When I was approached about being part of the Korea mission team this year, I was initially
hesitant. Although I have taken part in many short-term summer mission trips with our
church, I held the common misconception that mission trips took place in tiny, rural villages
in developing countries rather than large and advancing cities, such as those of South Korea.
I knew from the very beginning that this trip would be very different from any other mission
trip I had been on previously, but I didn’t expect how much God would teach me and test
me along the way.
If you asked me or any of the other members of the team how our first week of English
camps went, we would all agree that the experience was tough, tougher than any of us had
expected or experienced on the mission field before. Fighting through jet lag, miscommuni-
cations, limited hours of sleep a night, and the responsibility of hundreds of kids for 16 hours
a day sounds nearly impossible, but by the grace of God, we managed to do it. Although we
struggled, God never gave us anything that he knew we couldn’t handle and stood by our
sides through it all.
The following week, we moved from the city of Daejeon to the mountainous countryside of
Goesan. The pace of our mission trip changed as radically as the landscape did. Instead of
having hundreds of participants, we had about twenty. Although we were blessed in having
numerous attendees in Daejeon, it was also a relief that we were able to spend more one-
on-one time with those children, especially since their exposure to the Gospel was far more
limited.
Although both camps were very different, the needs of both groups were equally as import-
ant. This experience was difficult, but it also showed us the true need for evangelism and
missions in countries such as Korea as well, with the rise of a young, yet apathetic new gen-
eration. God manages to teach us lessons of patience, strength, and absolute trust in times
of stress and in times of reprieve and my prayer is that I can continue to use these lessons in
the mission field and in my life back home.
www.fkbc.org
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