News > Latin America

Argentina
November 22, 2013

1. COMCOA CONFERENCE
COMCOA stands for "Cooperacion Misionera Coreana Americalatina." (Korean missionary cooperation in Latin America)

It was the 10th conference with the purpose of sharing the strategies of evangelization for Latin America through the cooperation among the first, 1.5, and 2nd generations.
46 chosen senior missionaries and pastors who are serving Latin American mission from various churches gathered in the Zion Presbyterian Korean church in Buenos Aires from 7th-9th of November.

The main theme of the conference was "Mission, Obedience and Succession" based on 2 Co 2:14: "But thanks be to God, who always leads us as captives in Christ's triumphal procession and uses us to spread the aroma of the knowledge of him everywhere."

13 speakers shared their mission strategies based on their mission work in many different Latin American mission fields, such as Indigenous Mission, Poor People Mission, Laymen Mission, Korean Diaspora Mission, Women Mission, Prison Mission, Latin Seminary Education Mission, Camus Mission and 2nd Generation Mission (MK: missionary kids) etc.

Many were interested in the succession of their ministry since many natives and their 2nd gens were in the period of succeeding their ministry. Especially, many of them said their children don't want to succeed their ministry because of too many difficulties in pioneering work. Rather, the next generations seem to want to support their parents financially but not as 2nd gen missionaries. But one 2nd gen, Pastor Choi, testified how God is working among his ministry for 1.5 and 2nd gens mightily and we should pray for them with the hope of God.
My heart was broken when I met one very skinny and sickly missionary from Bolivian Indigenous mission. He said he just came to this conference because he felt desperately in need of refreshing his soul and body.

When I also heard how many of them or their wife missionaries got very sick after working hard and still working hard in their mission fields, my heart was broken and I remembered our sick UBF missionaries who also need to be taken care of. I pray for them and believe God's great reward for them in the kingdom of God and among their descendants.
M. Isaac Cho served as a coworker while M. Juan Moon and M. Mary Cho participated in the conference. Isaac Chung from CMI and M. Jose Ahn shared strategy of layman and self-supporting mission and Latin campus mission respectively. Since CMI was originally a part of UBF 20 years ago, Isaac Chung made everybody laugh when he began his lecture, saying that he suddenly became a CMI missionary from UBF missionary just because he should follow his shepherd in his home UBF church in Korea.

After the conference, 8 CMI missionaries invited 6 Argentine UBF missionaries and M. Jose and Maria Ahn to dinner and we had tearful reconciliation fellowship in Christ. I thanked God when I heard how our CMI missionary families had been serving God as a team and God had raised 120 Argentine students’ ministry now.

This conference was sponsored by one of the most fruitful and influential churches in Pusan, Korea and ACTS. Pastor Kim served message every night very gracefully. M. Joseph and Maria Ahn together with M. Isaac, Mary Cho and Juan Moon were happy to make a close personal relationship in Christ with all of these pastors and missionaries throughout the conference.

2. Buenos Aires (Good Air) UBF
Since M. DK and HK returned to Chicago two years ago M. Marcos and Ruth Kim have been serving this ministry as the director’s family. God blessed them with a spacious Bible house two blocks from the UBA (Univ. of Buenos Aires) campus. God blessed BA UBF and sent Erendira from Mexico as a student missionary. She had been working in the Mexican Embassy in BA. When we prayed earnestly for her house church, God sent Noe Marco as a missionary from Bolivia UBF and established a beautiful house church for Argentine campus mission. Since then they became the best coworkers to Marcos and serves BA students sacrificially delivering Sunday messages every other week.

M. Jose Ahn led Bible study on John 12:1-21, "Mira, aqui tu rey viene!" "See, your king is coming!" Fourteen UBA students studied together with their new sheep. Sh. Claudia, Marisue and Sandra are leaders. Sandra brought her mother, Marta, to Bible study and she is also growing as a leader. Sandra is a young shepherdess, a sophomore of UBA. But Claudia and Marisue need prayer support to establish house churches. Through Noe and Erendira's beautiful mission house church, they all pray that God may establish such beautiful mission-centered house churches for them, too.

Marcos Kim began to work as a personal computer programmer at home and Ruth Kim is running a women's clothing store like other UBF missionaries. We visited Marcos and Ruth Kim's house. They are 45 and 41 years old, but they have no children and living with a dog that looks like a black bear named Gomdori and a big turtle. They earnestly pray for God's blessing to have a son or bless them to open the way to adopt a child.

3. La Plata (The Silver) UBF
La Plata is the second largest and educational city. Argentina’s presidential couple graduated from the Univ of La Plata. La Plata UBF is M. Isaac Cho's residency which is located very close to the campus. His family uses half of his rented house as a Bible house. We had Bible study on Saturday led by Jose Ahn in Spanish. Three 2nd gens Isaac Cho Jr, Maria Cho and Jose Moon joined along with Nadia and Jorge, La Plata University students. Isaac and Mary Cho and Juan and Joana Moon’s family also joined.

Not long ago Isaac Cho. Jr was attacked by several gangsters just in front of his house late at night. His handsome face was broken to pieces and was hospitalized for a month and had many surgeries. No neighbors helped him and the gangsters were not caught yet. Since they were serving the Argentine students with the gospel for a long time sacrificially, they might be sorrowful for their precious son's suffering, but when they turned their hearts to Jesus, God healed their soul and strengthened them all the more to serve Argentine students with the gospel very faithfully. Though Isaac Jr needs more time to be healed, he could finish his degree as an architect and working as a researcher for his professor. He sincerely studied the Bible with us. He prays for God's blessing to establish his house church.

Isaac Cho's oldest daughter Esther is happily married to Wesley Jun of Hyde Park UBF and they have a 6-month-old beautiful son, Ethan. His youngest daughter, Maria Cho, is graduating from the dentistry school next month. She is also ready to marry by faith to establish a Jesus- centered house church. She shed many tears while asking God's guidance upon her future house church.

On Sunday M. Jose Ahn delivered the Spanish message based on John 12. In spite of his busy conference message, GBS leading and counseling, he stayed up late again and wrote a new Spanish message for La Plata UBF and delivered a graceful message as his prayer for Argentine students.

4. New Pioneering ministry by Juan and Joana Moon
They have been co-working the last 7 years closely with Isaac Cho's family in La Plata UBF. God blessed their business by the help of Isaac Cho from scratch. Now they have their own successful store in Buenos Aires. We visited their women's clothing store in downtown BA. We were surprised to see so many customers coming non-stop while we were there. God blessed many servants’ prayers who had visited there and prayed. Since their working place is in BA and their son Jose will go to UBA Agricultural campus to pursue his economics major from next year, they have been praying to move their house from La Plata to Buenos Aires and pioneer BA Agricultural campus. The entire Moon family is full of pioneering spirit. We pray that God's kingdom may expand widely through this new house church ministry.

Though it may be painful for Isaac Cho to send the Moon family out and begin the ministry all over again, Isaac Cho got new strength in Christ when he got a vision to train 120 self-supporting missionary families under him and send them out to the whole Argentina. Through this he got a vision for La Plata to be an Antioch church for all of Latin America and the world.

5. 2014 Latin America UBF Directors' Conference preparation
Originally Latin American UBF planned to have the coordinators' conference along with CIS directors in Israel. But due to too much cost of going to Israel from Latin America, they changed and decided to have the conference in La Plata, Argentina.

While we were in La Plata UBF, we visited the conference site and all the places near and around where we can study the Bible and have fellowship together. Isaac and Mary Cho and we could visit Calafate, a world famous glacier, joining some of COMCOA team to find out the possibility for our Latin American directors visit there. We praised our Creator God Almighty with all our hearts when we visited there.

Praise and thank God for all of His work! May God bless the upcoming Latin American UBF Directors' Conference in La Plata, Argentina. Amen.

Report by M. Maria Ahn

Pics

Pic: