Marathon Sunday

We normally don't wake up at 4am in the morning, except when we first arrived in Seoul, and suffered from jetlag. But today was a special day. We were to meet Dr. Rev. Billy Kim 김장환 목사님 at 7am before the 8am service, and that was the only time he could meet with us. Yes, he really is that busy. (His schedule for the following week included meeting the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon!) Thanks to Kim Gwunsanim 김영진 권사님, we were able to stay nearby at her place the previous night and catch a ride with her choir members too. If we had had to travel from Seoul that morning... Oh my... When we went to wait in front of his office, he'd already started meeting people from 6am in the morning.


(Dr. Rev. Billy Kim, mom & Juhee at GGBTS, SF a few weeks ago.)

After the service, there was a long line of people waiting to shake hands with Dr. Rev. Billy Kim. When it was our turn, we were surprised when he took us out of the line, introduced us to the Missions Deacon and told the deacon that he would like Antioch Church 안디옥교회 to start supporting us monthly from January 2010! Praise God!

Jenny's dad then drove us to Hallelujah Community Church in Bundang, which is also just outside of Seoul. We planned to join their 11:45am English Service, but we ran into one of the nursery teachers while trying to find where the English Service was to be held. It turns out that that nursery teacher had taught in the nursery when Jenny's mom served as their nursery pastor in the early 1990's, and he actually recognized Jenny because she used to help her mom out in nursery as a pre-teen. We had a nice chat with this teacher, and he informed us that most of the nearly 40 nursery teachers are the same teachers as when Jenny's mom served as the nursery pastor. Talk about longevity in ministry! We arranged to visit again with Jenny's mom the following Sunday.

As for the Hallelujah English Ministry (HEM), we were able to meet Pastor Steve and Pastor Cristian, and join in their service. It turns out that Peter actually went to seminary with Pastor Cristian's brother Tiberius. What a small world! We worshiped the Lord and enjoyed a wonderful Thanksgiving lunch (no turkey, but lots of chicken including KFC) with them, and Pastor Steve invited Peter to speak the following Sunday. We look forward to sharing our journey to Japan with them and hopefully partnering with them in some way.

From there we went to the church Jenny's dad attends in Seoul where we rejoined Jenny's parents and then went to Jenny's maternal grandmother's for a delicious dinner and some leftovers to take home too. =)