Gwanak3 UBF Annual Report
"For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God." (1Cor 1:18)
We praise and thank God for blessing Gwanak3 UBF in many ways in 2014.
1. World mission:
In September God sent M. Gideon Kang's family to UIUC in USA as a student missionary family, as he was accepted at UIUC as a post-doc researcher.
During the year many missionaries from overseas came to bless Gwanak3 ministry. Dr. John Jun who happened to visit Korea gave us a special lecture for second gens and presented his CME work in Middle East, Australia and Newziland. M. Isaac Choi and Sh. Caleb Kim served special lecture and ME conference report. Many missionaries also came to share their graceful mission reports with us. They were Rebecca Y. (C nation), Paul Lee (Greece), Rebecca Choi (Chicago), Abraham Lee (Koln Germany), Sarah Lee (Canada), Mercy Cha (Humber Canada), Grace Jeon (Chicago), Mary Cowen (UIUC USA), Paul Oh ( Minsk), Isaac Park ( Mexico), Peter Oh(Hamburg Germany) and Second gens Sarah Lee (Toronto Canada)and Hannah K. (Bulgaria).
2. The work of God in SNU campus ministry
(1) SWS and early Morning Prayer and work of God’s word.
We gave our attention to the ministry of the word especially to the Sunday message preparation. Sh. Moses Yoon has been concentrating on Bible study in order to prepare Bible materials for weekly lecture and to contribute it to Sunday messengers: Moses yoon, Spurgeon Lee, Caleb Kim, Joshua Kim, Daniel Byeon and sometimes Mark Yoon.
Every Sunday followed by the message we raised a testimony speaker among students after giving spiritual training. By this we could see their spiritual growth. Sometimes we invited testimony speakers from other UBF chapters as a good example for our young disciples.
(2) Early Morning Prayer (5:50am) was led every morning by Sh. Mark Yoon and Joshua Kim. Many young leaders served the morning message each day: Sh.Joseph Cho, Abe Choi, Jongkil Park, Daniel Lee, Jungsu Park, Sungmook Yoon, Dongkyu Kang and Buyon Bum. That continued to ignite the prayer spirit in the hearts of our young students throughout the year.
During the winter break our students had special Bible studies from Psalms (John team), Acts (Immanuel & Deborah team) and the ancestors of faith in the Old Testament (Abraham & Sarah team). Through Bible study and writing testimony they all could grow and take root in the word of God.
On Feb. 22-23 we had a joint conference with Jongro and Gwanak5 UBF; 26 students from Gwanak3 UBF presented graceful testimonies based on the main message entitled, "Everything is Possible for One Who Believes" (Mark9) given by Sh. Caleb Kim.
(3) The work of spring ministry
On March 18-20 we had a Bible Academy to welcome new students. The new students numbered 46. On the first day Dae hyun Choi gave a message based on John2 and John Yoon shared a testimony and then Sh. Hannah Byeon (professor of SNU medical school) vividly testified about how God blessed her to become a professor at SNU medical school when she obeyed the word Mt. 6:33.
On May 3 we had a Bible recitation contest based on 1Cor15. All 16 students participated and Sarah Yoon and Hyunsuh Kang each took the first and second place and women team (full time servants) also were awarded in the contest, and all were filled with resurrection faith through it.
On May 5-6 we had a student spring Bible camp. Sh. Bohyul Kim gave a message and Jihoon Shin shared his testimony at the camp.
(4) Summer ministry
On July 18-21 we had a summer conference entitled "The Cross, the Life in Love." When we prepared the conference, in order to experience an unprecedented work of the word of God, and of inviting 58 new students to the conference we all gathered together, knelt down with earnest prayer every day. All ten messengers concentrated on their message preparation and on prayer staying in the center more than a month. All our men and women coworkers became one in spirit for preparing the conference. Finally, God answered our prayer and enabled us to have 58 new students’ registrations just as we had prayed for. God blessed our conference unprecedentedly with powerful work of God’s word and with 51 new students and with total attendees of 145. God also raised 12 new testimony speakers who were moved by the word of God, among the new students through the conference.
Right after the conference, all the disciple teams had special Bible studies. And all the new students joined in the Matthew team. They are Chae young Lee, Youna Kim, Seongji Kim, Hyojin You, Hannah K., Deborah Kang, Jusung Yang, Enbyul Koh, Donghuyk Choi, Inkyu Oh, Hong Jae Lee, Hyungu You, Sungeun You, Yoonho Choi, Solwheuy Choi and Heeju Cho. From fall semester new students joined in the Matthew team: Dan, Gwannam Kim,Kyounwook Koh, Mina Oh, Koroona.
(5) Fall semester ministry
On Nov. 4-6, we had a fall Bible academy. God enabled us to have 64 new students register. Among them 55 attended the academy. Mark Yoon Jr. boldly gave the first day message entitled, "Go Out Into Deep Water" based on Luke 5 and Jinjoo Hong shared her graceful and moving testimony.
On the second day, Sh. Joseph Cho gave a fresh and graceful message entitled, "The God who was so Pleased”. And Hannah Lee and Joosung Yang presented their sincere and graceful testimonies based on the passage. And then Immanuel team brothers (Tae wook Kim, Daehyun Choi, Jaeho Bae, Jihoon Shin) served a graceful duo drama for the academy.
(6) Christmas and the end of the year
From the second week of December, we started to practice chorus led by Sh. Dongkyu Kang to prepare worship program. At the meeting we also had a baptism ceremony for newcomers and communion. Those baptized were Hyungkyu You, Joosung Yang, Chaeyoung Lee, Seongji Kim, Gwannam kim, Mina Oh, Koroona, (all 7 Matthew team members), Eonjin Lee, Yang Soh, Yechan Yoon and Haewon Yoon.
Dr. John Jun gave a graceful Christmas message entitled, "Jesus, the Savior Who was Born in a Manger" from Luke 2. After message, a beautiful chorus, a poem, many kinds of music , drama and other worship program followed. Through these we all worshiped Baby Jesus with joyful hearts giving thanks to the Lord our Savior.
(7) Work of God among coworkers in our ministry: Sh. Mary Shin became a good example among us as she sought God first and fed sheep even in the midst of her busy schedule and commute from Seoul to Daejeon every day. God greatly blessed her faith and she was awarded a medal in her scientific work from the Korean Ministry of Science, Education & Technology on April 21, 2014. Sh. Gideon Kang also got his PhD last summer though he was busy taking care of many sheep. He also presented a paper and was introduced to major media in Korea and overseas.
Sh. Jungil Choi who was also faithful to early Morning Prayer and feeding sheep as well, passed her examination for PhD thesis with the highest grade. And it was introduced to major science news and media and glorified God. Sh. Junghoon Kim is going to go out as a Post-Doc researcher and a student missionary after getting his PhD this summer.
And our faithful brothers and sisters who have graduated are Youngwoong Kim, Jiwoo Kim, Youn Kim and Sungkeon You. Especially for a long time we have been earnestly praying for Brother John Park to get into medical school. God answered our prayer for him to be accepted by both a Catholic medical school and Univ. of Korea Medical School.
At the end of the year, God enlarged our campus pioneering tents to three more campuses. Taejin Lee was admitted to Univ. of Daejeon medical school (Herbal), and Samuel Shin Jr. to Univ. of Korea foreign language and Sooyoung Lee to Univ of Ewha.
We also thank God for enabling us to visit 12 brothers who are serving in the military and encourage them through prayer and serving. By this we also could renew our direction for raising disciples in 2015.
During the year 2014, the members of our 14 fellowships faithfully served sheep through the word and fed them with abundant food in their homes after the SWS every week. Our fellowship leaders willingly carried both the cross of mission and self-support, and their wives were fully devoted to the work of God. Also, junior laymen were faithful in serving God and our full time shepherds actively went ahead in inviting sheep and serving all kinds of things diligently in the ministry. Every Sunday the leaders of both brother's and sisters' tent-teams each had a prayer meeting for raising disciples. Likewise, God enabled all our coworkers to become one in heart in Jesus’ love. We render all the glory to God who richly blessed our ministry in 2014.
3. Prayer topics:
- Moses Yoon: (Numbers12:3) “Now Moses was a very humble man, more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth." To learn humbleness and to communicate well with coworkers. To prepare Bible materials for seniors, Bible reading, be faithful to early morning prayer and writing daily bread notes.
- Joshua Kim (John21:15): For SWS message & serving well EBF work / to raise one freshman disciple
- Mark Yoon (2Cor4:7): To raise one freshman disciple through the gospel power / early morning prayer & daily bread, to be empowered by going through the Bible three times / to serve the work of God with a humble heart and with true love.
- Daniel Byeon (Daniel 6:10):To pray three times a day & write daily bread notes faithfully, prepare Bible study materials / to build up student leaders and junior team and to raise 12 disciples in the new John team.
Joshua Kim