News > Europe

Seeking the Lost

”For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” - Luke 19:10

1. 2011 Report

Early in 2011, God allowed us to have the European Directors’ Conference in Austria and gave us the vision for a spiritual revival of Europe through 1 Samuel.  We began 2011 with our key verse Mark 1:15: ”’The time has come,’ he said. ’The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!’”  As we studied Mark’s gospel and worshiped, we could learn of Jesus who came to serve.

We were building up a 1:1 Bible study relationship with Sarah, whom we met last year when inviting students to Bible study.  One day, Sarah asked M. Grace about what she thought about homosexuality.  When M. Grace squarely said that it was sin before God, she lost her relationship with Sarah.  It turned out that Sarah was a lesbian.  She said she couldn’t understand why people called her a sinner when she did nothing wrong.  And she refused to have further fellowship with us.  This led us to learn about how Swedish people can hold a relativistic view toward sin and the gravity of it, and therefore, how we should serve them.

When we were dejected, our Mongol Bible students came back.  In the previous year, God had sent three Mongol students to the Royal Conservatory—Bolor, Begi, and Zaja.  But they were sent back to Mongolia due to visa issues.  We communicated with them by mail and prayed for their visas based on Romans 11:28.  God answered our prayers and brought all of them back to us in early January.  We praised and thanked God for listening to our prayers and working in us.  God enabled us to keep a spiritual relationship with them and helped them to attend the worship services.  We had decided to go through the 12-Step Bible Study, but due to their busy schedules and M. Grace’s health, we couldn’t continue it.  They are now receiving the word of God through 1:1 Bible study and Sunday worship service messages.  Begi and Zaja are married on paper.  We are praying that Zaja’s visa problem may be solved through Begi’s visa.  Due to the language barrier, we find it hard to raise them into the Lord’s disciples.  So this year we plan to train them to be rooted and built up in the word of God through testimony writing.  May God give them desire and hope for the word of God.

God helped M. Grace and Joy Choo to visit co-workers in Spain.  M. Esther Kang recently delivered a baby.  They received much grace from God through their Spain visit and through sharing their prayer topics and agonies in pioneering a chapter.

In May, God helped M. John Choo to attend the World Mission Report in Korea and the missionary conference that followed and through them, regain spiritual energy.  M. Joy Choo Jr. was also sent to Korea to attend the second generation conference and JBF summer Bible conference.

Second generations Grace Choo and Anna Choo attended the second generation conference where God helped them to establish their identity as young leaders.  Especially through studying the whole book of Genesis, God helped them to humbly realize their conceit in thinking they knew Genesis well and helped them to learn Genesis newly.  They said that it was the best conference ever.  Grace even asked us to call her a “Young Leader.”  As a single-family chapter, it is hard for us to hold a Bible conference.  We deeply thank Bonn UBF for serving our second gens through the conference.  May God also abundantly bless the Exodus conference that will be held next year with his word.

God also allowed us to have the Northern Europe Joint Summer Conference in Norway.  He allowed M. Abraham and Sarah Han’s family from Kyungsung UBF to visit us through the conference.  They prayed for M. Grace Choo, who has a recurring ruptured disk, with their hands on her body and also served her with medicine.  On our 15-hour trip to Norway, they also served our second gen missionaries in many ways and planted in them God’s vision for their lives.  The atmosphere of the conference was like a family gathering.  The missionaries from different chapters took up the main messages and delivered the word of God.  We were also blessed to see the second gens established as our co-workers in the gospel work.  They prepared the spiritual environment with praise and worship and served by playing the piano and organizing the world mission night program.

M. Grace Choo had to lie in bed due to her recurring ruptured disk.  She had surgery two years before, but this time the ruptured disk occurred along with the palsy on her leg.  She rested for two months, but her health did not improve, so she had a second disk surgery on September 10, 2011.  By God’s grace, the surgery was successful without infection, and God sent us many people to help us whenever we needed them.  Meanwhile, our children supported us by doing house chores and serving our Bible students.  M. Grace still suffers from pain in her leg and has difficulty in walking.  We pray that God may restore her leg muscles.  We thank all of you all over the world for praying for M. Grace.

In September, God sent Sh. Alan back to us.  Sh. Alan serves the Makerere University in Uganda.  He came to Upsala and stayed for three months the previous year, and this year he came again with a plan to stay for three months.  Even though he lived three hours away by car from us, God grew Sh. Alan to become spiritually independent.  He was able to faithfully attend the Sunday worship services and share God’s grace through testimony sharing.  He delivered a special lecture based on John 3.  On November 30, 2011, he went back to Uganda.  We thank God for using him as a prayer servant and messenger.  He will have to spend two more years in Uganda to finish his PhD course and plans to come back to Sweden in April. May God use him as a prayer servant for Swedish souls.  May God answer his prayer to serve one of God’s flock. May God establish him firmly as an ancestor of faith like Abraham for Uganda.

God sent Christina and her sister Cathy to our worship service.  Although Christina left our ministry, we kept in touch with her.  We have a good relationship with Christina’s mother and Cathy comes to the worship service and receives the word of God.  Cathy goes back to the Philippines in December. We pray that she may be used by God as his servant in any manner.

M. Peter and Sarah Chang from Germany visited M. Grace Choo to pray for her health.  They served her with Exodus 19.  Through this, M. Grace received God’s great love for her and she newly accepted God’s hope for Sweden.

We thank God for feeding us throughout 2011.  Every year we pray to God in anticipation of how he will feed us.  This year, our faithful God knew that we were in need.  Through a Swedish professor, God gave us a job at a Korean travel agency as a translator and coordinator for a broadcasting team.  God filled our needs by sending tourists through a missionary in St. Petersburg.  God enabled us to open an Oriental medicine clinic and sent us enough acupuncture patients to maintain the business.  We pray for five patients every day, and we believe that God will answer our prayer each time.  If anything was lacking, God always filled the rest by allowing me to drive a taxi.  We believe that our God, who is our Father and has fed us so far, will continue to give us all that we need.

2012 Spiritual Direction and Prayer Topics

This year, we face many prayer topics, including self-support, Msn. Grace’s health, our children’s entrance into college and high school, and raising disciples.  But most of all, we want to listen carefully to God’s word and live by it.  We pray that we may study the 12-Step Bible study with our Bible students and devote ourselves to campus mission and raising disciples of Jesus.

We would like to hold on to Luke 19:10, ”For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost,” as our 2012 key verse.  Based on this key verse, we pray that each of us may have Jesus’ heart and seek the lost on the Swedish campuses with the gospel.

One Word: Seek the lost

Prayer Topics:

1. Make Sweden a kingdom of priests and a holy nation (raise 120 Bible teachers and 12 house churches by 2017)
2. Luke’s gospel Sunday messages
3. 12 1:1 Bible studies and 12 Sunday worship attendees (Begi, Bolor, and Zaja to be rooted and built up in the word of God)
4. Our children’s spiritual and physical growth (Grace – college entrance; Joy – high school entrance) 5. M. Grace’s health

Reported by M. John Choo