Korea UBF 13th National Student Conference 2015
We give thanks to God for richly blessing the Korean national student conference in many ways. The conference was held on Jan 27 to 30 at Davinchi condo which was surrounded by the beautiful scenery of the Southern Sea at Bosung, Chunam province in Korea. Those present were 276 participants from 33 UBF chapters (up 8 chapters from last year). Some of the highlights of this conference are as follows:
We thank God for the messengers who gave heart-moving messages based on their experience and life testimonial messages from the word of God. They are Sh. Daniel Buyeon (Gwanak3), Junsop Yum (Jongro2), Daniel Shin (Yonhee), Choongshin Han (Gwangju1,6) and Peter Kim (Youljun). They were all humble and obedient to messenger training.
2. The conference progressed with the theme “Missionary Spirit & Martyrdom Spirit."
We thought that the theme seemed to be a little bit burdensome for the new students but beyond our imagination the new students listened well to the messages and learned the missionary spirit of the ancients. They were greatly moved as they came to visit the martyr’s site of late P. Sohn Yang-won.
On the second day we learned about the missionary spirit from seven who came to serve Korean people in earlier days and who died in their land of mission, as shared by Sh. John Park (Gwangju2). We also learned about the spirit and faith of UBF ancestors through early UBF campus pioneering work with the pictures by Sh. Nehemiah Kim (Gwangju1,6). We also visited the UBF history museum. At the end, we visited the Yanlimdong missionary gravesite meditating on their sacrifice and their missionary spirit in our hearts.
On the third morning, we learned about the life and faith of late P. Sohn Yang-won through Sh. David Park (Gwangju3) and went to visit the memorial hall and Aeyangwon and the memorial church.
Through such a “going on a field trip” to the historical places our students could touch and experience the faith of our ancestors of faith; they were greatly moved by the experience and discovered their root of faith and about having a clear identity as well.
3. This conference was named "Namdo Conference" because it was initiated by and also hosted and served by Gwangju region UBF shepherds. Especially on the second day we all came to visit Gwangju UBF center (the birth place of UBF) and to listen to the second day’s message. We express our thanks from our hearts to all Gwangju UBF brothers and sisters for warmly welcoming us and for their hospitality.
4. We thank God for students who actively participated in the program. The program schedule was very tough because we all had to move out by buses to Gwangju from the conference place at Bosung, visiting many places including Yeosu Expo, even in the cold weather. Yet, all the students willingly participated without anyone missing.
We saw their great desire for the word of God during the messages as they responded loudly "Amen". On the evening of the third day and the next morning they all wrote sincere testimonies and shared them. We thank God that the student conference became more fruitful in spirit and in number.
We thank God for gathering all UBF students throughout the nation and for making them united in Christ enabling them to have wonderful fellowship and learning each other’s faith.
Now those who were in charge of the 2015 student conference will also continue to pray for the 2016 conference—its preparation and development. Please pray for the 2016 student conference to be even more fruitful and full of God’s vision.
May the Lord continue to use this for raising student disciples, for Bible Korea and for world campus mission.
Education department
Moses Kim