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The UBF key verse of 2015 was ‘The gospel; God’s glory in the face of Christ.” (2 Cor 4:1-18). Christ, God’s glory, shone in the dark world campuses through our preaching of the gospel, the word of God, among college students in 2015.

God chose P. Abraham Kim to be reelected as the UBF general director. May God bless his second term to shine the gospel light to many more campuses around the world by fixing eyes on Jesus!

In 2015, 24 new missionaries were sent out (Korea 19, USA 2, Canada 2, Philippians 1) to 7 countries. Eight chapters were newly pioneered. (USA 3, Korea 2, Germany 1, Sri Lanka 1).

1.    Latin America Regional Conferences

2015 was the year of 4 Latin America Regional conferences. God blessed the conferences by sending 974 attendants (650 attendants in 2007).

Southern Latin America Region conference was held on January 15-18 at La Plata, Argentina. The conference title was, “You are the Christ!” God blessed the conference with 131 attendees from 7 countries (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay). New generation leaders actively served messages, worship songs, dance and drama.

Mexico Region conference was held on April 2-5 near Mexico City. The conference title was, “You give them something to eat!” God blessed the conference with 362 attendees from 14 Mexico region chapters. Some commented that it was like the conferences in 1970s through which many repented of their sins with tears. They prayed to pioneer Cuba, Trinidad & Tobago, Jamaica and Haiti.

Central America and Caribbean Region conference was held on April 2-5 in Guatemala. The conference title was “Come to me!” God blessed the conference with 111 attendees from 7 countries (Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Belize, Dominican Republic). They were full of vision to reach out to the 16 Caribbean countries.

Northern Latin America Region conference was held on August 20-23 in Venezuela. The conference title was “Everything is possible for him who believes!” God sent 370 attendees, though they expected 250 from 4 countries (Venezuela, Panama, Colombia and Ecuador). P. Abraham Kim conferred a certificate of ordination to three chapter directors in Venezuela—Socrates Yupanqui (Valles del Tuy), Jaime Delgado (Merida), Hugo Hurtado (Maracaibo), and acting director of Panama, Josue Maiker Gutierrez. Shep. Gustavo Prato succeeded to M. Juan Seo as a Caracas UBF chapter director in 2013. His good influence brought all his families and in-laws to his chapter. God blessed M. Juan Seo and M. Juan Baik who coworked beautifully during M. Juan Seo’s study in USA and Juan Baik’s work in Venezuela.

2.     Youth Conferences

God blessed the young people’s conferences in Europe and North America.

On August 6-9, European youth (age 18-25) had the Encounter conference with 110 attendants at Frankfurt, Germany. The theme was “The Gospel.” North America youth has the Well retreat near Detroit, Michigan, on December 31, 2015–January 3, 2016. Recently many young leaders actively participate in their chapter, national, regional and international conferences with leading roles.

3.    Leadership Succession

A) Continental coordinators: In 2015, M. Peter Lee (Depok, Indonesia) succeeded M. Daniel Jeong as Asia Coordinator. In 2016, M. Caleb Han (St. Petersburg. Russia) succeeded M. David Byun as CIS coordinator. M. James Lee of Zimbabwe succeeded M. Andrew Kim as the Africa Coordinator. Pastor Walter Nett was reelected for the second term (2016-2019) as the European coordinator.

B) National coordinators: In 2015, Shep. Edwar Ti succeeded M. Josue Ham as Guatemala chapter director. Josue Ham was appointed as the Central America and Caribbean coordinator. Dr. Joshua Kim succeeded Peter Lee as Indonesia coordinator. M. Mattew Lim succeeded M. Paul Kwon as Mongolia coordinator. M. Andy Ahn succeeded M. Joshua Hong as Singapore coordinator.

C) Chapter leaders: In 2015, Dr. Livingstone Kang succeeded Dr. Luke Lim as the new director of Makerere chapter, Uganda. M. Pavel Choi succeeded M. Anna Kim as a new director of MISIS chapter in Moscow, Russia for a term of 2016-2020. M. Timothy Kang was appointed as new director of Riga chapter in Latvia.

D) HQ mission representatives: In 2015, M. John Kwon succeeded M. Isaac Kim as representative to Africa.

4.    Continental Coordinators’ Video Conference

On October 10, 2015, there was the first online conference among the continental coordinators to encourage each other and share prayer topics and opinions about the 2016 New Year’s continental directors conferences and World Mission Report/missionaries-leaders’ conference that will be held on June 5-8 in Korea.

5.    The First House Churches

God blessed three UBF chapters planted by native missionaries to establish the first house church in their ministries: They are Istanbul, Turkey (director: Bladmir Point from Kiev, Ukraine), Lima, Peru (director: Efrain Uriostegui Atanacio from Mexico), and San Salvador, El Salvador (director: Isidro Puente Perez).

6.    2017 New Year’s Continental Directors’ Conferences

Africa: December 16-18, 2016 (Johannesburg, South Africa)

Asia: January 5-7, 2017 (New Delhi, India)

Europe : December 28-29, 2016 (Macedonia)

CIS : January 2-4, 2017 (Moscow, Russia)

ME: December 23-25, 2016 (TBD)

Latin America: January 18-21, 2017 (Belize)

Oceania: January 2 -4, 2017 (Missionaries’ conference in Sydney, Australia)

The UBF key verse of 2016 is “Let us fix our eyes on Jesus” (Heb 12:1b-2). We pray for June 5-8, 2016 UBF world mission report and missionaries-leaders’ conference in Korea. We pray that the gospel light may reach out to all of the major cities and campuses of 198 nations of the world in our generation by sending out 100,000 missionaries.

SHORT TERM MISSIONS

by Elijah Park (Washington D.C.)

Shep. Grace Jun and Anna Seo went to Uganda as short term missionaries for 2 months during the summer break. They served Bethesda Medical Clinic as well as Kampala UBF Sunday worship services as a music team. Courtney Rinehart (Chicago) went to Podil UBF, Ukraine, as a messenger for its Summer Bible conference at Carpathian Mountains, staying for two weeks in Ukraine.

WORLD MISSION NEWSLETTERS

by Kevin Albright (Chief Editor)

Two online newsletters and no hard copies were published in 2015, which were posted at ubf.org. Many thanks to Msn. Deborah Lim for her creative graphics design artistry and hard work to make these newsletters. Thanks also to all the article contributors.

The first newsletter (39 pages) was titled Directors Conferences & Annual Reports. It included year end Directors conferences in Dec.2014-Jan.2015 around the world. In addition, annual 2014 reports came from 5 departments: Education (Ron Ward), World Mission (Jose Ahn), New Generation (Abraham Vucekovich, Isaac Choi), Christian Unity (David Kim, Sam A. Lee), Daily Bread (James Joung). There was also a CME Ministry report by Dr.John Jun, and 4 committee reports: Medical Mission (Paul Koh), UBF History (Charles Kim), Web Management (James Ahn), International HQ Web News (Elijah Park). Finally, there were 3 mission representative reports: Africa (Isaac H. Kim), Asia (Jacob Lee), Europe (Paul Hong), and North America (Mark Vucekovich).

The second newsletter (24 pages) was for Campus Night at Chicago UBF held on March 6, 2015. There was a welcome by P. Abraham Kim, an opening address by M. Jacob Lee, two special lectures by Mark Vucekovich and Kevin Albright and two testimonies by Jim Rabchuk and Moses Noah. P. Ron Ward concluded with Challenges and Vision for Campus Ministry.