Day 10-15: Put to the Sword!

It's been a long time since my last update, so my apologies. Now that we've got that out of the way, let's get back to it. :)

I landed at Incheon airport at 6:30am on Monday morning. From there, I caught a shuttle bus to take me to Kang-nam station, which is about a block away from Sarang Church. Sarang Church was hosting the CAL Seminar, and they were providing a bus service from their church building to their retreat centre about an hour out from Seoul.




Because I arrived so early, I had quite a bit of time after I got to Sarang Church. So I asked the building supervisor to watch over my luggage, and I went and sat down at a cafe for a bit.

A bit was 3 hours, but that was fine because I had a book to read. :)

After that, I walked over to Sarang Church once more, and waited around with everyone else to get on the buses. As I was standing there, I was surprised to see Lee Kie-Sun mogsanim. This was one of the associate ministers from Saesoon, and a guy I studied at PTC with and was ordained with. I hadn't seen him in ages, so it was a nice surprise to bump into him here.




As we were chattering away catching up, another mogsanim I know from Sydney came up with the words, "Huh? What are you doing here?!" (Translated of course! :) )

It was Yoo Jong-Oh mogsanim.




As we were talking together, Lee Seung-Hak mogsanim from Ggumi-inun Church came along. I knew he'd be there. He's my partner minister in our co-operative church - Korean ministry with Ggumi-inun Church and English ministry with Sydney Living Hope Community Church. But more on that later. :)




12:30pm came along and we got on the bus together and made our way to the retreat centre. I was quite amazed by the place, as it was very well built with excellent facilities.

We went in to register, pick up our registration packs, and our room keys and made our way up to our rooms.

I was given a twin share room on the top floor, which I was to share with Bae Yong-Gi mogsanim who was also from Sydney, although I'd never met him before.




The quality of the room was astounding - about the standard of a good quality 3-4 star hotel!




After that, I made my way downstairs to the lobby cafeteria and sat with the others talking about this and that, waiting until for the conference to get underway at 4pm.

I was surprised to find out that not all the rooms were like the one I had. Lee Kie-Sun mogsanim was in a room with 6 other people where they were all sleeping on the floor. It seems that the quality of accommodation depends on whether you are a senior pastor of your own church, or an associate pastor.

Anyways, I was flicking through the timetable which was very very VERY packed! Seminars starting early in the morning and running until 10pm and no free time apart from meals!




I won't bore you with the details, but will point out some highlights. :)

I was shocked to find out that a part of the training was leading a Bible Study with one of Sarang Church's small groups at the end of the week. Leading a small group Bible study wasn't something I was too concerned about. What petrified me was leading a small group Bible study with just middle-aged ladies as members IN KOREAN!

But praise God, this went very well, and I was encouraged by their feedback. The group leader is meant to give a report with a mark and comments, which were all good. I didn't want to share my mark, but the other mogsanim's were really happy with their comments and marks and demanded I share mine. Surprisingly, mine was way better. Must've been a sympathy vote or something.

For that program, I was paired up with another mogsanim. He was an associate minister in a church in Seoul. And as we got to talking, we realised it was a place where one of the people I'd studied with at PTC had gone back to intern at. It's a small thing, I know...but when you're paired together among 450 others, it's quite amazing to find that even with such a random person you can find a link!




I also had an amusing incident in the lift. There were 450 pastors from around 50 different countries. And while the vast bulk of them were Korean, there were quite a few from other countries. One of these guys was a pastor from India.

Anyways, I was getting a lift to my room one time, and this Indian pastor got in the lift with me. I assumed that not too many people were speaking with him because he couldn't speak Korean and most of the Koreans couldn't speak English. So I struck up a conversation with him.

It turned out he was a pastor in Kolkata in India. At this point, I got really excited and started telling him how I'd been there on a short-term mission trip in partnership with a local church there.

He got excited too and asked about what I did there with my team. Finally, he asked me the name of the pastor for this church.

"Pastor Roy." I replied.

At this, a sudden look of confusion came about and he stammered out, "But...I'm Pastor Roy!"

Turned out he was the older brother of the Pastor Roy I knew!




Another unusual meeting...

I was waiting at the public phone to make a call back home. There was a guy already on the phone who was turned around staring directly at me.

I was kinda getting uncomfortable, and a little ticked off because he just kept staring. Finally, he ended his call, so I started to walk in to make my call.

But he asks, "Are you from Sydney?" (we all had to wear name tags with our church names on it, and my church name was "Sydney Living Hope")

I replied, "Yes."

Out of the blue, he asks, "Do you know Harold Oh mogsanim?"

At this, I'm floored, because that is my dad! Turns out, he was doing a Masters in the same department that my dad is currently doing his PhD at Queensland University!

It's a small, SMALL world!




Anyways, after the hectic 5 days, I stayed one extra night at the retreat centre and made my way back via the church bus to their church building in Kang-nam. I was to be picked up by my sister-in-law who I'd be staying with for a few days until heading back to Sydney.

As I was waiting, I see a very familiar face walk by.

I'm trying to match his face with a list of people in my head when it hits me, Pastor Charles Kim from JAMA Convention in 2005!

I called out his name, and he was as surprised as I was. His words, "Steve? What are you doing here?"

I'd actually contacted him several weeks ago via email to try and catch up in LA while I was there, but our schedules didn't match so we couldn't. So it definitely was a surprise to see him here in Korea.




He was apparently here quite regularly, doing consultation work for Sarang Church, Anyways, we had a nice little conversation, and then headed our separate ways.