be steadfast, immovable,
always abounding in the work
of the Lord, knowing that your toil
is not in vain in the Lord.”
1 Corinthians 15:58
Team Korea is settled in and doing well! Our lives have been full since landing in Seoul. We moved into apartments with students and house parents, took a field trip with the students, and began teaching our English classes. Living with the students has been encouraging, challenging, and an enormous blessing.
We have learned to communicate without words and found that hand gestures can be more effective than we might have thought. We have also learned a lot about loving people through our actions. Because of the language barrier, many of us cannot verbally communicate the gospel or talk about God’s love to our students. So we have had to get creative and be the hands and feet of Jesus’ love in the form of hugs, washing dishes, tutoring in English, holding hands, and any other way we can come up with.
It is challenging to have such a large communication barrier, but through our weaknesses Jesus is faithfully strong. Last night one of the teachers talked about how important she felt Nehemiah teams were to the students. She said the teachers have verbally shared the gospel with them many times, but it is often a struggle for them to take time to just love on the students in the midst of all of their other responsibilities. She said that she thinks the students can feel God’s love in a different way when we are here. God is faithful. Through all of our inabilities to speak Korean, the love of Jesus is being communicated.
Today we had an opportunity to lead chapel and two of our team members gave their testimonies. Please pray that through their stories of redemption that Jesus would work in the hearts of the students and draw them to Himself. Continue to pray for our relationships with the students in our homes and our classrooms. Pray that God’s love would pour out of us in a sacrificial way that draws the students to the Lord. Pray that our team would grow in unity and that we would daily die to ourselves and serve the Lord with every ounce of energy we can muster. Also pray that God would protect the health of our team and give us grace to endure any sicknesses and exhaustion we might face. Thank you all for your prayers. We have felt the presence of the Holy Spirit in tangible ways and we are excited to see the work He is going to do.
Team Korea is settled in and doing well! Our lives have been full since landing in Seoul. We moved into apartments with students and house parents, took a field trip with the students, and began teaching our English classes. Living with the students has been encouraging, challenging, and an enormous blessing.
We have learned to communicate without words and found that hand gestures can be more effective than we might have thought. We have also learned a lot about loving people through our actions. Because of the language barrier, many of us cannot verbally communicate the gospel or talk about God’s love to our students. So we have had to get creative and be the hands and feet of Jesus’ love in the form of hugs, washing dishes, tutoring in English, holding hands, and any other way we can come up with.
It is challenging to have such a large communication barrier, but through our weaknesses Jesus is faithfully strong. Last night one of the teachers talked about how important she felt Nehemiah teams were to the students. She said the teachers have verbally shared the gospel with them many times, but it is often a struggle for them to take time to just love on the students in the midst of all of their other responsibilities. She said that she thinks the students can feel God’s love in a different way when we are here. God is faithful. Through all of our inabilities to speak Korean, the love of Jesus is being communicated.
Today we had an opportunity to lead chapel and two of our team members gave their testimonies. Please pray that through their stories of redemption that Jesus would work in the hearts of the students and draw them to Himself. Continue to pray for our relationships with the students in our homes and our classrooms. Pray that God’s love would pour out of us in a sacrificial way that draws the students to the Lord. Pray that our team would grow in unity and that we would daily die to ourselves and serve the Lord with every ounce of energy we can muster. Also pray that God would protect the health of our team and give us grace to endure any sicknesses and exhaustion we might face. Thank you all for your prayers. We have felt the presence of the Holy Spirit in tangible ways and we are excited to see the work He is going to do.