Mission Report: Series 2 (Oct-Nov,2008)

Dear friends in Christ,                            Dec.8, 2008

I know I have been lazy. All those mission reports, I was not able to complete and now I plan to go to Congo for Our year-end meetings with Maha missionaries and pastors in Pigmy Camps and naked tribe Bethel church Pastors.

Some people think all of Congo is affected by rebels and civil wars. Correct, they are in my area of North Kivu. But my Butembo is not affected so far. About 60-70km south of Butembo until you reach Goma (about 400-450km),

these are where rebels, mainly by General Nkunda who claims to be an Adventist, thus he allegedly does not kill on Sabbath, operate freely. Please do not expect any answer from me because I do not know. No one seems to know.

Some border with Uganda has been closed but I will be crossing “Kasindy” border and it is open.

Therefore, after this series No.2 report, you will have to wait until I come back, 3-4 weeks later. Then, another fresh stories will be accumulated.

I was invited to “BMW” (Bicycle Mission to the World) “Mission Conference” in SDA Washington-Spencerville Church, Baltimore, Md.. during Oct.23-25, 2008.

First couple of photos are our visit to General Conference one day before our conference started. We, BMW pastors and I, were met kindly by Pastor Claude Richli (I believe you pronounce like Rishli), associate publisher of the “Adventist World”, who eventually preached during the Sabbath divine service at Spencerville. We said Hello to Bill Knott also( all of you have seem him in 2^nd, 3^rd page of the magazine always), and Miss Sandra Blackmer, one of the editors who has written on “Maha Mission” in Congo as a cover story of August issue. We were sorry to have missed to say Hello to Miss Jill Walker of AVS who has kindly listed me as HisHands missionary.

Two things we realized; They were also humans like us, and all of them seem to be working diligently, so that you and I do not have to worry about that.

BMW is a Korean-American mission group that has been ministering to spread out Gospels mainly but not limited to ECD countries in Africa since 2004. They have been to Peru, Guatemala, Bangladesh, and this year to India and Nepal. And I am very proud to report that October this year, BMW had a ground breaking ceremony to build the first Adventist Church in Kathmandu, Nepal. They are a team of dedicated Adventists for mission works around the world. They are Korean Diaspora wanting to go back to old Jerusalem.

In 2009, in spite of present economic and financial difficulties, BMW will be continuing its mission works;

1) in Congo for Mutiri-BMW Hospital, crusade and medical rally in early May,

2)Burundi-Rwanda in latter part of May,

3)Maasay tribe mission in Kenya in early June,(BMW was there this year also)

4)West Pokot and Trukana in latter part of June.

In early July, 2009, BMW is planning to join 10,000 baptism with 100 churches in Zimbabwe.

Didn’t I tell you about “Reverse Mission” at last Series-1?  I was confused; by travelling for one month in the US visiting 5 major SDA Korean churches, Spencerville in Baltimore, Valley-LA, Loma Linda, San Diego and Ceritos-LA of my role in the US and Korean tour. Is reverse mission term proper? Am I really doing mission work in this or am I an entertainer for them?

One of these churches has started a one to one matching mission between their 20 “Cell Groups”(Small Group) and 20 “Congo Churches”. We did not mind at all to spend 3 weeks of searching and pursuing specially chosen and selected far away poor and weak churches in the valleys and hills. We could have just picked easily handful of those churches in the cities.  4 of these 20 churches we have selected, we could not access at the moment due to rebels. But we would like to include them because they are God’s churches, these are God’s Works and they deserve to have attention paid.

Who are more blessed? Congo churches or US churches? For sure, we are just happy by connecting both sides. Upon return from Congo trip, you will receive Series-3 about God’s blessings during US and Korean mission trips, people and organizations wanting to get united to help and support mission works in Africa. They are getting interest to “…Ends of the Earth…” to every tribe business.

Yang, Seung Chun

A missionary to Congo, BMW coordinator in Africa.