PARKS' NEWS LETTER (PLE No. 22) |
PLE No. 22 Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
**People...Reaching people...Reaching others...**
20 October 2000
New Year's greetings! It might be strange to you, but we reached Ethiopian New Year's day on 11 September 2000. Passing New Year's day here, we also look back, evaluate our past nine months, and force ourselves to focus on our ministry. We thank God that He enriched our ministries during the last few months. We praise Him for the time we spent here with the team from Korea, the time in Korea and the States (for different conferences, and the seminar for the Sunday school teachers).
The highlight of this summer was what we experienced through different trips. By the invitation of a friend in Massachusetts, Anna left for five weeks' vacation to the States right after school closed, and Grace followed her 3 weeks later to attend the 4th Korean World Mission Conference (KWMC) and the Korean World Missionary Conference at Wheaton College, Chicago. During July 20-23, 500 Korean missionaries from each mission country gathered and were divided into 20 committees to evaluate our mission strategies, and encouraged each other. According to the report of the Korean Missionary Conference, at the end of 1997 there were 4900 Korean missionaries to 121 countries. The financial crunch which hit Korea in fact has stimulated more interest, support and prayer so that now there are 8200 missionaries sent to 151 countries. We praised God that He did use our people to reach the world.
During 24-28 July 1,000 Korean missionaries and over 4,000 Korean people attended the KWMC, which was held every 4 years, seeking not only to engage South Korea's churches in mission outreach, but also to encourage its missionaries and to educate leaders and missionaries in missions. From early morning till late evening we had missionary reports and lectures from the speakers from Korea and the international speakers. Grace, who was the only missionary from Ethiopia, reported what God is doing among Ethiopian people. She visited our supporting churches in New York, Chicago and Hartford and met Korean church leaders of North America during this trip.
JongKook also was invited as one of the speakers in the World Missions Seoul 2000 conference during 14-18 August 2000. JongKook spoke about reaching the tribal groups of Ethiopia. Both of the conferences, KWMC and World Mission Seoul, aim for church mobilization of resources, evangelism in North Korea, and mission through Christian and theological education at universities and seminaries and at creating an intercessory prayer network, strengthening cooperation and partnership in mission, studying Korea's role in reaching unreached peoples and setting up a mission policy and strategy for the coming century (World Pulse 4 August 2000).
The conference offered MKs' (Missionary Kids') conference for 2 weeks in Seoul while their missionary parents were having the conference. Jason had a good opportunity to be with other Korean MKs from all over the world and visited many places, churches, Christian universities, factories in Korea. He also met his old friends who he made when he was going to Korean School during furlough. It was also joyful time for his 84 years old grandparents to see their grand son and their last son, JongKook together.
God really blessed each of our family to love each other and to mature in Christ during the trip. JongKook and Jason had a good time together to strengthen 'the father and son relationship' while Grace and Anna was deepening our relationship during our trip. Jason goes to 8th grade and Anna to 7th grade at school here.
From July 29 to Aug. 4 a team from WangSung Presbyterian Church, Seoul, visited us for a week. Most of them are members of mission department of our main supporting church. We visited Jimma, Agaro, Chera, Metu, and Gambella, which are located in the southwestern part of Ethiopia where we used to work few years ago. The team scared of staying at the local hotel, of eating local food, of sanitation, of being without electricity. But they smoothly adjusted to the life style in Ethiopia. They saw the Jimma Bible School where we used to teach and our former house used to be. We were shocked to find one of our mission houses completely burned down by fire (accidental electric malfunctioning). Our mission family has rallied nobly to help replace belongings for Tim and Diane Fellows. In Chera KHC church the team had a great time with local church people, especially with children, playing games and singing songs together. In Gambella, we visited SIMers who help the Sudanese refugee camp with education (We've been there once to train young people and to do puppet drama there few years ago). We admired what SIMers are doing and living without things there. We visited a KHC church where our former Bible School graduates are ministering. It's such a joy to see the ministry that they are doing. Even if the period was short for the Korean team staying with us here, we shared prayer subjects and had great encouragement from them. We hope that this trip may touch their life and may remind them to keep praying for God's mission.
During August, Grace had a wonderful time with the Ethiopian Sunday School teachers and children. She put lots of efforts into training 71 teachers to prepare for the Daily Vacation Bible School (DVBS). In the training, she taught DVBS planning, children's devotional time, children's songs, teaching methods, games and activities. Most of the KHC churches in Addis Ababa have DVBS programme at the end of August. What an amazing it is that some churches have over 700 children during the programme! It was exciting to see that the trained teachers gave training to the others in each church and that they tried to present the Gospels to children by their skills that they learned from the training. What a blessing time it was to reach children during large DVBS program!
Recently Grace was asked to work on two things that she never tried before. One was to join the administration team of SIM Ethiopia until this November. The other was to be selected as a Board member of Evangelical Theological College (ETC) in Addis Ababa, giving advice and direction to the ETC program and assisting the Board to make important decisions. Please pray for the wisdom that she can input her ideas and vision to the mission leadership and the leadership of ETC Board.
*Current Issues in Ethiopia*
Famine: Many regions in Ethiopia have experienced inadequate rainfall for the past three consecutive years. This situation has resulted in the current desperate need for food in many areas. In the East of Ethiopia, in a region called the Faafan Valley, SIM is feeding 8,500 people with emergency rations. A large portion of these people have walked for up to forty days to reach this area, on the hope of finding some food. A feeding center for malnourished children under the age of five has also been set up in this region. In Southern Ethiopia, near the Kenyan border, the situation is gradually getting worse. At two of our stations in this area, SIM missionaries are helping to distribute grains, but transporting the grains can be difficult and expensive. Please pray for the missionaries working in these areas and pray for the continuing donations needed to keep these projects running, so that we can assist those in need.
If you would like to contribute financially to one of these projects, please send your donations to your National SIM Office with the relevant project code.
Faafan Feeding Center and Emergency Food distribution ET 92715
South Omo Famine Relief ET 92718
Ethiopia and Eritrea border dispute: U.N. set to approve 4200 peacekeeping force to monitor a ceasefire agreement between Eritrea and Ethiopia and the redeployment of troops from their disputed border.
HIV/AIDS: In Ethiopia the ever increasing needs created by this crisis. 10% of the world's HIV positive population lives in Ethiopia. Currently it has 1 million AIDS orphans. It means how the prevalence of HIV/AIDS will affect our current ministries. The spread of this disease also provides an increased urgency for evangelism and the need for counseling and support for children who have been orphaned by this crisis, amongst other issues.
We have to inform you that our e-mail address changed several weeks ago:
Cush.park@yimesgin.org And we opened our home page too. You can easily
find our ministry, current issues of Ethiopia and prayer requests in it:
Thank you for your continuing prayers and support, evidenced in many different ways. "Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that
is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.' (Ephes. 3: 20-21)
Love from
Jong Kook, Grace, Jason and Anna
Rev. Jong Kook & Grace Eun Hye Park
Serving In Mission (SIM)
Stuart O Seanoir, 7 Faiche Chill an Chaoich, Baile Atha Cliath 24, Ireland
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