me such a wonderful wife.  So I prayed:

“Dear God, I am aware that You have given me this great opportunity to experience amazing miracles. I also know that You have called me to join the feast that You prepared for me.  And I am aware of the fact that You have called me to harvest the crops You grew.  I just would like to thank You for calling me.”

So my two days of serious struggle ended, thanks to my wife saying, “We will go.”  Then I began to turn my attention to Japan.  It is not a huge country, but less than one percent of its 130 million people are Christians.  We were finally headed there.

Seto Church