This morning began with a lovely walk around a gigantic lake filled with thousands upon thousands of blooming lotus flowers. Our host pastor even treated us to a duck boat ride on the lake.
We said farewell to Rev. Lee and his family. Then we took a bus to Cheongju. where we met with Rev. Kun Hee Lee the pastor of one of the most historic churches in the PROK. In his office we had a lengthy conversation on theological education, ministerial assessment, and pastoral misconduct policies. Afterwards he showed us around the church campus. The building is located on a site were several Catholics were martyred. The church is known for its integral involvement in the democracy movement within Korea and there were numerous markers celebrating the church's impact on society. One of the former pastors was even elected to be be the vice president of the country. The church has bullet holes along one side of the building from gun fire during the Korean war.
After this visit we traveled about 30 minutes by car to Dukchon Church. This is a very rural church who have an exemplary ministry. Many years ago the church started a credit union for the community, which is mostly farmers. The credit union now has over 1.2 million U.S. dollars in its holding which are used to support local farmers and community projects. The congregation did agricultural training for years, building trust and support in the community. When the church began to look at the agricultural market they realized that their traditional crops would not be sustainable in the long run, so the congregation encouraged local farmers to switch to raising a particular type of pumpkin. The community now produces 80% of this product within the country, thus determining the market rate. Farmers in this village earn twice the wage of farmers in other parts of Korea. The church also supported a livestock cooperative, a coffee shop, day care center and other rural advocacy training programs. Additionally, the congregation noticed that there were many migrant laborers from Thailand in the area so they hired a minister from Thailand to serve the community. Seeing this congregation's work makes me glad that the new UCC Local Church Profile asks the question "Who is our neighbor" my prayer is that congregations will take that question seriously and provide services such as this church is doing to make a difference in the lives of the community where the congregation is located.
After a lovely dinner with the pastor we took a bullet train back to Seoul.
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