아래의 글은 이번 선교한국대회2010대회에 참가했던 필리핀 대표단이 저에게 보낸 편지에 첨부된, 참가 리포트 입니다.

Mission Korea 2010 Significance and Impact

Eight Filipinos went to Korea for the first time. Awed and overwhelmed by the sights of modernization. Korea indeed can be called a first class country. As we move to the venue of the event, we were more excited of what to anticipate, we were not caught up with our expectations. We were beginning to marvel the preparations done for this event.

Mission Korea came into being with the belief that God has always used the youth in every great mission movements. In fact the first missionaries to Korea , Henry G. Appenzeller and Horace G. Underwood were both 25 years old when they arrived in Korea 125 years ago in 1865. The good seeds they have sown are now bearing good fruits of wondrous work on the Korean church.

Rev. Chulho Han, the Executive Director of Missions Korea 2010 said that, “God has been establishing World Evangelization through the youth from western countries for the past 200 years, Now God wants the youth not only from the western countries but from all the nations such as Asia and Africa to continue the work of World Evangelization.”  It was also Rev. Han who invited the Philippine team to be observers and learners in this conference. In response to this Dr. Rey Taniajura, Director of Philippine Missions Association sent a team to learn from our Korean brothers on how to plan for Mission Philippines. Even the late Dr. Ralph Winter, recognized the significant impact of Mission Korea, when he said,” This is the most astounding and wonderful development. I don’t think that there’s anything quite the same in any country in the world. I hope that it would impact every country in the world, so that Koreans will not only do something that is better than anyone else, but teach others to follow them.”

For the past 22 years, Mission Korea has contributed to the rapid growth of the Korean churches. The number of missionaries also grew from 93 in 1988 to more than 20,000 missionaries serving all over the world today. This mission participation was brought about by the youth who decide to devote their lives as missionaries. Many of them made this decision through Mission Korea conferences.  2010 is a very significant year in the history of missions. The first missionary conference was held in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1910. For the last 100 years, Western Churches have done an amazing task for world mission.  Now 100 years later, we have moved into a new era. Regardless of nationality, Global churches are participating in Global missions towards a Global world. Korea has played a significant role in this, now is our time to awaken our churches to light the fire and passion of the youth participation to Mission Philippines.

Observations, Impressions and Challenges

This year’s Mission Korea was held at Ansan Dongsan Church from August 2-7, 2010. It’s a big church that has more than 5,000 seats in its main auditorium.  Since 2006, Dongsan Church allows Mission Korea to use their facilities. As one of the the organizers had commented, they were blessed by the gesture of generosity of this church which is not common in other big churches here. The Dongsan church also had plenty of rooms for lectures and prayer groups. Even their mess hall is capable of serving more than 5,000 people during lunch and supper. They executed to feed all the participants within the two –hour meal period. This church facility fits the need to execute the programs of events MK2010 needs. This year’s attendance is more than 4,000 participants which is lesser than previous Mk’s. Aside from the Dongsan Church the participants were housed at Hanyang University’s Dormitories. They have very good facilities too at the University. Hanyang University is about 1.5 km. from Dongsan Church so every day the students walk, carpooled and were shuttled by buses going to Dongsan Church and back at their dormitories.

Mission Korea is a collaboration of 11 Campus Ministry and 24 Mission Organizations; together they work to plan for the programs and events. There were about 40 electives where the participants can play a part. They were pre-registered online before a participant can join the event. This gives the organizer a better distribution of participants on the lectures they want. This also eliminates a lot of pressure on registration day. Because they already were grouped on the electives they pre-selected.

This year lead organizer was Jesus Disciple Ministry (JDM). Mission Korea staff together with JDM staff planned all the facets of work for the conference to be a success and it takes two years to this for this one event. We learned that JDM was selected and task as lead group at the last event at closing of MK2008. At the closing of this year’s event JDM turned over the responsibility to Campus crusade for Christ as lead group for MK2012. JDM was praised for their excellent handling of MK2010.

Overall impression of the event was amazing. I have never seen anything like it. We were overwhelmed by the passion in worship and prayer. Two words that continue to come to mind was passion and devotion. They were able to do an excellent job because passion and devotion can only come through our relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. Something we need to grow into if we have to plan for Mission Philippines. Another thing we observed is that the church is intentional in discipleship of the young people to missions. The heart of Mission Korea is to see the glory of the Lord among the nations and time and again we see the Lord works through the life young people being set apart for His purpose. Our challenge is to dedicate our youth to the Lord. This can only be done through prayer and humility to God,  and unity among all missions organization campus ministries and all the churches for His Glory. Let’s look to the future with bright hopes by preparing the next- generation of today.