Korean Church

I finally have some pictures from the Korean church... they aren't great, but when you're attempting to be discreet there is only so much you can do! And by attempting I mean, I couldn't figure out to get my camera to stop making its super loud shutter noise so I would self-consciously wince every time I took a picture... bah. This is Hyeonae who has been instrumental to hosting us this month. She runs the North Korean prayer meeting every Sunday and the Thai prayer group that I wrote about before. This is the North Korea prayer group that meats before church every Sunday to pray. The group fluctuates, but this is who was here today. These are two Thai ladies that I have been privledged to meet. Orrathai is on the left and Parika on the right. Parika has only known the Lord for about 6 weeks... please be praying for her. She is a joy to talk to... I wish I had more time to get to know her. Orrathai is passionate about spreading the Gospel to other Thai ladies in neighborhood and building. Right now we are praying for her upstairs neighbor to come to know the Lord We have been giving testimonies every week as well about how the Lord brought us into His family and how He called us to the mission field... this week was Jenni's turn. To go along with the rest of the pictures, I want to tell you about a girl that I met this morning at church. We have been talking about how God is moving in the world and how it just our job to get on board with what He is doing. He is calling people to Himself and working in their hearts. I want to believe that, but so often I feel the burden that it is up to me to seek people out and convince them of the truth of the Gospel. This morning the Lord turned that upside down for me... yet again. I was visiting with a new Korean friend who is here in Brussels working with YWAM. She introduced me to a friend of hers from Antwerp and then she had to go leaving me to chat. Honestly, my first inclination was to make small talk and then get away to where I was more comfortable. But, as my conversation started to unfold, the Lord opened this girl's heart to share with me. She started to share that she doesn't come to church often and all of her friends tell her she should stop coming to church and just drink instead. She doesn't like to drink but she doesn't know if she believes in God. Sometimes she thinks that she could and sometimes she just doesn't know if she can believe the Bible. It just seems crazy to talk about how Jesus did miracles and healed people and raised them from the dead... how can that be true? She told me that she is desperate for someone to answer her questions. She doesn't read the Bible because she gets so frustrated. I got to share with her why I believe in the Gospel and how it has changed me life. I got to tell her that my life is still a mess. I got to talk to her about grace and forgiveness and how God's character, His love and mercy and compassion, but also His power that is above our understanding, all came to life in Jesus. I told her some books of the Bible to read and that I trusted that she would find the Jesus that I believe in when she read them. She asked for my email address to ask me questions. Who says God isn't working in the world? I didn't do anything to initiate this... I'm so thankful for the Korean church and that they will follow up with this girl and so many others to teach them the truth of the Gospel!

Chocostory

I've been writing a lot, so I thought I'd share some fun pictures with you!

Last Saturday we spent the day in Brugge, which is called the Venice of the north because of all the canals. I was devestated that the gondolas weren't running...

This is Annie...

Sadly it rained while we were being tourists, but we didn't mind too terribly much!

This is in Choco-story, the chocolate museum... very educational by the way! There are pots used specifically to make hot chocolate... you can tell because they have a frother going into the lid

Just some other fun pictures :)

church planting 101

“How great is the love that Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are... Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.” 1 John 3:1-2

I haven’t ever paid much attention to verse 2 before… “what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him…” It fits so perfectly with Philippians 1:6 “being confident of this that he who began a good work will be faithful to bring it about until the day of Christ Jesus.”

Honestly, I read that to say this. I have no idea what the future holds. I have no idea what tomorrow looks like, or 5 years from now. But I do what is inevitable in my future, what is certain. God WILL complete the good work that He began in me, when he appears I WILL be like him, for I will see him as he is. He WILL do the things that he has promised to do… these are certainties in my future. He will work for my good and he will equip me for everything that he calls me to do. I could go on and on.

This morning in our church planting seminar, Bill Yarborough talked about certainties as they pertain to the church, and to our personal lives. But I’ll limit this to just talking about the church.

“The fulfillment of God’s promises, through the work of the Holy Spirit, is our inevitable future as the people of God.” And as it pertains to the church and the kingdom of God… “Of the increase of His government and of peace there will be no end” “on that rock, I will build my church.” He has promised that HIS kingdom will increase and HIS church will be established. We are a part of a movement of what God is already doing in the world and we are part of a vision that ultimately will come to fruition.

Here are three other totally random tidbits from the morning…
1) “There is no power in vision alone, there is no power in principles, strategies, or good theology – the Gospel is the power of God.”

2) Church planting weds the Gospel of grace and the doing of justice. This is a challenge to adopt your community to really be your neighbors. There is a difference in our mindset when we say…
1. There are drugs being sold in the neighborhood… they have a problem… we will move
2. There are dugs being sold in OUR neighborhood… WE have a problem… let’s ask the Lord to redeem this place and take active steps toward that end

3) Tim Keller “the Gospel is the way that anything is renewed and transformed by Christ – whether a heart, a relationship, a church, or a community. Therefore, all our problems come from a lack of orientation to the Gospel. All pathologies in the church and all its ineffectiveness comes from a failure 1) to think out the deep implications of the Gospel, b) to grasp and believe it through and through, and c) to use the Gospel in a radical way. Put positively, the Gospel transforms our hearts and thinking and approaches to absolutely everything.”

devotional thoughts

This morning I shared a devotion with the group on the theme, "God pursues his people". I wanted to share some verses and a quote with you...

Deuteronomy 7:7-9
“The Lord did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples. But it was because the Lord loved you and kept the oath he swore to your forefathers that he brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the land of slavery, from the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt. Know therefore that the Lord your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commands.”

“As the story develops throughout the Old Testament, this covenant love is referred to in various terms, but the main one is hesed… Hesed is God’s loving kindness—the consistent, ever-faithful, relentless, constantly pursuing, lavish, extravagant, unrestrained, one-way love of God. It is often translated as covenant love, loving kindness, mercy, steadfast love, loyal love, devotion, commitment, or reliability.” – Mark Driscoll

Psalm 116:1-2, 5-7
I love the LORD, for he heard my voice; he heard my cry for mercy.
Because HE turned his ear to me, I will call on him as long as I live.
The LORD is gracious and righteous; our God is full of compassion.
The LORD protects the simplehearted; when I was in great need, he saved me.
Be at rest once more, O my soul, for the LORD has been good to you.

1 Peter 2:9
“But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.”

There is no escaping matchmakers...

Even in Brussels working with Korean church, yesterday one of the ladies asked Abby and I if we would like to meet nice young men who love Jesus at church. I mean sure... but don't you think Belgium to Honduras is an awfully long distance relationship?

The Lord has encouraged me so much with the people from the Korean church. The lady who is "in charge" of us during our time here is amazing. Her name is Hyeonae and she seems to be very involved. She has a really neat story... she has raised 5 boys and lived literally all over the world, more than 13 countries! And she loves the Lord passionately. I could just tell while talking to her that she cherishes Christ more than anything and wants to give her life in serving Him. She and her husband are praying for the Lord to lead them where He would have them to go. It's so encouraging to hear her talk about how the Lord is working in parts of the world that she has seen.

If I had to describe my impressions of the Korean church thusfar in one word, it would be PRAYER! These people know how to pray. They value it and they do it often. One of the neat ministries of the church is a prayer meeting every Sunday morning for North Korean. They pray for an hour before church through updates they have gotten, names of people who are in prison for the Gospel, and for the Lord to make His Gospel known in that very dark place. Also, they have prayer groups that meet every Tuesday, plus international house churches that pray together, plus more that I don't even know about. Each house church supports a missionary in their region through prayer and finances... really awesome!

Yesterday, Abby and I got to be a part of a prayer meeting with some Thai ladies. Four Korean ladies meet with these two Thai ladies for prayer once a month. Last month one of the ladies, a budhist, gave her life to the Lord! This week another new lady, also a budhist, came as a visitor. Pray for her to know the Lord! She let us pray for her, which was great, and said she may come back next time. It was a joy to be with these ladies and to pray with them. They were so gracious to have us there and to try to use a language we understood :) To be honest, the language barrier is huge! There was Thai, Korean, French, Flemish, and English all flying around the room. Everyone was trying to communicate in a language that was not their first language which makes misunderstandings abound!! But I think we got the main points eventually... and the Lord is clearly using it. It was such a blessing to be with these other sweet women of faith and pray together, although in different languages, to a God who understands all of us and knows each of our needs. I'm thankful.

Open-Handed?

This morning I was struck with a new thought about life. While we were talking this morning about thoughts and feelings toward going on the mission field, I realized one of my fears. What if I love it? What if I get invested there and I don’t want to come home. I’ve been thinking about my time in Honduras in a very concrete way. This is generally what I think it will look like, this is how long I’ll be there, this is when I’ll come home. What if that doesn’t happen? What if God, in His perfect plan, allows me to really fall in love with a people and want to stay there in ministry with them, or come home and go back. Right now, to be honest, I’m not okay with that. That doesn’t fit my life plan. So… I’m praying starting tonight for the Lord to make me open handed with my future. I have thought that I’ve been praying that I’ll along… but I guess I hadn’t even realized that this was something that I needed to let go.

The Lord has never, up to this point, gone along with my life plan. I’m not really sure why I thought that He would start now. In my life plan, I would be married now, probably with two children. I would be living somewhere somewhat challenging, but certainly not overseas, staying near my family and friends. I would be doing ministry, but at my leisure since my husband would be the one with a full-time job. Oh how different my life is from what I expected. But up to this point I have never been unsatisfied with where the Lord has brought me. I really can look at my life and say, without a doubt, that this is the Lord’s GOOD for me! He has made me to be the person that I am and to be where I am. It’s fun to be here learning more about who I am and also just being reaffirmed in the things that I have been learning about myself on my own. The Lord has made me unique and given me gifts and talents that He desires to use for His kingdom to go forward in the world.

There is a Caedmon’s Call song with the lyrics, “He doesn’t need us, but He lets us put our hands in”. This is how I feel most days in ministry, or at least when I’m thinking rightly about my place in ministry. The Lord allows me to be a part of this… what a blessing.

I still want to get married. And I would rather it be sooner than later. But as I meet these families here who are following the Lord all around the world with kids, or leaving their grown children behind, I am so challenged. I don’t know that I will live overseas for the rest of my life. But I want to be open-handed with the Lord. Single or married, kids or no kids, whatever my life stage… I want to be constantly asking the Lord where He wants me to be and what He wants for my life and how I can fit into the work that He is already doing in the world. I don't think I have a choice in that any more. He has compelled me to seek Him in a really big way because He has assured that wherever He takes me is for my ultimate GOOD. Why would I want to be anywhere else?

I think I need to save this and read it every couple years :)

The less scary version of Evangelism

A couple days ago John Leonard came from Westminster seminary and taught a session on evangelism. I was really convicted and found his points really helpful in a practical way. It really made me evaluate why I don’t go out of my way to value the people that I interact with on a daily basis. I think some of it is insecurity and some of it is being far too busy in my life. I get task-oriented and busy and I don’t take the time to speak to the cashier checking me out or go inside to pay when I get gas. I remember visiting some missionary friends last winter and noticing how they interacted with store owners and restaurant staff. These are the places where they made friends, where they would go back and visit, and where the Lord was opening doors for the Gospel. For a long time I have blamed my lack of effort in this area on my personality. But maybe I’m just lazy?!?

The theme of the session was Evangelism: Pastoring people to Christ. I’ll just share some main themes with you.
1. Know the Gospel for yourself
2. Pour out the overflow of grace (he made a good point here that often we only evangelize because we feel guilty that we haven’t been evangelizing… so in my guilt, I bring a Gospel of grace.. hmm)
3. Believe in the sovereignty of God in evangelism. You don’t have to share everything at once or work on your own timetable.

In the sense of personal evangelism:

1. Be more than a friend, be a pastor/mentor (love people well and be trustworthy so that you will be the person they come to when life gets hard)

2. Listen more than you speak (when you listen to people, they are giving you the context in which you can share the Gospel with them)

3. Ask questions (figure out if people even want you in their life)

4. Ask people for help (all of us really need help… don’t be afraid to ask… shows people that you value them and disarms their defenses)

5. Don’t say more than people want to hear (this goes along with the next one... don't overwhelm people or force yourself on them)

6. Raise curiosity, don’t dampen it

7. Contextualize the Gospel with examples that fit into their life and culture

8. Evangelize Christians and disciple non-Christians (Christians need to be reminded of grace as much as anyone… we tend to revert to a default setting of being works oriented. And as you disciple people and point them to the Lord and the Gospel in different areas of life, they will begin to see their need for the Lord in all of life.)

9. Sow widely and optimistically

10. Pray with your eyes open and pray often

11. Pray that God would lead you to people who He is already calling to Himself.

12. Have something to invite non-Christians to (don’t be isolated in your evangelism, invite people to join your community)

I hope this is helpful for some of you in some way!

Brussel Sprout

Thanks to Erin M. who came up with my blog title :)

Question of the day: If you were going to name your grocery store “Abba’s butt”, would you put is across the street from an elementary school?

While we’re at it, I would like to point out that one of the “symbols” of Brussels is a peeing boy statue. I don’t feel the need to post a picture for you, but feel free to look it up. I just don’t really get it to be honest with you…

Today has been great, and a little more low-key. My roommates and I have a tendency to stay up too late, leave our homework ‘till night-time, and talk too much. Sounds like college :) Except that last night we went to a pub, that’s something I never did in college. Every week we have to find a place to make cultural observations, called ethnographies… so that’s been a fun adventure. It’s a great way to gain insight into the culture, draw conclusions, and then find out later that lots of them were wrong. But you only find that out if you keep watching and paying attention and asking questions. Hmm… sounds like what I’ll be doing a lot of really soon in Central America.

The last two days of training have felt a lot like seminary. Okay, I’ve never been, but I’m taking a wild stab at it since our teacher is a seminary professor at Westminster. We had sessions on Evangelism and Contextualization. They were really good. Keep your eyes out for a post about evangelism. I was really struck by the things he said and I want to share some of them with you at a later time… or maybe immediately since the internet just went down and you don’t be getting this post ‘till later either apparently.

I have so much else to say… but I want you all to keep reading my blog and not think I’m trying to write a 700 page novel one chapter at a time… so I’m going to be done for now :)

Yay… the internet is back!
Does this mean that only moms with purses and girls with pigtails get to cross the street?

I ran into some friends while wandering through town... looks like the Luthers found Aldis!

truffles? Yes please!

The last two days have been filled with training and adventures around Belgium. Since our primary purpose here is our training, I'll start out with that.

A group of us... Abby, Liz, Jenni, Rachel, Vitaliy, Marissa, and I... were assigned to do our internship at the Korean church in Brussels. We went and met with Pastor Choi who has been the pastor there for the past 3 1/2 years. He is wonderful and had tea all laid out and waiting for us even though we were nearly 45 minutes late since we missed our train... ahh! We're still getting used to public transportation here. We will be serving the church by sharing testimonies in church every week, meeting with small groups, and also meeting with the young adult groups, the youth groups, and maybe Sunday schools. We are hoping to build relationships with some people in this congregation. We anticipate the Lord using them to teach us far more than we have to offer them. I have heard that Korean believers are passionate for the Gospel... they are prayer warriors! So I am excited to learn from them!

Other news from our training: We have been doing sessions together covering topics such as... integrating into new cultures, how to break stereotypes, how to work on a team, recognizing how you function on a team, etc. We've been using some fun activities to get us working together and it's neat to see how different people start stepping into their natural roles. I'm sure that will continue to come out as we spend time together. I'm also really enjoying leading worship... so that's been a huge plus.

I've really enjoyed meeting the people here at the OM center. I haven't gotten to talk much with the workers here, but they are great and so willing to serve us. I've gotten to talk some with other MTW missionaries who are just passing through. What a blessing to get to talk to people who are on the field laboring for the Lord. It's so encouraging and reminds me again of how the great the need is and how faithful the Lord is to use His people to be part of His work.

We did get some fun pictures on our way to and from the Korean church, with a little detour into the city on the way home.

The train station in Schaarbeek on the way to the church. After taking the train and two trams (a two hour trip), we discovered we can take the bus directly there in 25 minutes.

Just a cool house and fun playing with my camera

That's right... a chocolate shop! We got awesome truffles here.

My European favorite... 4 fromages pizza! Yum!

On the right side of the tracks... literally!

We are staying a town called Zaventem right next to Brussels. Yesterday my roommates, Jenni(going to Ukraine) and Abby(going to Peru), and I went adventuring through the town and found very little interesting and not much that was open. Turns out we were on the wrong side of the railroad tracks.

Today we went out again in the snow and found our way to the right part of town where we got treats from a bakery, found an ATM and a grocery store!

I have more pictures from our short, and cold, adventure. But first a ministry update. Today we started training officially. We had orientation and our group assignements. I am part of the worship team for our training times here at the center (first out of comfort zone experience: I'm playing piano instead of guitar... it's been awhile!) and then I am assigned with 6 others to the Korean church in the heart of Brussels. We go tomorrow to meet with the pastor to see what our time there will look like. Pre-field training has recently been renamed "Cross-Cultural Ministry Internship" and that is exactly what we'll be doing. We will be interns with that church for the next 4 weeks and learning ministry principles that will apply to our own fields in the future. I'm looking forward to really getting started. We're slowly learning a little more about what our time here will look like... sounds like they will keep up really busy!

Okay... more pictures :)

The building on the left is the OM ZavCenter where we are staying. OM is a non-denominational ministry around the world and we are using their building while we're here.

This restaurant was our first "dining out" experience. Nope, not waffles, french fries! Apparently these are also a Belgium delicacy.

Just some random pictures from our walk!

Brussels

After the easiest overseas travel experience I may have ever had, I am safely in Brussels staying at the Zavcenter here in the city.

I had great news this morning at the airport that I would not have to pay for my guitar, but the airline I was flying lets you have two checked bags! Yay for Jet Airways from India. I had awesome Indian food for dinner, sat next to a guy from Raleigh, smiled a lot at my other seat neighbor who didn't speak lots of English, watched almost the whole first season of Prison Break, and didn't sleep at all :) So... now I'm about to crash since it's 4am in the US and I have yet to even close my eyes. I met one other family who is here and I love them already... I think I'm going to love my time here.

I'm so thankful that the Lord is making my heart excited for this time. I have been praying about that the past couple days because it was hard to think about leaving home this time because it makes the fact that I'm leaving again soon so much more real. But once I got on the plane it was so much easier to remember that this is what the Lord has given me a passion and a heart for and I am so excited to begin this adventure and be a part of what He is doing all over the world!

Keep praying... :)

Tactic: London Avoidance

Today consisted of...
* 1 1/2 hours on hold with British Airways
* 2 Cancelled flights to London
* Maggie fighting with the Expedia man while pretending to be me
* One super mean airline employee who bullied me into a new flight that than also got cancelled
* One super nice and helpful airline employee who helped me get my money back
* A growing distaste for electronic voice recordings
* A disdain for elevator music
* A new ticket
* Chick-fil-A
* A movie
* Fun and very helpful friends :)

The end result is a new itinerary straight from RDU to Brussels leaving Monday afternoon! Jenni and I will skip our short Amsterdam excursion and still arrive with everyone else... yay :) Good results in the end. What an adventure!

The great news is I'm packed and ready to go... the bad news is I already said goodbye to everyone and I'm not happy about doing that again. So the plan is to lay low and pretend I'm already gone :)

Travel Hiccup

Dear snow in London,
You are complicating my life!
Love,
Shannon

Woke up this morning ready to make last second additions to my bag, threw everything in the car and headed to Maggie's house. The plan was to drive to to ATL today and get on a plane tomorrow for Cross-cultural training for MTW. Thankfully I checked my email at the last second to find out my flight is cancelled... awesome! :)

Honestly, it's no big deal... I'm getting good quality time with the Haigh family... cheesy TV ("Bring it On" gymnastics style), oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, spaghetti (yum!), flight searches (you can go to austin, TX for $252 if anyone is interested), speed lunch for Jamie, and patiently waiting to get ahold of British Airways.... and by patiently I mean I'm calling them every twenty minutes just to listen to their dialtone:) The good news is that when you get the automated voice feature, at least the man has a great accent! It's good to have a soothing voice tell you that there is no way that they can get to your call due to the vast amounts of call volume they are recieving. Thanks sir... I know it's not your fault... and you told me so nicely that I can't even be mad...

So... more updates to come! Hopefully next travel update I'll actually be out of Cary!