Life Abroad @ Valor ~ A Soul-Refreshing Visit to Seoul

 

This past weekend it was my true delight to travel to Seoul.  I didn't plan to tour any of the cultural sites or explore the shopping districts.  My sole objective (pun intended) was to spend time visiting with students I had the priviledge of teaching at Handong who are now engaged in a variety of callings serving others.  It turned-out to be a glorious autumn weekend filled with soul-refreshing times of fellowship!

I stayed at a small guesthouse near Gyeongbokgung Palace that I had discovered last summer on my visit following an extended stay at L'Abri Fellowship in Yang Yang where I gave lectures on Luther during their summer session.  The guesthouse was very quiet and comfortable, so I enjoyed a restful night's sleep on Friday and arose energized to meet a day filled with appointments.

I met my first student, Heather Moon, at a cafe near the metro station, and then we enjoyed a morning walk around the grounds of the Sajikdan Altar originally founded in 1395.  After completing her studies at Handong, Ms. Moon went to the US to study law at the University of Richmond School of Law. Following her graduation from law school, she passed the New York bar, one of the most challenging bar exams in the country.  She has recently returned to Korea where she has been working as an associate attorney practicing immigration law.  

It was just a joy to see how Heather is taking on the challenges of law practice and is devoting herself to serving others through the practice of law.  She is an excellent example of the commitment Handong students demonstrate as they seek to follow the calling God has upon their lives.

It is such an absolute blessing to see your students pursuing the path that God has opened before them!  Even though they may encounter struggles and challenges along that path, they keep pressing on.  Together, we hold each other up in prayer and remind one another of God's sustaining grace to strengthen and uphold us along His Way.

Later Saturday afternoon, I met with another of my excellent students from Handong.  Ms. Angela Semee Kim has just completed her PhD in Law at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.  Currently, she is engaged in two research projects.  The first focuses on international trade for an agency of the United Nations.  The second involves issues of human rights on behalf of women refugees in Korea.  Both projects will have significant implications for the formation of future public policy.

My visits enrich me not only because I have the priviledge of hearing about the successes and challenges that my Handong students are experiencing in their lives, but also because each student has been an exceptional source of support and encouragement to me as I have now returned to Korea, this time, though, to serve middle school and high school students at Valor International Scholars.

I can freely share with my Handong students the blessings and the struggles that I have faced over the past three months.  I value their counsel and advice, because each student has now become my friend and colleague.  Indeed, "it is enough for the student to be like his (or her) teacher." (Matthew 10:24-25)

I was particularly encouraged by my evening table fellowship with one of my most wise and insightful students, Boyeon Han, who I first met nearly 10 years ago when we both answered a call to help with the planting of a new international community church in Pohang, the city where Handong University is located.  We have been serving together in ministry in a variety of settings over the years.  

Last summer, we served together at L'Abri Fellowship in Yang Yang.  I was asked to give a series of lectures on Martin Luther as well as preach for Sunday morning chapel services.  Boyeon seamlessly translated my talks from English to Korean since most of the audience were not English speakers.  I have been thoroughly blessed by the prayers and mindfulness of this dear sister in Christ in ways that I cannot fully express in my own words, so I find the words of Paul to be most appropriate:

"I thank my God always when I remember you in my prayers, because I hear of your love and of the faith that you have toward the Lord Jesus and for all the saints, and I pray that the sharing of your faith may become effective for the full knowledge of every good thing that is in us for the sake of Christ. For I have derived much joy and comfort from your love, my [sister], because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed through you." (Philemon 4–7)

My soul was refreshed by our fellowship and conversation, and my body was nourished by some of the best Mexican food that you can find in Seoul!  Good friends seem to have a special insight into what you need to renew your sense of calling and purpose especially when the circumstances of life over the past three weeks have been quite trying and exhausting to my heart and soul.  Thank you for your encouragement and care!

 And the times of refreshment didn't end on Satursday evening!  I was blessed to be treated to a delightful brunch by two of my students from Handong who are sister and brother, Jiyun and Sangil Moon.  Following her graduation from the U.S. & International Law program of study at Handong, Jiyun pursued advance studies at Pepperdine University's School of Law earning an LLM in Alternative Dispute Resolution.

Jiyun now coordinates an international arbitration service's Seoul office and has organized over 20 on-line Zoom workshops in the past six months. Her brother Sangil has been working within the entrepeneurial business areana since graduating from Handong and is currently a business consultant in Seoul.

Once again, I was not only encouraged to hear about the exciting projects and challenges that Jiyun and Sangil have working through since we last met in Seoul nearly two years ago, but I was also strengthened and refreshed by their care and thoughtful interest in my well-being as I have been adjusting to living once again here in Korea in these early months without Sandy.  

My weekend came to its true fulfillment Sunday afternoon when I met my amazing student Hee Eun Ahn at a cafe near the Express Bus Station.  We had about 2 hours to visit which was only enough time just to begin to hear about all the wonderful opportunities of service Ms. Ahn has experienced and is yet to experience as she completed an internship in Washington, DC, with an environmental agency last year and is now making plans to be posted by the United Nations to the Island of Fiji where she will continue to serve the interests of environmental sustainability. My only regret of the entire weekend was my failure to get a picture with Ms. Ahn before she saw me off on my bus trip back to Anseong.  Your presence was and is a rich blessing in my life.

All in all, my weekend in Seoul was a true and deeply soul-refreshing time of fellowship with some of my most precious students now friends in and through Christ.  I have been reminded yet again of the truth of brother Bonhoeffer's words:

"Our community with one another consists solely in what Christ has done to both of us. This is true not merely at the beginning, as though in the course of time something else were to be added to our community; it remains so for all the future and to all eternity. I have community with others and I shall continue to have it only through Jesus Christ. The more genuine and the deeper our community becomes, the more will everything else between us recede, the more clearly and purely will Jesus Christ and his work become the one and only thing that is vital between us. We have one another only through Christ, but through Christ we do have one another, wholly, for eternity.”