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Evangelical Training Group and Mrs. JinChan Park
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Chapter 15 - Evangelical Training Group and Mrs. JinChan Park
I always thank the YoungNak Presbyterian Church because of how gospel-center driven church it was.
While I was in the young adult volunteer group lead, I was always invited directly or sometimes non-directly by the church volunteer team head of department or the deputy to a meeting. It was the same as well while I was the head of the evangelical team lead. I learned a lot by joining and seeing how serious the elders were during the meetings. Sometimes during the meeting the elders would ask if the young adults had an opinion. If a decision was made, the elder would always say “let’s have the young adults also join in this program,” and showed how equally important the young adults were.
Every one week on a monthly basis YoungNak Presbyterian Church had a volunteer work Sunday. Rice was gathered in a large bin, and some would bring clean washed clothes to be donated. I still remember Reverend KyungJik Han actively showing his integrity, church member helping those in need, and working together, but I really couldn’t remember his sermons that well.
After I had resigned from the school I joined the only bible group that was a first existed called “Scripture Union”. After I had become a believer my life had a better plan. I prayed that I would become a servant in evangelizing when I was past 33, not necessarily a Reverend. I had 2 children and a stable job, but I left all that to become closer to God. My job was to write a short article in “Daily Bible” and promote the “Daily Bible”. The first supervisor of “Scripture Union” was JongHa Yoon. I still give thanks to how to apply the gospel with work and starting the work with prayers. I was glad showing why “Quite Time” was important to individuals and churches.
At that time there was an evangelical training group that taught churches to have commissioned workers for God’s work in evangelizing. The previous pastor had left to study abroad in the United States. The pastor in charge of the evangelical department had called me up to lecture the program for the new group. The Navigator’s, Campus Crusade for Christ I join the University Bible Fellowship to be trained. The Campus Crusades’ missionaries were sent from United States to have us trained at our church and I also joined that training session. I went out together with my children on the Seoul Train Station or the Pagoda Park with evangelical paper to distribute and evangelize. I was trained at the Billy Graham Crusade in Seoul as a counselor. I had lectured for the Expolo ’74 to a group of KyungBuk province believers. I think Reverend Han understood my experience in this field. During the “All Nations to Christ Movement” I had earned an evangelism award because I had brought many students to Christ from the school I was teaching.
But of course, an amateur was an amateur. As such I was only obliged to follow. I made an “Evangelical Study Guide” for the new group using all the experienced I learned. During this time, no computers existed, nor did I have a type writer. I had to write everything with pen, after I took it to school where deacon (now elder) YoungBae Kim was working and made copies. The Evangelical Department had gathered church members for the training. It was a multi group team of several team elders, deacons and laymen. There were 60 members and with attendance, each group’s elder was in charge. It was a great experience seeing YoungNak Presbyterian Church evangelical group form. For 3 months every week about 2 hours’ time was spent in the group.
On the first day of class an elderly lady was in the class without registering. Turns out she couldn’t register because of her old age which would make things difficult for her, so the department has told her she didn’t need to join but she was determined to join the group. I understood when the evangelical department said her back was curved so walking was even hard for her. Even for me it was difficult because despite her passion for evangelizing I thought she wouldn’t be able to do the homework, testimony, and the memory verses. But she still attended every week. Her writing part was difficult to understand because of many fragmented, broken sentences. I couldn’t understand what she was trying to say. But she won the Church Award for Evangelism at the end of the year. Her name was JinChan Park!
While she was studying for the evangelism class, she came and requested a help about this new believer request form she had gotten from a young man.
Turns out the paper had a name of an officer of the National Assembly. I asked how this person had gotten the paper. Her husband has passed away from long time ago, she had a daughter but she didn’t want to be helped and lived alone. In order to live alone she would go around coffee shops to sell gums. She would sell customers here and there with gum to make a living with her bent back.
One day while she was selling some gums, some of the lady coffee shop workers were laughed at her and that embarrassed her. She was about to leave quickly when a young man stopped her and said “I had ordered some coffee for you because I wanted to talk with you, please sit.” She did sit down “The woman workers were laughing at you because I told them I wanted to serve you coffee which they thought it was strange, don’t pay attention to them” and the person asked her, “I know selling gum isn’t going to make much money for a living, but I see a peaceful and happiness in you what is the secret behind it? I know I have a good job and learned a lot but I don’t think I can do what you can.”
She replied“I have no learning experience, but if you read this paper that makes me peaceful and happy,” and she gave the paper, which she always had in her gum bag and gave the person the evangelical paper. After the young man had read the paper from beginning to end, “I wished to learn about Jesus! Please help me!”that’s why she had written this new believer request form. I could never forget this beautiful event. That’s it! An intelligent man’s spiritual life was shaken from the core when God’s grace is on them. I requested the evangelical department to call that person. I hope the person currently serves well in a church somewhere.
The passion of the new group’s graduating team was great. Some Sundays after meeting and praying we would go out and evangelize where a lot of people gathered, and evangelizing person to person. We even used a time during summer vacation to head to an island called Ijak Island which was far from the Yellow Sea. I was in charge of the 15 members because the pastor couldn’t go for personal reason. After all the adults have gathered in the community center at the island, I preached about Jesus. The island had a church but no pastor or evangelist for their church. A few adults had gathered to have a service. I saw a lot of people had interest to God because we were there to evangelize.
One afternoon several well-fit Marine officer and soldiers had come on a speedboat (which was really rare at the time) and came, they asked “I heard there are people from Seoul I wish to meet them.” I said I’m the person from Seoul what is it? He saluted me and said “I have a request, the small island you can see over there has our marine corps –it’s a lonely place, I wish you can preach for them” it was a dear requests so I got on the boat with my team and headed to the island. I had the opportunity to preach Gospel on that small lonely island with a group of marines (there were about 50 of them stationed). It was a dream comes true for me to preach for soldiers. I boldly preached of the God’s words and when the time has come to have new believer membership, with exception of few marines, all of them agreed to believe in God, and had a prayer after that. Later on we revisited the same island to help grow in their faith by letters and materials; I give thanks to God and the officer who had a care for his soldiers.
After the new group and another group a new evangelist had come to take the job. I was then able to focus on the weekday evening young adult bible study group and sent many of the young adults to be trained for evangelism. I give my thanks to the evangelism department pastor and all the members who helped my lack of experience to bear fruit.
(January 2011)
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YoungNak Presbyterian Church World Gospel Mission 
Evangelical Training Group and Mrs. JinChan Park