Hello everyone!
I hope you’re doing well~
A couple weeks ago I got back from outreach and finished staffing my first DTS (discipleship training school)!
My outreach team went to 거제도 Geoje, the second largest island in Korea!
We stayed at a “one room“ apartment building, the girls in one room and the boys down the hall in another. And for most of the outreach our team had to act almost as an underground church.
There has been a lot of church persecution in Korea since Coronavirus started, and during our outreach the government actually prohibited gathering of more than 5 people. Yet there we were, 10 people gathering together to do outreach. So we decided to still gather together in one of the small rooms each day, but we had to be careful coming and going so that neighbors wouldn’t see us and report us.
And because the walls were so thin we couldn’t talk all at once and we couldn’t worship. So we decided instead to spend a lot of time in the Bible.
For the duration of our outreach, every morning we would spend two hours meditating on the book of Acts and sharing with each other. We also went through the Gospels, one person reading aloud a chapter at a time, in a hushed voice. And eventually we figured out we could worship if we used no instruments and sang at the level of whisper, and not all at once.
It was a really unique experience, and personally it really challenged me to find new ways to be in relationship with God at a time where I couldn’t do what was normal to me before: worshiping freely, prayer walking, or even spending any time alone. But God was so good to us in helping all the members of our outreach team to grow in intimacy with God through the Scriptures and learning how to live out His love each day in constant relationship with 9 other people.
Eventually doors opened, and we were able to join with a local church to finally leave our accommodation and do some ministry. We helped clean a house the church bought to use as a youth center, we visited a POW camp museum from the Korean War and prayed for the island at the peak of one of the mountains, and we got to join a famous minister in Korea who gives out 붕어빵 (Korean traditional fish shaped bread with red bean paste inside- it’s delicious) and shares the gospel. And all the while, the students were making contents (testimonies, songs, stories, videos, etc.) to share the gospel online with all the people we couldn’t meet because of Covid.
As a staff this DTS was really stretching...
We had 7 students, and 3 staff (me, Kittikhun who made all the videos, and MJ who was our outreach leader but had to come back to the US a few weeks before outreach finished) and it was intense!
Some of our female students have a lot of trauma from men, and some of our male students are still learning to control their emotions, so it was very tense at times.
And for me, I really wanted to do my best to serve the students (especially the girls) well, but I was so lacking: I was younger than all but two of our students, this was my first time staffing so I was inexperienced at being a leader, and though my Korean level has grown a lot, I’m very limited in what I can say. And I discovered that as things got harder even my strength, will, commitment, determination, and even love were not enough. BUT God is enough.
At the beginning of outreach, God gave me the promise of Exodus 14:14.
“The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to be silent.”
And He was so faithful to this word!!
Every time something happened between the students, or someone’s trauma was triggered, or some problem arose, and every time when I felt overwhelmed and at the end of my rope, and that I was not enough, I held on to God’s word to me, and He was the one who worked in every situation for greatest healing and to bring light and show His glory and love to us.
It was so amazing to see that every time I let go and fully surrendered the situation to God, the next minute He would heal, and fix, and restore, and work. And He would even work through me!
Over and over again in this outreach, God told me that I am so precious to Him, and that even though I had a responsibility as staff, God doesn’t want my works or my effort, but He just wants my full heart. And though I am weak and I am lacking, God can still use me. And when I walk in obedience to Him, relying on Him and that myself, I am enough because He is with me, going before me and parting the waters so my feet touch only dry ground.
And so coming out of this outreach I can stay I have a lot more confidence in God’s word, His faithfulness, and in who He says I am. And though it was a difficult time, it was also so joyful and I’m so grateful that I got to be a part of this DTS, and it will be an experience that I’ll always remember!
If you are interested to hear any of the students’ testimonies or see some of the content they made during outreach you can follow these Instagram accounts: @i2idtskorea
Thank you so much to everyone who prayed for me during this outreach! Especially so that I could receive my visa to finish the outreach! God’s grace and favor was really over me!
For now, I’m getting ready to come visit the US on March 25th before returning to Korea to serve for another year, so if you could pray for safety in travel it would be greatly appreciated!!
May the Lord bless you and keep you!
~Hope Starr 성소망
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