30. The language of business!

30. The language of business! In the meantime, I had something else to prepare. I remembered a pastor who had come to the mission field once and said that he wanted to open a special and complex shop for missionary work on the first floor of his church and create a space where people could drink tea, so I called him and made an appointment to meet him. I went to see him and heard his thoughts and plans first. As I had mentioned before, the pastor said that he wanted to first create a small cafe in his church where church members and neighbors could come anytime to drink tea, chat, and spend their leisure time. He also said that he wanted to prepare tea that was good for health and tasted good. So I suggested that we stock all kinds of tea, including herbal tea, Chinese tea, and coffee, regardless of whether they were Korean or Western, and he said that it would be better if we could sell them so that people could enjoy them at home. I thought it was a good idea and said that I would organize it accordingly. And as time went by, as the global network was formed, we decided to prepare other items, and we signed the contract prepared by the foundation, and the pastor was naturally registered as a director of the foundation. And we returned to the headquarters and immediately formed a business team and decided to name the store ‘Happy Sharing Store’ and put the name of the region or church in front of it. Also, in order to maintain the same design for all ‘Happy Sharing Stores’, we prepared a manual for the ‘Happy Sharing Store’ ministry through a basic plan on how to prepare the basic design and basic equipment that should be prepared, and prepared all types of contract forms necessary for it. In addition, in Korea, we decided to have one per neighborhood in the same city, and in the mission field, one per city in the case of small cities. In large cities, we decided to first consider the characteristics of the city after eval‎uating the headquarters and to place them at a certain distance from the first ‘Happy Sharing Store’ branch. The representative of all ‘Happy Sharing Store’ branches was to be a director of the ‘Barnabas Foundation’. Then, in order to actually learn about Chinese tea, I immediately ordered an investigation and the person in charge began preparations. First, since herbal tea is easy to obtain, I said that I would find out in many ways and connect directly with the company that makes the tea and send it to various places in the world for promotional purposes, and they said that they would supply it through the dealership. Then, I contacted a missionary in China and checked where Chinese tea mainly comes from, and he said that Yunnan, Guizhou, and Sichuan are famous, so I contacted a missionary who was working in one of those places and had a general discussion, and then I went there in person to explain the business mission I wanted to do in the future and decided to first look around the tea produced there. Then, I confirmed that most of the Chinese tea could be obtained here, and I also confirmed the price, etc., and signed a supply contract with the owner. Then, I made the missionary responsible for sending the tea as ordered, and later I decided to receive other items and open a general store. Accordingly, through mutual trust and accurate and quick transactions, an official business contract was signed and it was decided to meet later during business ministry training at headquarters. First, the necessary amount of cars were brought back to Korea and preparations were made to open the first store in Korea at Pastor Han’s church. For the operation of this household, Pastor Han’s church would support the initial purchase of supplies, and the church members would take turns volunteering to provide the necessary labor here, and the foundation would supply all supplies. In addition, the cost of supplies for all transactions would be paid as promised, and a monthly settlement would be made, and 60% of the net profits would be donated to the foundation to open a ‘Happy Sharing Store’ in the mission field, and 40% would be saved for the church and used freely for evangelism and helping around the church when needed. After all preparations were completed, we invited pastors who were interested in this work to the opening service to open the first store, and we shared the vision and rewards of this ministry while enjoying delicious tea. We said that this store could be opened not only in a church space, but also right near the church, so anyone with a sense of mission could do it. After seeing the model of a pastor’s church that had a great start, there were many who applied to open this store in the future.In this way, the ‘Happy Sharing Store’ ministry was activated more smoothly than expected, and requests to open a ‘Happy Sharing Store’ store 2, 3, 4, etc. poured in from all over the place, depending on the size and circumstances of each church that wanted to open it. So we gradually sent out promotional and application guides to missionaries overseas to help them activate this business. And when we received the applications, there were not as many applicants as we had expected. So from then on, we decided to set aside time whenever there was a missionary conference for each denomination to introduce this ministry. And as planned, the ‘Happy Sharing Store’ branches were first opened here in Korea, and as time went by, it seemed that overseas branches could be opened soon. And because the preparations had to be made in advance, the first symbolic part was to submit the application, and so we discussed various opinions among the staff members, including the president and the working-level staff within the foundation, about which place would be the most feasible. First, we concluded that opening the first store in ‘Molisha’, where the Secretary-General had been there for a long time and was familiar with the local situation, and where his son, a missionary, had previously worked with an NGO called ‘Givers Mart’ in a similar ministry, would be the best in terms of symbolism and the ultimate effect.