April - May 2007

Text Box: 3 BAPTISMS AT HANMEE Our local congregation began to grow this spring.   Now every week, our numbers are nearly 30 in attendance.   In April we saw the baptisms of 3 people who had become regular visitors with us.  A young lady, whom one of our members had met in a bookstore, had been reading Rick Warren’s book, The Purpose-Driven Life, and was seeking the Lord’s way.    As the Lord has a way of doing, he brought her into contact with one of members who just happened to visit the bookstore where she worked.  Their conversation turned into an invitation to visit our church sometime soon.   Within just a few weeks, she understood the method of how a person contacts the blood of Jesus through baptism.   She did not wait until the Sunday service, but was baptized on Saturday, at the same location where I was teaching my class.     Our class took a break from my lecture to go to the other room and witness her baptism.   For my class, there could have been no better visual object lesson. Later in the month, we saw the baptisms of a young couple who had already been visiting us for several weeks.   Paul Whitehead performed their marriage ceremony at the beginning of April.  By the end of the month, Paul also baptized them into Christ.   All of us rejoiced that the newly married couple was also beginning their life as husband and wife now tied to the Lord!   TRIP TO PHILIPPINES I am always excited to visit new places.  This May, at the request of the Mission Committee for the Church of Christ at White Station, I traveled to the Philippines for the first time.   My home church in Memphis, besides providing some of my monthly support, also helps brother Elmer Emperado and his work in Cagayan de Oro, Mindanao, Philippines.   I went to Cagayan with the intention of providing some encouragement to this brother and his wife, Magdalena.  Instead, I was the recipient of the encouragement, discovering there a vital and growing work.  Elmer met me at the city airport on Thursday afternoon, May 10.   Since his van was in the shop, we took a taxi across the city to his home.  I immediately discovered that the Philippines is a very different country than Korea.  There were open air buses everywhere.   Most fascinating were the bicycles converted into taxis.   The driver would pedal while 3 or 4 passengers sat on the seats which had been added to the original frame.  Most of these had canopies to alleviate some of the sun’s sweltering heat.  Other make-shift taxis had been converted from motorcycles, and, with the additional power, could transport more passengers.   We encountered one motorcycle on the highway, nicknamed “SkyLab,” since it had extra seats stretching out from both sides of the main seat where the driver sat.   We counted 10 people riding one of these! Upon arriving at the Emperado’s home, I was treated to wonderful Christian hospitality.  Elmer and Magdalena have one “upper room” (accessible only by a narrow, winding, vertical metal frame staircase) which they used often to house traveling preachers and other guests.  It was the room with the air conditioner (for which I was especially grateful).   The Emperados frequently house and feed many people.  That same Thursday evening about 30 young people came to their home for a devotional Bible study, accompanied by delicious snacks. Reflecting back, I can think of no time during my 4 day visit when Magdalena fed less than 10 people at her table.  After singing some great songs together, I was asked to speak to the young people.   I began by saying that I was not really sure where I was.  Was this the Emperados home, or was it heaven?  The singing had been so beautiful, and the teenagers sang with such heartfelt emotion.    The next day, about 10 of us loaded into a van driven by Allen (who has since become a deacon in the church), and rode for about 5 hours to Butuan City.   Someone had packed songbooks in the van, and so for a lot of the way, we sang until our throats became tired.  The southern island of Mindinao excels in tropical beauty.  Our route from Cagayan to Butuan City took us along a road which hugged the coastline most of the way.  So there was always the blue sparkling Pacific Ocean to our left.  I was also treated to the sights of more banana and coconut trees than I have ever seen in my life.  Our destination was Sunrise Christian College, the only Church of Christ college in the Philippines which has government accreditation.  The president, Samuel Cariaga, is a young medical doctor, and is the son of the founding President.   Because of our late start, and checking the van a few times on the way for unusual sounds, we arrived at the College about 2 hours later than planned.  The faculty and staff were still waiting for us, and had prepared for us a wonderful chicken meal, complete with fresh coconut for dessert.   After the meal, I spoke to the group assembled outside in a large circle.  I talked about the 10 lepers who came to Jesus for healing, and the one leper who returned to say “Thank You.”  This was my starting point to tell them that there are always things to be thankful for.   Faculty can even be thankful for troublesome students.  There were a few students in the audience.  So, I made sure that they knew that students should be especially thankful for their teachers.  After lunch, the President took Elmer and me on a walking tour of the lovely campus.   The school offers B.A.s in a number of areas.  There are even plans for a new degree program in Criminology.   Future plans include constructing a hospital on campus, as part of their hope to offer a medical degree.   The campus already includes a hotel, since one of the degrees currently offered is in Hospital and Hotel Management.   One highlight of the tour was ascending Prayer Mountain, and seeing a wonderful view of the whole campus, and Butuan City in the distance.  The panorama picture below was taken from Prayer Mountain and is composed from about 4 shots stitched into one view.  On Saturday we returned to Cagayan.  We dropped off a few people at the college, but we picked up some new passengers too.  One of them was named Val, because he was born on Valentine’s Day.  He said that his aim in life is to make people smile.  Arriving back in Cagayan, Elmer took me to a nice mall in the city where I purchased a few souvenirs for the loved ones back home.  That night, I spoke to a group of men and their wives at Elmer’s home (where else?) on Christian leadership.  The church had been planning on appointing its first elders and deacons.  (Since my return to Korea, they have already done so).   My last night in the Philippines, I slept well.  I needed this rest because of the plan for Sunday.  I taught the morning adult Bible class, and preached to the whole congregation during the worship hour.   One lady came forward who had been studying how to become a Christian with one of the members.   Several of us went to the ocean, where Elmer baptized her into Christ.  After a final lunch with the Emperados and others, we went to the airport.   It had been a wonderful 4 days, some of the best I have spent in a long time.  It was refreshing to see the faith and love of so many in a city I had never even heard of a few months earlier.  Please keep this church in your prayers.  Also, keep praying for Elmer and Magdalena.  Because of the government’s travel restrictions, they have been unable to travel outside the Philippines for a couple of years, even to see their own children, now living in the United States.   Their first grandchild will be born later this year, and perhaps the government will ease the restrictions by that time.     SPIRITUAL LIVING What does one say when asked to teach a brand new course?  One might be tempted to ask, “Will I be compensated financially for the extra work?  Or the question:  What course is it?   As you can surmise, this request came to me this spring.   Sang Yong Yang, the director of the Bible Correspondence Center, phoned me with the news that a teacher in the Seoul Bible Institute, a school connected to the Sunset program in the States, had changed his plans and would not be able to come to Seoul to teach his class.  Would I be willing to teach his class?   Immediately, I thought of all the reasons I could not teach this class.  I am already teaching Bible courses at Korea Christian College.   The class I would be asked to teach was a course I had never taught, “Spiritual Living.”  It would meet every Saturday throughout April.  Each class time would be 5 or 6 hours.     I told Sang Yang that I would think about it, but quickly began thinking of some polite way to turn down the request and wish them well as they found another person to teach the class.   After all, Saturday was my hiking day.  But, the more I thought about the class, the more I realized that maybe it was in the realm of possibility that I teach the class.    After all, my load at K.C.U. this spring is the lightest it has been since I have been here – only 3 courses.  I would, therefore, have the time available to work on new class material.   And the person I usually hike with was occupied with his job every Saturday throughout April.   So, I would not be hiking on Saturdays.  One by one, all the excuses I could conjure up began melting away.   And I had come to Korea to teach, hadn’t it?   Why should I let my natural bent toward laziness continue when the need was so obvious?   And who knows, perhaps God had so arranged my teaching schedule this spring at KCU in such a way to make the time available for an extra course.  I phoned Yang back and told him that I would teach the course every Saturday throughout April.   The class went extremely well.   We had 23 students coming out every Saturday, many from churches of Christ, and from several denominations.  It was a joy to be with them.  I made some encouraging connections with many of the students.  More than that, the teacher himself benefited through his own research into how to make “Spiritual Living” a reality in life and not just a matter of discussion only.   At the conclusion of the course, one young woman asked to be baptized.    VICKI TO VISIT SOON In a few days, Vicki will be visiting me here in Korea.   This will be her second trip.   She came with me to Korea for a month long campaign in June, 1982.   Now, after 25 years she will be able return and see a totally different Korea.   Thanks again to all of you for your continued thoughts about us, and for your prayers especially.  We love you and look forward to seeing many of you during the summer.   If you are in the Memphis area for any reason, please stop in.    "I thank my God every time I remember you.  In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, "                                                                                                   Philippians 1:3-5                     Home
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