Last November I had the wonderful opportunity to attend an International Christian Educator’s Conference that was held in Suwon, South Korea. I really enjoyed attending seminars that helped my teaching, but it was also a great opportunity to just be in South Korea and experience a little bit of Korean culture, since South Korea is the country-of-origin of many of my students.

When I was in South Korea, I was impressed by the beautiful buildings, the clean streets, the helpful people, and a multitude of church steeples. I kept on reminding myself of what the country must have looked like almost sixty years ago-a developing nation just recovering from a horrible civil war. Compared to the West, Christianity has not been in South Korea for long. However, God has definitely blessed the country. I cannot help but believe that God has blessed South Korea to the degree He has because He knew how they would use that blessing to bless the rest of the world.

I came to teach English as a Second Language at Ukarumpa International School, a school run by another linguistic organization, in July 2005. It seems like every year I receive more and more South Korean students. That is not surprising, considering that South Korea is now one of the top mission-sending countries in the world. It is a privilege support the translation work being done by Korean families, by teaching their children so that they can be successful in our English-speaking school. The need for understandable vernacular Scripture in Papua New Guinea is great. We cannot do the work alone. We must partner with other organizations and people of other nationalities to get the job done.

(Picture: Park family are translators in Western Province with the Nama People.)