Ed:

My mother was a strong Buddhist, and I often went with her to the temple in our mountain village on a small Korean island. In high school my Christian tablemate became my best friend. I really enjoyed his church and youth group—so different from my own religious background. At a New Year’s Eve service, I wrote a letter to God, expressing my surrender to Him. As we all dropped our letters onto a bonfire, I felt God touch my life.

Illness forced me to move home, and I finally told my parents about my faith in Christ and became active in the small church in our village. To my glad surprise, my father, mother and grandmother all accepted Christ and began attending church. I got well and went on to university and seminary. Six months after my grandmother’s conversion, she died. Hers was the first Christian funeral in our town. It was great! People could see Christ’s peace on her face. That church now has about 80 people, and they support us and two other missionaries. 

Jen:

My parents were committed followers of Christ, and I gave my life to Jesus at the age of 11. But in university, my heart was full of unrest. I went to Prayer Mountain for three days of seeking the Lord. A Korean American woman with a gift for discernment advised me to make a deeper commitment to the Lord before making any decision about marriage. God sent His peace into my heart, and soon after that He gave me a desire to be a missionary. My parents insisted I should marry first, and I prayed a lot. Three years later, Ed moved to our town. Our church’s assistant pastor had known him several years earlier, and she introduced us. After our marriage, God led us to SIM Korea with a call to serve Him in Central Asia. 

Ed:

After language study, we needed to know where to work. I felt drawn to a large Buddhist minority group in this country. But both of us shrank from learning yet another language. At a Christian conference, we spent a day in solitude, focused on prayer and listening to God. We both read our regular Bible passage for that day, Romans 10-13. As I read, “How can they hear?” and “How beautiful on the mountains,” I sensed that God was sending us to a particular city I had researched earlier. 

Jen:

But as I was praying, the name of a people group slipped out of my mouth; I was sure God had put it there. Mistakenly believing that these people lived in a distant part of the country, I felt confused. Was God giving us conflicting messages? Imagine my relief to learn that the city God had put on Ed’s heart is home to a large number of people from the group He had put on mine! 

Ed and Jen:

So now we’re part of a team in this new city—learning another language and building relationships. The people fervently practice their shamanistic Buddhism. Prayer wheels, appeasing the spirits, sacrificing to idols, fear, magic and spiritual oppression are the reality here. They don’t believe in a god, but they serve evil spirits. Please pray that God will open their minds and hearts to a new way—the way of truth. 

Getting Rid of “Bad Things”

Long ago, this group’s ancestors used to “place their bad things” on the head of an animal and drive it into the wilderness. We want to introduce them to Jesus, Who took their “bad things” to the cross and thereby opened the way for them to have peace with God.