Busy Year & Vacation

The past year has brought a lot of change to our lives, and much stress. After traveling much of this spring, we were able to take some much needed vacation and spend time with both of our families.

The first part of our vacation week, we spent with many of my family members in northern Michigan near Sleeping Bear Dunes. We enjoyed being able to stay right on the shore of Lake Michigan.

My mom showed us up by climbing the large dune for her 75th birthday! I did have the opportunity to golf for the first time this year, and even though it wasn't a good round, the course along Lake Michigan was beautiful and I got a hole-in-one!

The second half of our vacation week was spent attending a family reunion with Anita's family.

We came back to our home in Greenwood a little more refreshed and ready to carry on.

2007 ECC Worldwide Seminar

We held our Every Community for Christ Worldwide Coordinators Seminar in Seoul, Korea, May 26-31, 2007. Our group was able to attend celebration services of the OMS founded church, the Korean Evangelical Holiness Church, which is celebrating 100 years of ministry.

ECC has ministry partners in 40 countries, but not all could attend due to various problems, such as obtaining visas. It is very disappointing that some weren't able to attend.

Over the previous 8 months, I had spent many hours working with our Korean ministry partners to coordinate this event as well as communicating with our Coordinators around the world.

During the first two days of the seminar, we listened to ministry reports from Coordinators from around the world. This is always an exciting time, to hear about how they are doing ministry, and what the Lord is doing. Many people are accepting and serving Jesus! Lives are being changed, as well as families and communities.

Other days we had special speakers that spoke on evangelism and church planting strategies. Usually, we had small group discussions following the speakers. Having people from around the world be able to share with each other about ministry is a powerful dynamic. Often people end up in a particular group for a reason, that they need to learn something specific from each other.

Korean Evangelical Holiness Church

In 1907, OMS missionaries went to Korea, since they were no longer welcome in a neighboring country. The missionaries founded a Korean church association called the Korean Evangelical Holiness Church (KEHC), since there were few Christians and churches.

Today, it is one of the larger evangelical Christian church groups in Korea. The membership from that early founding is now almost 1 million!

We planned our ECC Worldwide Coordinator's Seminar to coincide with the 100 Year Celebration of the KEHC.

There were many different events celebrating what God has done in Korea. However, the "Big" event was held in the Olympic Stadium with over 90,000 in attendance! It was a great celebration, giving all the glory to God for what He has done.

Today, like in the US, you can see the evidence of wealth and influence in the church. What you don't see is the trials and hardships from the years of persecution and the devastation of wars.

At the end of the celebration in the Olympic Stadium, we saw many beautiful fireworks. For many in our group, explosives for the purpose of fireworks, was a first.

The 100 year anniversary of the Korean church is a powerful reminder that God can take something that starts out small, and with willing hands, and make something much larger than we can imagine.

Seoul, Korea

By the end of World War II, Korea was devastated. Then came the civil war that caused even more devastation and divided the Korean pennisula into two countries.





I did spend some time in Seoul after our seminar. The city is beautiful. It is incredible to think that not many years ago this country was devastated by war. There are so many new buildings, roads and bridges. While there are many tall new buildings, they have allowed for wide sidewalks and trees.

A large river runs thru Seoul, so one evening a Korean pastor and his wife took me on a river cruise. It was a good way to see how large and beautiful Seoul really is.

Korean Traditional Dance

During our ECC Worldwide Seminar, we were entertained by a group of ladies that performed Korean traditional dances.

The colorful costumes and fans complemented the dancing and the music.

We enjoyed this very much.