Yilan Church, Taiwan

Pastor Chung HaeSub

 

Several PMM missionaries are already serving in their respective mission fields faithfully.  I am glad whenever I hear such news.  I think they are such wonderful servants of the Lord.  I always admire them.

On the other hand, my inner missionary spirit is somewhat gloomy and dark all the time.  What I have gone through, as well as my present situation, make me feel this way.  However, I am thankful to the Lord for the beliefs that His love still holds on to such a feeble one as me and that He will surely prepare a better tomorrow.  That’s why I’m not hesitant to share my tough and burdensome experiences as a missionary.  I am writing about them with the assurance that it will encourage those missionaries with the same temperament or situation as mine.

Taiwan is as small as Kyungsang Province in Korea, and yet it’s not easy to go anywhere from east to west due to a huge mountain range from south to north.  Its eastern part is especially sparsely populated, while the western part has most of the cities.  So the eastern part lags behind the other parts and is hard to access.

I have been assigned to Yilan, one of the places in the eastern part.  The unfavorable conditions mentioned above have weakened Christianity so much that there are just two tiny Adventist chapels out of the whole hyun (“province” in English).  In reality, there is no church because those chapels belong to the natives in the hills.  This is the very place I have been sent to spread the Adventist message.

I was continually burdened with a lot of thoughts as workers bustled about, finishing up their work by piling up my stuff on one side.  I said to myself, “How can I start a conversation with a Taiwanese person, so that I can begin my mission work here as soon as possible?  How do I talk to them in Chinese?”  That was not all.  I pressed my family as well as myself to do something to reach out, such as telling my wife to make rice cakes or kimchi and visit neighborhoods.  That, however, was not easy for her or me.  Even visiting the people next door with kimchi was possible only after looking up greetings in the dictionary and practicing them in front of the wall for a good while.  Anyway, I would push my wife and myself to start our mission as soon as we could.

The first Sabbath finally came.  There were five people in church: our three children, my wife and me.  But that was just the beginning of our tough journey.  Several months passed without any more church members.  Because of my tough situation, I shed many tears while worshiping and praising God.  The Sabbath day was bitter and burdensome rather than restful and relaxing.  I sighed with relief when the Sabbath was over.

I seemed to suffer from mental pressure when things did not turn out as expected and our work produced no results.  The biggest stressor for me was going door to door.  My wife had to take care of our child, so either I would go alone or we had to take the child, which was never easy.  I had practiced some expressions in Chinese for the visits, but putting them into practice was tough.

Not only that, but I kept feeling guilty whenever my family worshiped alone on Sabbath.   But that didn’t mean that I did nothing related to the mission.  I began to socialize as I met Koreans here on a regular basis and got to know new people through a Korean language class.  Whenever I got to know somebody, I would invite them to my home for fellowship and a meal.  But to my dismay, there was no result.  One day my daughter was watching a video on an evangelistic meeting.  Suddenly she asked, “Daddy, is that a church?  How I wish my church could also have that many people!”  My heart ached for her.

The tougher things got, the more I became depressed and passive.  My wife often suggested working for the Lord in some way other than being a pastor, but I thought only Satan would be happy to hear that.  At any rate, I began to take my ministry much more seriously.

A year has passed.  Looking back, everything has gotten better compared to when I arrived here.  Now I have many more things to do, because I am meeting more people and having more people come for Sabbath worship.  Everything is still unstable and uncertain, however.  I think what is needed the most at this point is God’s working power.  There was no need for me to be anxious or worry about anything.  It would have been better if I had fully prepared God’s message, because I don’t have enough time to do so with more people in church now.

The pioneer mission is such a long and lonely race.  I still make mistakes, but I have decided not to feel guilty or be restless because of the circumstances I’m facing.  Doing so would just do harm to my body and soul.   It’s not easy to share my pastoral issues with my friends or fellow workers here, and the ones in Korea are too far away from me.  I also don’t have time to recharge.   I’m very lucky to have my family with me, but it’s tough to spend around six years in a foreign country that has a totally different culture.  In my mission field, which is not well established, I think a successful ministry especially depends on time management.

Lastly, I would like to thank the church leaders that have granted me this opportunity.  My prayer is that I may return their support by leading a successful ministry, not only in this mission field but in Korea, by examining myself and depending on God.