2 Timothy 2:1; You then, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus
Preface
In 2013 Luke Hong contributed this article with several photos.Contents
I. Winnipeg Ministry (1981-1990)
God brought 21 Korean women missionaries to Canada in 1981-82. They were hired as sewing machine operators for the garment factories in Winnipeg, Manitoba. They were the mixed group of young women whose spiritual training, education, etc. were vastly diverse. However, God worked in their hearts and lives through the common life under the leadership of Esther Kim. They held on to one word, “Everything is possible for him who believes (Mk 9:23b)” and challenged the language barrier. To overcome the language barrier, they memorized the textbooks of middle school and high school and thousands of basic words and definitions. In addition they prayed earnestly to raise Jesus' disciples among college students. In a couple of years, they were able to invite campus students to Bible studies. A number of students began to grow in faith; students were moved by the pure faith and sacrificial lives of our missionaries. In 1984, a dozen of Canadian students attended the Summer Bible conference at the Niagara Falls.
From 1985, men missionaries began to arrive when their immigration processes were completed after their marriages. They followed the same method of English study that the women missionaries had gone through for a year. They had the direction to go to universities to study. But the leader wanted to focus more on serving the growing ministry. As a result, the men missionaries worked in factories during the day and they went out to campus in the evening to invite students. By 1986, there were about 40 missionaries in the Winnipeg UBF and about a dozen growing students. In the evening, when we went out to the campus for inviting students, we often met each other in the corridors of the university. Some students were bothered by our approach and the security guards began to stop us. The school authorities took our pictures and banned us from the campus; some of us were even kept in a police station over night. We went to the streets, libraries and even parks to invite young people. The media began to pay attention to what we were doing and reported them in the newspapers. Somehow, these events coincided with the deprogrammers' activities in those days. The Winnipeg Free Press carried a whole page of our story, rather in negative and scary ways. Some growing students began to leave our ministry. Internal tensions grew as well. The strong leadership of our ministry also had the dark sides that hurt missionaries.
In the winter of 1986 and the spring of 1987, two groups of missionaries were sent out to pioneer Toronto (led by Joshua Lee) and Hamilton (led by Paul Chang). Missionary Daniel Sohn of Chicago UBF came to Winnipeg and helped us for almost a year during this time. Esther Kim married to David Jung, who came from Korea and took the leadership of the ministry. He needed to master English and, at the same time, led the ministry which was already under stress. It was a difficult time for everyone. Internal stress increased. It burst open in August 1987. Dr. Samuel Lee came from Chicago, assessed the situation and set a new direction in the ministry. I went and stayed in Chicago for seven months to study the Bible and to restore my spirit. Even though I was served much by Dr. Lee and Mother Barry, I still suffered from wounded heart. After seven months, I came back to Winnipeg with one word that Dr. Lee gave me at the end of 1987. “You then, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus (2Tim 2:1).” I struggled with this one word for two years. In the mean time, the ministry moved the location from downtown Bible house to a place near the University of Manitoba, more suburban residential area. We struggled to maintain the ministry under the constant pressures of persecution. We were often stopped by campus security guards as we were inviting students to Bible study. God helped me to resolve all my inner troubles through the 1990 DePauw SBC. The Holy Spirit melt away all the hard feelings toward some coworkers I had harbored. I felt completely free to love God and God's people. I restored the joy of serving the Canadian campus mission.
II. Montreal Ministry and Beyond (1991-2012)
Suddenly, in the fall of 1990, Dr. Lee gave us a new direction to move the ministry to other cities. At first, I was completely surprised to know that I would lead the new ministry. By faith, I took the challenge and moved the whole ministry at the end of 1990. After prayerful search, we decided to go to Montreal which had four major universities—two English speaking, two French speaking. John Giesbrecht and Andrew Christopher joined our missionaries in the new ministry in Montreal, leaving their homes and jobs behind. Monique Frechette married Bob von Moss and settled in Chicago. Kevin Jesmer kept the Winnipeg ministry for a year after we left the city but later joined in the Triton UBF. Now he serves the NIU ministry. As we were moving to Montreal, God protected all the members from the harrowing journey of 2300 km driving moving trucks through snow storms. We practically began the Montreal ministry in 1991. That year, we successively established a new ministry. We had financial difficulties the first year. God moved our hearts and we shared what we had. Korean missionaries lovingly shared their rice together; Canadian shepherds joyfully shared sandwiches with just mustard on. Once the coworkers were settled in the new mission field, we had the direction for the coworkers to go back to school and build up their professional careers. After a couple of years, there were some growing students and we formed the first “Abraham team” disciples. Many of them remains faithfully until this day and are being established as the stewards of the Montreal UBF.
At the beginning stage of pioneering ministry in Montreal, our Korean missionaries went back to school and tried to restore their professional careers. During and after their school study, many of our missionary families went out to pioneer new chapters in Ontario. Charles & Anna Kim went to London, Ontario. Joshua & Hannah Yoon finally settled in Waterloo, Ontario. Paul & Joan Lee pioneered the Ryerson chapter, then now, they are pioneering North York chapter. Paulus & Mercy Cha are now pioneering the Humber chapter. We also had lost some precious missionary coworkers—Moses & Helen Lee, David & Deborah Lee as soon as we began the pioneering ministry in Montreal. Later, we lost some more missionary coworkers in relation to speaking in tongue.
John Giesbrecht married Elena Guiterrez (Chicago UBF) in 1992 and Andrew Christopher married Melissa Laurent (Toledo UBF) in 1995. In 1998, two couples, David Jumeau and Connie Preteroti and Ernest Chan and Daniella Kim, got married. In two years Philip Wong and Vani Darkim married. Later, Mark Ohashi married Martha (Toledo UBF) and settled in Toledo and serves God's ministry there. Around this time, 13 leaders including a couple of missionaries left the ministry; they spoke in tongues and began to criticize leaders in the ministry for not emphasizing the work of the Holy Spirit, particularly in speaking in tongues and in healing ministry. Such fundamental theological differences eventually broke our relationship apart and we as a church let them go. This event brought such a great pain and discouragement that it took many years to recover from the shock.
In 2005, we bought and moved to the current church building, located at 2627 rue Ryde, Montreal, Quebec. Since we moved to the current location, we tried to consolidate the ministry and now we are tightly knitted fellowship of 9 families. Despite of discouragement and set-backs in ministry, new leaders grew slowly. Sylvia Foisy under Vani's care grew and established a mission family with David Na. Stephen & Faith Kwon has been good missionary coworkers. Pierre & Monique Jung are joyfully participating in the ministry in Montreal.
We have always struggled to build up student ministry, but we have been not so successful in doing so since the first Abraham team disciples. Veronique Gagnon-Bilhete has been growing faithfully since 2007. She brought her boy friend Nicolas St. Arnault. Both of them has been faithfully growing in faith and they would be married in 2013. Marcel Rodney came to us in 2009 and is growing in faith.
I resigned from the Canadian directorship in 2011 after 20 years of service. I am praying that by 2016, we may have a successor in the Montreal ministry. I have been praying for this matter for a number of years. Grace and I can function as supporting staff and prayer servants. I love the community of the Montreal UBF. I fell in love with the UBF community in 1990 and ever since my love has not changed even though I went through many ups and downs. I am happy to serve God and God's people in small and humble way in my capacity. God has been gracious to me and provided all things for me and my family. I feel loved among the Montreal coworkers whom I also love dearly. I dream that our prayer topic for Montreal to be the Antioch church for Canada and the world may come true particularly by our Canadian shepherds. I want to see that glorious day with my own eyes while I continually take part in such great work in a small way.