Scripture Reading

Isaiah 40: 3-11

Sermon Text

By the grace of God a team consisting of 10 members from KSM and ESM was able to go to South Africa and do a short term mission from August 1st to 15th. I would like to take this opportunity to thank our church and our members who prayed for us as supported us generously. Moreover, I give great thanksgiving to God for God’s guidance for the team and God’s abundant grace during the short term mission. Personally, I have experienced so much grace even before the trip and while we were in South Africa. Today, I will give you the report of the mission trip and share with you how our God has done for the team. Today’s report has a title. I call it Abundant Grace of God. I could not think of any other titles but this one, Abundant Grace of God. There are a few areas where I saw the abundant grace of God.

Fundraising

First of all, the abundance of financial support. Last year at the session retreat in October, I was asked to lead this year’s South Africa mission trip, but due to the church’s financial situation, I was asked to do lots of fundraising for the mission trip. We even raised the personal fee from $1,300 to $2,000. Not only that, ESM did not have any budget for the short term mission. I was like, ‘okay, I’m leading the team, but there’s no budget?’. As a leader of the team, I became so burdened and desperate. So I began to pray to God, a lot. Fundraising was my prayer topic for a long time, from November last year. ‘God, you appointed me as a leader for the short term mission team, but we do not have budget. God, we ask you to help us. You’re the only hope. Please help us’. This was my prayer on my lips and in my heart for a long time.

During the time I was reading a book and this short sentence caught my attention. Love creates community. Meaning, when you do something, anything with love, people will gather and support you. Aha. So with constant prayers, I prepared for the mission trip with love and passion. Whether that is fundraising or whether that is training sessions, I did it with love and passion. And I asked our team members whenever I emailed them, how many emails did I send you? I don’t know, a hundred? Whenever I did, I always thought love creates community, have have faith in that. I asked our team members to do the same thing with me. As you know, our teams served during the mission dinner, let us see some pictures of our fundraising events. We had yard sale, carwash, hamburger sale and we sold special drinks at church picnic. I have iPhone SE, it has an app which shows how many steps you took, right? During the mission dinner, I took over 20,000 steps. Yard sale, almost 20,000 steps. Oh my goodness. It’s good for me, right? Lot of steps. But were so desperate. We were just doing the best that we could, right? And asking for God’s help. God, we will try our best. Please help us. We have no money.

Not only that but we, as a team, met every Saturday from 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM. Sometimes we stayed until 10:00 PM for 14 weeks. Think about that. Every Saturday night, you committed yourself to learn and to work with the team. That’s a commitment. We studied the word of God. We prepared personal testimonies, gospel presentation, craft materials, group skit, and travel preparations. So many things to work on. As if people noticed our love and passion for everything we did, we began to receive more and more financial support from our church members. As a team leader who was desperate for financial support, God gave me the wisdom to reach out to non church members. I wrote a letter about this mission trip and about our five youths who are in that mission trip, and explaining in that letter that I hope that they can see Gods greatness in that kind of place and let them have life purpose for themselves. And it worked. I signed it, converted it to a PDF file, and distributed to our team members. And from non church members, we have collected almost $4,000. Almost $4,000. Abundant grace of God, isn’t it.

As of July 7th, I got this information from the KSM finance department that we had collected more than $44,000 for South Africa mission. Abundant grace of God, isn’t it. As you can see from the fundraising graph across the kitchen upstairs, our goal for the trip was already reached even a few weeks before the trip. The day when we left for South Africa, a few KSM 권사님s (kwonsanims) prepared 갈비 (galbi) and 냉면 (naengmyeon) for the team. That was so great. And there were quite a few members like elders who came out and prayed for our team. So much love we have received from the church and the members. On that day, Reverend In Kee Kim said this to us, “God has prepared everything for you and God has led you thus far. God will prepare everything for you and lead you when you’re in South Africa as well. So trusting God’s grace and have a great time in South Africa”. That gave me confidence and grace. We as a team already experienced abundant grace before our departure and we were empowered by grace to go this trip.

Leadership

Secondly, I want to talk about the abundance of leadership from our team. When we were gathered for training on Saturdays. Some of the adults in our team, as Lauren shared, showed leadership in many ways, especially one 권사님 (kwonsanim) who always brought something to eat. Watermelon, or some different fruit, or some muffins. Every Saturday. It’s not easy. It’s not easy, but she had that kind of care and love for the team. Love comes from higher level, always going down and roll down to lower level. And adults, they show that kind of love and care for the team. And our youth, the five of them, received that and felt so confident in we as a team. When we went to South Africa, it’s not just a team anymore, as Lauren said, we became a family, solid family. I truly thank God for our five youth when I look back on this mission trip. To me it was like watching a flower coming into bloom. Look at the slide. It’s a tissue paper flower with Bible lesson and Julia. It was a great pleasure to witness how they became themselves, being comfortable with themselves and with others. They became brighter, smiling more and laughing more among themselves. It was true joy for me to witness that. They were becoming more and more God’s kind of princess and prince.

We went to an area called Transkei, the second week. Transkei is about 1000 kilometers from Cape town where missionary Ohm does his ministry. Cape town is the most, I think, crowded city in South Africa. But that that area is called Transkei and Nelson Mandela he’s from the Xhosa people. We went there on the second week. It took 14, 15 hours driving 1000 kilometers. I did not know why we had to go there, but now I realize, I understand clearly why we had to go there because missionary Ohm does his ministry in this special area called Khayelitsha. That’s a kind of ghetto area, poorest of the poor. And most of them come from that Transkei area. They left their hometown because to make money and 97% of the population in Khayelitsha is from Transkei.

And after that, after the Transkei experience, we attended this church in Khayelitsha and some of our youth shared their experience in Transkei. And when they shared that, the church members they’re originally from Transkei, they stood up and clapped and gave them a warm thanks. So it is like the poorest of the poor. Missionary Ohm is ministering to them and we were able to go there, to their original hometown, and reach out to them with good news and share the love of God with them. And among them, our youth, I remember that they said that they never met these people before. But they prayed for them. They asked what kind of prayer topics they had. I would like to pray for you. And then once they prayed, they cried, our youth cried because the situation was so, so poor.

God gave that heart in you. When you pray for other people, you have that heart for God and that is priceless. That is something you will never ever experience in this kind of setting. But in that barren land, nothing there, no electricity, no running water. We drank from rainwater. I slept on the floor made of cow dung, but no one complained. 10 of us, none of us complained. And this missionary called missionary Nam, he was so surprised. And he talked to me one day. Moksanim, I cannot believe this. Your team, no one complained, no one got sick. I praise God for you guys. And I thank God for God’s grace that we were able to truly enjoy God’s presence in that barren land.

Our youth took more leadership in Transkei. They took care of Sunday school. They went out and shouted towards this Valley, that Valley Sunday school! Sunday school! One or two kids came up from the house, we gathered them. And then adults did not do anything. In Transkei, you know, our youth, five of them, they prepared craft activities. They read the Bible lesson. They dramatize that and they show how to do the craft and they kneeled down and worked with them. Or even go out to the field and play with them, with the bubbles and all that. They took care of everything. I was so glad to see them taking care of that. You know, assuming that leadership. I thank God for that.

Our youth’s life goals got clear and they know what to do with their life after the mission trip. One of them said that she wanted to be a medical doctor and go back to South Africa and serve the poor people there. Priscilla actually said that. I pray that God grant her prayers.

God’s Word

Lastly. And thirdly, I want to talk about the abundance of God’s word. Here we are so saturated. The word of God is so plentiful. Here we can listen to the word of God, there you can’t just connect to internet and listen to famous, popular speakers and all that. There’s no electricity, no visitors. Only grandma Maza and little children. They welcome us with open hearts. And even our youth, when they just share simply how our God touched their lives. As soon as their testimonies were over, presentation of good news is over, people said “I want to accept Jesus. Please pray for me”. So the word of God and prayer, those two items, so powerful and real, so real in that context. On the first day in Transkei, I visited with the team, the house of chief of the village. We will welcomed by the chief and we will welcomed to spread the gospel in his village. As I began to share the good news with the people in the house, one lady who was in the corner asking me this question. I received God into my life awhile ago, but nowadays I can’t seem to feel God in my life.

Please help me. As soon as I heard her, I don’t know why, but I stood up and started talking to her. And the translator began to translate what was I was talking to her. I said to her, God will never leave you lady. Even though you may not be able to feel God in your life, it doesn’t mean God has left you. For God will never leave you. I was waiting for the translator to finish what I just said. I was looking at her with compassion and conviction. As soon as the translation was done, she began to cry and wiping her tears from her face and asking me to pray for her. So I prayed for her, asking God to answer her when she couldn’t even cry out to God. God, you are merciful. You will hear even her groan. As soon as the prayer was over one man in this corner in his thirties at the other side, knelt down and asked me to pray for him. He also received Jesus a long time ago, but he was like the prodigal son running away from God. He wanted to go back home. Out of compassion, I held his hands and we prayed together. I asked him to repeat after me. It was so spontaneous. Prayer and word of God, it is so spontaneous. As a minister everybody’s looking at me when we visited our household and the local church pastors asking me, “Oh brother, can you give the Word of God to this household?”

I was, kind of expecting that, but it was so spontaneous. So I asked God, what is your message for this household? And God gave me a message, the Word of God. I was so surprised. Even now, it gives me goosebumps because it’s not about me. It’s not by my power and by my might, but I was just clay jars. I’m just a container holding the Word of God, living God. It just overflows out of me and gives. The last day we were visiting the household and people looking at me, asking give the Word of God to this household. You know what? That was my big thing. I never experienced that before. It is grace to me, because I was able to be used by God. Not that I do something for God, but just being used by God. That is a great experience. And the Word of God was just in me, it just came out. And I realized that mission is not something we do. We humans plan and do and execute. It is giving ourselves to God’s leading, God’s word. And God will use us. That his mission.

There’s no greater grace than this. There was no abundant grace than this. Out of abundance, the word of God, overflows and reaches out to people who are in need of the Word of God. The five youth saying they want to go back to South Africa again, it tells you many things about the mission trip, doesn’t it. So my friends, our church began this relationship with missionary Ohm from 1998. We have sent 12 teams so far, and there’s a reason behind this. We are giving something to them, but there’s so much we receive, we experience God’s presence in a real way. So I encourage every one of you to think about that. Every two years, we will have a short term mission to South Africa and ask one of our youth, ask me, how was it truly? It is God’s glory. God is working really hard and we want to be used for God’s glory. Once again, I would like to thank God for everything. God has prepared and provided for us. And I thank you for your support and prayers for 2016, South Africa mission, let us pray.