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“I will also make you a light for the Gentiles that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth”. Isaiah 49:6b

On June 17, 2010, God blessed my family to be sent out to Sri Lanka as a missionary family according to his promise in Isaiah49:6b.

When we arrived in the land we first had to adjust ourselves to the hot weather, native food and to the poor environment of the country. 

Three months later, from that time on, God gradually opened a way for me to support my family by providing me a home school teaching job. 

Whenever we went through many difficulties such as language and culture barriers, God helped us to firmly hold on to God's calling and mission in accordance with Isaiah49:6b. In order to overcome difficulties we came near to God in prayer, praise and Daily Bread and renewed our faith daily.

In this way, God helped my wife M. Sarah and I faithfully go up to the campus to invite sheep once a week.

Preaching the gospel in the campus is unlawful in Sri Lanka. Nevertheless, despite our situation, M. Barnabas and Aroma Baek who were armed with God’s word and prayer continued to preach the gospel in the campus.

My wife M. Sarah and I also went up to the campus & students’ homes every week after finishing our 11am SWS in order to bring other sheep to our 5pm SWS. God was so pleased with our devotion to feed his sheep that he allowed us to bring 80 sheep (regular SWS number was 20) to our 2011 Christmas worship service. Through this we experienced God's marvelous work of the Holy Spirit and thanked God.

At first it was not easy for us to co- work with M. Barnabas's family in the ministry because we all had such different characters. But God helped us to learn humility and to make a decision to deny ourselves and to obey God in looking forward to God's reward.  And then we came to realize how M. Barnabas's family is so precious and honorable before God because they had poured out their whole lives in the mission by going through so many hardships for about 20 years.  We thanked God for helping us to form such a close love relationship with M. Barnabas’ family in Christ's love and for helping us to realize that we need each other to serve God's flock.

As for our sheep, most of them are poor but in order to help them to be rooted in the gospel faith and to experience God who is the Owner of our lives, we encouraged them to give their tithes to the Lord. It was not easy to help them to obey God but God opened sister Wipecksha’s heart and she started to bring her whole tithe to the Lord in spite of her poor situation and she was followed by Gitticca, Indiker, Angelica, Irasha and Amali.

When Brother Indiker was studying in nursing school, he was so poor that he had to fill his empty stomach with leftover bread everyday (paying 10 cents each day) from a bakery. In that situation, he attended the Blessing Disciple team every Saturday, and after the meeting he stayed at my home every Saturday evening to share eating & loving fellowship and Bible study with us for about 2 years.

Now he has been faithfully feeding a new sheep named Indunil through Genesis Bible study after receiving Gen12:2 as his life key verse. He also has a great desire to be a great blessing to Open University and we praise God for helping him.

My wife has been serving sisters Wipecksha, Irasha and Angelina through God’s word and  prayer like a spiritual mother.

Especially, Wipecksha (who had been suffering under the power of death after seeing her mom swept away by the Tsunami in 2004) has been faithfully growing in the Lord since  she accepted Christ as her Lord at our 2011 Christmas worship service.

Also sisters Gittika and Amali are growing under M. Aroma Baek's care.

We pray that all five growing sisters may be shepherds for campus students and mothers of faith in the Lord.

We also earnestly pray that God may help us to make a firm vessel of the Holy Spirit with the Baek family in Christ's love so that we can pioneer 18 campuses in Sri Lanka by raising 12 disciples of Jesus.

May God make Sri Lanka a priestly nation and a holy people who will shine the gospel light on the whole world since the meaning of Sri Lanka is "a shining island".

One Word: A light for Sri Lanka

Luke Jun