What We've Been Struggling for

Key verse Matt 14:16
Jesus replied, "They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat."

Introduction

My plane was approaching Nairobi after more than 20 hours of flight from Korea. I was nervous and excited. Outside the window, there was a red glow of sunset and a few umbrella trees in black silhouette from a distance. Some giraffes were sticking out their long necks above the umbrella tree. That was the same kind of scene I saw on TV. "Ah, I'm in Africa!" - I prayed with my hands together.

It was 27 years ago in August 1993. Most of the people here were not yet born, or still being breastfed by their mommy. Many years have passed. Now, there is no more Umbrella tree or a giraffe in Jomo Kenyatta International Airport.

During those 27 years, I visited Africa once or twice, even three times every year. At every new year’s missionary conference, we enjoyed Bible study, sharing testimonies and Jokgu(Foot volleyball game).

I often attended the conferences of African chapters and officiated weddings of several shepherds. I reported African ministry news to Korea UBF to ask for their prayer support. And seven years ago, right after I retired from my ministry in Korea, I moved to South Africa and got a permanent residency. I still go to the University of Wits campus in Johannesburg everyday with my wife.

I've seen the growth of the African shepherds, and how happy the missionaries are especially when African shepherds establish the House Church by marriage. I also have watched and shared their deep sorrow when co-workers leave the ministry.

The African UBF began when missionary Jackie Yoon pioneered Kenya. Therefore, Kenya's 30th anniversary is also Africa UBF's 30th anniversary. As we celebrate the 30th anniversary of Kenya UBF, I think shepherd Kevin, Juma, and Otieno may talk mainly about African shepherds. So, I'm going to talk about Korean missionaries.

They came to Africa just to obey the world mission commandment and for the joy of pioneering a new continent. However, they had more shortcomings than merits and there were more failures than achievements. They didn't know about Africa except what they watched on TV. One missionary once said he had taken a flight to Africa expecting he would see Tarzan soon. They were ignorant and lacking in many ways.

However, they have struggled and strived to plant genuine faith in African students based on the Bible and raise them as spiritual leaders, so that Africa may be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. They also have struggled to live and survive in Africa.

In the meantime, they gained African co-workers and they have struggle together with them. At last, their struggles became the spirit and the spiritual legacies of African UBF. Now I'm going to talk about their spirit and legacies.

1. A struggle to overcome the material problem by faith

There was always one major concern whenever the missionaries gathered for Bible study or prayer meeting, "How should we help the sheep who ask for material help?" It's been a concern for more than 15 years from the beginning. Some students asked for transport cost or school fee. Some asked for helping their parents or family, and some even insisted that missionaries should lend them a car.

The missionaries paid for their bus fee, fed them whenever they came to Bible study, and packed leftovers when they left. For those who had no place to live, they let them live with them in their home or prepared a common life tent. However, they were laymen missionaries and salaried workers. They couldn't help them all. They have always been worried about whom they should help and whom shouldn't, and to what extent they should help. The hardest thing was that they might encourage a spirit of dependence. So, whenever the missionaries met, they prayed together, asking God for wisdom.

The missionaries gradually agreed that they needed to be a little bit cool to the sheep. As a result, the students who came to the church for material help stopped coming, and only the students who loved the word of God remained. Among them, we could help those who really needed. Some were helped with Ph.D or medical studies, some were raised as business partners which helped them to become materially independent, and some were helped with living expenses and rent until they became independent after marriage. Some people were able to cure their serious illness with the help of Korean doctors. Many of these shepherds are bearing the grace they received by devoting themselves to God and God’s sheep.

At the same time, missionaries and African shepherds studied the life of giving from the Bible. "You give them something to eat."(Matt 14:16, Mark 6:37, Luke 9:13), "Jesus fed five thousands with five loaves and two fish."(John 6:3-14), "It is more blessed to give than to receive."(Acts 20:35), "But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well."(Matt 6:33)

These are the words that we have studied the most. We studied these words with desperate hearts that Africa could become a kingdom of priests and a holy nation only when they overcome the material problems by faith. When we studied these words, we had to struggle so much with students. Students who responded with “Hallelujah, Amen!” to other words, hardened their faces to these words. They complained about how they could live life of giving while they didn't have any money, and they even misunderstood our church. Every time this happened, we were afraid that all the students might leave. However, gradually, the word of God started to work.

In the early days of pioneering, the missionaries paid all the conference fees. However, in order to plant independent spirit and help them attend the conference with their hearts, remembering Jesus' word, "For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."(Matt 6:21), they encouraged them to pay the conference fee little by little by themselves.

They also encouraged them to give offerings at the Sunday worship service and give a tithe to God. Today, more than 80% of the graduate members of Kenya UBF and more than 60% of graduate members of other chapters give tithe. This is an epochal history in a climate of Africa. God has done it among us. Our struggle to overcome the material problem by faith has changed the lives of African shepherds.

Shepherd Otieno had no wedding expenses. One day, a professor who was helped by him at an NGO called him to say good bye before returning to his country, and when he heard about Otieno's wedding, he sent all the wedding expenses after he returned home. Otieno experienced God is the owner of all materials and God would help us when we live by faith. After this experience, he plants faith in God for material life in his juniors by teaching graduate members every year about tithe as well as manages Sunday offerings.

Shepherd Juma got a job as soon as he finished his study and gave tithe faithfully. Later he ran his own business and suffered material problems at the beginning of his business. But he continued to give tithes even in these hard times and at the end he experienced God blessed his business. He lives a life of giving because he knows God's blessing. He raised shepherd Ken Onyango who is about to get married. When shepherd Onyango suffered pain from esophagal inflammation, he took him to the hospital and paid for all his treatment.

Shepherd Kevin had a dream to become a cover figure of the Time magazine by making a great fortune. So, he abandoned a chance to get a job right after graduation, he started his own business to make lots of money quickly. But his business continued to fail. After all, he got a job, but didn’t get paid well. He repented after a long hard time with the help of missionary Mark Yoon, now works as a public official in the Kenya Surveyor's Institute and has a good influence on student leaders.

In Africa, where ethnicity is strong, there is a beautiful tradition in which people who can't stand on their own feet are helped by those who can afford it, and when those who have been helped, they also help others. As a result, in Africa, it's not a shame to be helped. But this beautiful tradition can become poison that creates dependency and produce spiritual paralytics.

In the past, Koreans became sick when they relied on US aid. The UBF movement in Korea was a struggle to rise from a sick life of dependency and become independent by depending on God alone. How can Africa become a giving continent and a shepherd continent for the world? Our struggle must continue.

In the meantime, the economic situation of Africa has improved. As a result, missionaries are no longer overwhelmed by the material needs of the sheep. Moreover, African shepherds deal with material problems by themselves and challenge them by faith.

Now, in the most chapters of African UBF, the leadership has been already handed over to African shepherds. So far, the material sacrifices of Korean missionaries have been a large part of ministry management. Now, I pray that African shepherds may take this responsibility also.

2. A struggle for one-to-one Bible study and testimony writing

UBF is a church with a special mission to raise university students as spiritual leaders. We realized this mission is really important in Africa. Africa has a large land and a large population. The climate is good and natural resources are abundant. There are a lot of rare earth elements that are essential to modern IT industry but not found on other continents. There are many advantages over other continents.

But why do most people in Africa suffer from poverty? Everyone in Africa says it is because of the corruption of their leaders. All Africans think that in order to solve Africa's problems, there must be an honest and upright ruler who fears God, shepherds who love his people and sacrifice for them.

The missionaries prayed for it and went to the campus to see the future leaders. They went to the campus with their exhausted body after work. Sometimes they went during the lunchtime because after work it’s too late to meet students.

While meeting the students, we learned that African students know the Bible very well, even more than we know. But what they knew was half right and half wrong. And the knowledge was just what they heard, not what they understood or accepted in their hearts. Most of all, their knowledge wasn't applied in their actual life at all. We found it is important to help them to obey God's word in their actual life. To do this, we learned that we should do one-to-one Bible study based on a personal relationship with them.

African students are relatively easy to invite to Bible study. They don't look angry, nor threaten to sue us because we've violated their privacy. The security doesn't kick us out, either. Nowadays, very few students refuse to study the Bible. But the problem is that only few students appear among those who made an appointment. And very few arrive on time. We spend more time waiting for the students or trying to reschedule the appointments than actually studying the Bible.

After quite a while, we discovered that it was part of African culture and we learned to wait. It was not easy for Koreans who have short patience and we have to struggled a lot. And African sheep also received training to speak clearly and to be on time. These training brought changes in their attitudes toward the word of God and the life of faith. Those who continued with one-to-one Bible study not only grew in their Bible knowledge, but also acquired sincerity and humility, which are essential for leaders.

Testimony writing is essential for a successful one-on-one Bible study. The following is not for making fun of African people. Please listen with smile. African people are very good at speaking. If you get a chance, you can keep talking for two or three hours. The group Bible study never ends when you are not stopped. And the dignity and gestures of speech are all presidential.

And how about your dancing and singing? Your sing-spiration for worship have to last at least for 40 minutes. I came to Africa and realized that all contemporary pop songs and dancing of the world came from Africa. The world-famous Korean-pop songs and dancing of BTS seems to come from Africa, too.

However, when it comes to writing, you are utterly lost, even only for three lines. Whenever we assist students to write, we became exhausted. But if you don't write and only talk about the Bible, you do not get a chance to seriously struggle with the Word of God and accept it in your heart, and it’s difficult to have deep and true repentance. Therefore, we had to struggle a lot for this.

The point of testimony writing is repentance. If we don't repent, the Word can't enter our hearts, and our life can't be changed. We can become wicked believers who use the word of God to justify our sins. But we saw it is very hard for African students to repent. Sometimes, African people seemed to think they would die if they admit their sins. And I've seen in Africa if we push for repentance, they see it as a great insult or a serious violation of human rights. They even resisted by saying, "Don't force a Korean way."

We were in despair. We almost gave up helping them repent and settled with just studying the Bible. But we couldn't bear seeing the Bible students with no spirit without repentance. So, we struggled a lot. In this struggling, there was a work of the Holy Spirit. Little by little, students started to confess their sins, and more and more students struggled to hold on to the word of God and fought spiritually.

We know we still have to fight a lot. This is a fight between me and my soul, and between me and God rather than between a shepherd and a sheep. I pray that we may not become a Hallelujah believer but a true man and woman of God and enjoy the true peace and blessing through spiritual struggle with the Word of God.

3. A struggle for a Common Life

It was not enough to study the Bible and attend Sunday worship to be raised as leaders. It was necessary that our Bible students be trained in all areas of his life as a man of God. So, we formed a common life. At first, we initiated common life to provide accommodation for the students from the countryside, as well as to save time, effort, and transport cost of traveling between the campus and the Bible house.

And this has gradually become a training center for our leaders. In the common life tent, missionaries and leaders lived together and shared their daily morning devotion, which we call Daily Bread, and prayed together. This trained them to have more structured lifestyle and the life of serving others. Sometimes we could spend the night talking to repent and to struggle to obey God’s word. African shepherds worked hard to achieve this, but missionaries had to sacrifice a lot also.

First of all, our missionaries who were living on their salaries had to make a great financial sacrifice in order to prepare a common-life-tent. Several missionaries left a palace-like residence in Korean Embassy and moved near the campus to live with the students.

It wasn't easy to live with the young students who had no structures in their lifestyle. At one chapter, a student drank all night and came into the tent in the early morning to attend the Daily Bread meeting, and right after that he went to sleep.

In another chapter, a tent team lived with missionaries in their home. And the missionary often wondered if he should wash their dishes or leave them as they were. It was a conflict between teaching a responsibility and getting rid of the nasty smell. More than that, there was always lots of stress about being around sheep and being an example for them, and they couldn't rest properly at their own home.

In addition, the missionaries spent a lot of money for flight fee to attend an inter-African or an international conference with sheep. However, some brothers disappeared while attending the international conference in America, and others got off in England on the way from Korea and applied for refugee status, then never came back. These incidents let down the missionaries immensely and made them feel betrayed even.

However, through the common life and sacrifices for their sheep, the missionaries became good examples for the sheep and earned their trust. Once an African shepherd said. "What's the difference between me and the missionaries? I have a lot of knowledge, but I just know it. But I saw the missionaries trying to live up to it."

With this sort of trust, we were able to learn from each other, discuss ministry freely and seriously, and African shepherds could grow to be even better than the missionaries.

4. A struggle to overcome the difference between Korean missionaries and African shepherds

Missionary Mark Yoon once asked African shepherds, "Which do you think is worse, when Africans are good at lying and Koreans are angry?" African shepherds answered unanimously, "It's bad to be angry. How can a person be angry at another person though things are bad?" But Koreans are different. They say "One can be angry when he can't overcome his emotion, but how can he lie?" We've found Africans think of anger as violence, and even sue someone for it.

There were many other cultural differences as well as this kind of temperamental difference. Korean missionaries couldn't understand the complicated marriage process and the extravagant wedding ceremonies and funeral. It was hard for us to tolerate when they come late for the Bible study, prayer meetings, and weddings, but we saw Africans can handle it very well. One missionary even said he felt like he was from another planet.

The language barrier was also a problem. For example, we didn't know the word 'stupid' was so offensive. We found that we had to use the word 'silly' or 'unwise' instead of stupid. In many cases, sheep suffered distress and even left the ministry because of our short English or poor expressions.

We also learned that African sheep are often troubled by cultural differences from Korean missionaries, not necessarily religious issues. And whenever we recognize it, we couldn't but repent and try to learn about Africans. In this struggle, Korean missionaries and African shepherds learned that different things are not a matter to be solved, but a matter to be recognized and accept. And I found that if there is one solution for that, it is love.

This time, I am deeply grateful to all our African shepherds for their patience and bearing with our Korean missionaries. The missionaries asked the African shepherds for help when they couldn't understand the behavior or mind set of the sheep, then African shepherds explained to the African students the good intentions of the missionaries in the terms they could understand by approaching them in a fitting manner for them. African shepherds could see the inner conditions of the sheep very well, which the missionaries could never see, so they informed them when it was necessary. Without their help, African ministry couldn't be established.

I saw in each chapter, African shepherds and Korean missionaries respect each other and love each other passionately. They are more intimate than their own family members. There are neither Koreans nor Africans in the African UBF. There are neither missionaries nor African shepherds. There are only the people of God. Praise be to God who has done this beautiful thing.

5. The struggle of missionaries to survive in Africa and what to tell African shepherds

UBF missionaries are different from traditional missionaries from Europe or America. They're tent-making missionaries like Apostle Paul. Without material support from a church or missionary group, they need to make money for their living and support the ministry and serve the sheep. It's not easy to take care of all these things in a foreign country where language and climate are different, and where it's not economically abundant.

Early African missionaries worked at the Korean Embassy which were relatively stable jobs. But some missionaries resigned from the embassy to give more time to the ministry. Some resigned since living in the embassy's residence was too rich compared to the lives of the sheep.

Missionaries who worked for Korean companies such as Samsung or LG could earn well and maintain a good living condition but they couldn’t make time to serve ministry because they had to work overtime during weekdays and even on weekends. Some missionaries ran their own business, which was really hard. They didn't have a lot of capital, and were ignorant of Africa business situation, and it was not easy to deal with local employees who often sue their boss. When they run their own business, they become too tired to study the Bible, prepare the message, or to take care of the sheep. Moreover, it’s hard to get permanent residency in Africa because most countries in Africa don't have well established immigration policies.

Because of one difficulty or another, many missionaries couldn't help but return to Korea. The missionaries in Nigeria, Zambia, and Botswana are gone back. In South Africa, one family left last year, another family left this year, and another will leave at the end of this year.

Not only that, the missionaries are getting older. I'm over 70 years old, and missionary Mark Yoon looks like a boy but he is actually not young. Finally, it's time for African shepherds to inherit this ministry. I sincerely pray that what we've been struggling for over the last 30 years and its spirit and legacies may continue through our African shepherds.

As I prepared this address, I e-mailed some African senior missionaries to ask them what they want to say to African shepherds. And to my surprise, their reply was the same. They said, "Everyone should remember that our goal is God's kingdom in heaven, and we are the citizens of heaven." Africa has a big problem with poverty. That’s why most African students want to succeed in the world and make lots of money. In the meantime, they fall into sin, grief, despair, and fights, which only lead to an ugly and petty life. Then they can't live a happy and healthy life. They can't bear a good fruit.

Jesus saved us with his precious blood so that we would not live this kind of life again but live as citizens of heaven and be shaped to be fitting for Heavenly Kingdom. It's not easy to live this kind of life in this world, especially in the hard realities of Africa. It can be done only when the word of God and the Holy Spirit rule over us.

Training is required to achieve this. We should faithfully attend Daily Bread meetings and pray together. We should examine ourselves by studying the Bible faithfully and writing testimonies. In order to live as a man or woman of mission, you have to go out to campus whenever you have a chance. As I think of it, what we've been struggling for over the last 30 years was to be shaped as citizens of Heaven.

Conclusion

Lastly, let's read together the word that we have studied the most. That is Matt 14:16. Jesus replied, "They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat." This is what Jesus told his disciples. It's also the duty of citizens of heaven. May we not become the ones who gather and accumulate only for ourselves but give to others generously and be shepherds of God’s sheep.

Jesus said, "But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well."(Matt 6:33) God gives us everything we need when we seek first His kingdom and His righteousness. But when we seek first what we need, we will be poverty-stricken to the end of our life. I pray that we may share this message with others and feed this people.

We are grateful and happy to have been struggling as citizens of Heaven with the African shepherds for the last 30 years and we became companions on our way to Heaven. How can we forget Africa? Africa has been our life and love. We will continue to pray, and we will pray even in heaven. May the Africa be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. Amen!