Back home, families unite, pray for Korean hostages

August 15, 2007

Please continue to pray for the safe return of these hostages and for the name of Christ to be lifted high.

Read this story from Baptist Press.

Eun Jo Park is senior pastor of Saemmul. Park has been criticized for allowing the trip to proceed in spite of the potential dangers. He has publicly apologized on two separate occasions and has taken responsibility for the deaths of Bae and Shim.

Sitting on the floor with the families of the hostages, he casts his eyes downward and whispers, “I know that dying for the Lord is noble and that these men will be rewarded in heaven for their sacrifice. But to actually lose two friends was something that was unexpected and for which I was unprepared. To see it happen has been very, very difficult.”

Conversations with those close to the situation reveal that the team members were fully aware of the risk they faced. This was the second trip to Afghanistan for 39-year-old Jung Hwa Yu. Last year, she accompanied a group from Saemmul to Afghanistan to teach English. Her mother, Ok Kang Kwak, said, “Her heart was so touched by the needs she saw that she returned again this year.”

Daniel Lee, senior pastor of the Global Mission Church, a Baptist congregation one hour south of Seoul in Suwon, is a good friend of Park. Lee recounted a sermon that Hyung Kyu Bae preached just two weeks before the group departed. “Dying for Christ is a glorious thing,” Bae said. “Don’t cry for me if I die in service to my Lord. Put on my tombstone, ‘He died training young people to make a difference in the world.’”

“Where in the Bible,” Daniel Lee asked, “does it say that we should not go to difficult places? We must be willing to share the love of God wherever He compels us to go.”

Posted in Christianity, Missions, News, Suffering