20th Anniversary International Conference Report (English Version)

[Stephan Choe]

Campus Mission International (CMI)
20th Anniversary International Conference Report

Songdo Yonsei University International Conference
 
Seoul, South Korea
August 1st - 4th, 2023
 
Dear Esteemed Members of CMI,
 
Grace and peace to you all in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
 
I am pleased to provide a report on our 20th Anniversary International Conference that recently took place at the Songdo Yonsei University International Conference in Seoul, South Korea.
 
Attendance:

We were blessed to have more than 280 attendees from 12 different countries grace the event. Their presence added great diversity and energy, truly representing the global reach and unity of our mission.
 
Testimonies:

The conference was greatly enriched by the 8 heart-stirring testimonies from young students who have recently come to embrace Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. Each testimony was a powerful reflection of God’s saving grace and the transformative power of His love.
 
Sermons & Messages:

We were privileged to hear more than 10 edifying sermons and messages delivered by a range of speakers from young shepherds to distinguished missionaries. Each message served as a unique beacon of light, shedding fresh insights and perspectives on our faith and mission.
 
Theme:

The central theme for our conference was taken from Mark 2:17: “And when Jesus heard it, he said to them, ‘Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.’” This resonated deeply with the attendees, highlighting the call we all have received and emphasizing our role in reaching out to the lost and sharing the love of Christ.
 
Special Highlights:

The power of the Holy Spirit was manifestly evident through the impactful prayer sessions and musical worship. Many attendees attested to being profoundly moved and having intimate encounters with the Lord during these moments.
 
Summaries of Messages
Testimony of Shepherdess Vici Park
Shepherdess Vici Park shared her testimony about her striving to justify herself through excelling in finance. During her internship at the German development bank, she reached a crisis point when she became stressed and had a nervous breakdown. She read a book by Timothy Keller which explained that all work done for the glory of God is meaningful. God granted her another internship teaching refugee children where she changed her attitude. After getting an apartment, she made it a community house of worship and it grew in membership. She hosted community prayer, and it grew so much she had to open another community prayer house. She now has realized the power of prayer and now has a vision to pray with her students and evangelize them.
Message of Shepherd Kwak
Shepherd Kwak delivered a message based on mark 5:25-34. He explained how dire the circumstances of the woman with the issue of blood was in. Specifically, under Jewish law she was shunned from society and from the holiness of God. This unholiness from the blood was contagious to others and she was socially isolated much of the time.
He emphasizes that the woman who sought healing was special and distinct from other people who sought Jesus’s healing by asking Him or being confronted by Him or being presented to Him. It is due to how overwhelming her circumstances were in terms of isolation and how little ability she had to reach Jesus by any other method. Jesus had an opportunity to show how pure hope and faith are powerful in reaching Him.
He emphasizes that even if we can only manage to muster even a small reach to Jesus in pure hope and faith, Jesus will help us! What a message!
He then notes that Jesus stopped his journey to heal the dying daughter of a prominent priest to listen to the whole testimony of the woman with the issue of blood after she had touched his garment and had been healed.
He explains that Jesus said that her faith has saved or healed her. Meaning that she hoped that Jesus controlled the universe and spiritual matters to be able heal her of a problem she so intimately knew for so much of her life. She had to believe He was the Son of God who could heal her (pure belief in His status and identify for at least for a small moment) as she reached out for His garment.
He finished with the point that Jesus wants more than physical healing, He wants spiritual healing.
He finishes with his testimony of how he knew Jesus in middle school when he had no friends, was getting bullied, and was doing poorly in school. He experienced despair at a prayer service and suddenly to his surprise many people came to lay hands on him in prayer and he received great encouragement and knew Jesus’s Love.
He testified further that when he was not getting any acknowledgment or acceptance of acclaim in his graduate research studies into artificial intelligence, he realized his weakness and began to rely on God with a weak heart like the woman with the issue of blood.
He realized the power of accepting weakness before Christ. God blessed him after this realization with acceptance into a good artificial intelligence conference.
Message of Shepherd David Schmeinck
David Schmeinck delivered a message on Acts 9. Who Jesus calls reveals to us about Him and His mission and characteristics.
In acts 9 Saul hated Jesus but Jesus Loved Him. The blindness he was struck with was akin to his spiritual blindness before God. He discusses Ananias’s initial resistance to the call to help the blinded Saul due to personal danger at the hands of Saul. But after hearing from Jesus, he calls him Brother Saul. What a powerful testimony to Ananias’s faith.
Paul was completely transformed. David Schmeinck calls on the crowd to desire being chosen by God for transformative faith because of the tremendous treasures of knowing Christ as Lord and God.
 
 
Testimony of Shepherd Sunny
Shepherd Sunny gave his testimony about growing up in a Hindu household. He was later made to join a catholic school and community and worshiped idols of Joseph and Mary. His parents fought each other, and he left his home. He started smoking drinking and fighting. He was invited to CMI, and he felt the warmth of the shepherds. He went to 1-1 bible study. He kept despairing at his parents continually fighting and he attempted suicide many times with sleeping pills and other methods. He attended a CMI conference and attempted suicide again. His shepherd had him brought to the hospital. After he recovered, he immediately returned to the conference and was convicted by the parable of the lost sheep, that he was a lost sheep loved by God. As he attempted bible studies he was persecuted by his parents. He gradually stopped studying bible and tried to find salvation in relationships. He went again to CMI after prayers for his return by his shepherds. He became born again! He joined the 2014 Holy Spirit CMI conference, and he was filled with the Holy Spirit. God blessed him financially and his family became evangelized through this! He was selected as president of CMI India. His vision is to be a worker in Jesus’s harvest field wherever he is.
 
Message of Shepherd Park Jinho
Shepherd Park Jinho delivered the message based on Mark 2:17. He emphasized Levi’s identity has a competitive and shrewd man who clawed his way to being a tax collector even though it meant being unpopular and considered a traitor to his people. Money became his highest priority. Jesus knew Levi’s heart as a certified sinner. This what Jesus was looking for His ministry. He testified that his parents divorced at age 7 and the absence of his father made him lonely. He sought fame and success to validate himself and get the attention he craved. His stepfather was an alcoholic who was emotionally abusive. He sought solace in the recognition of others and was sensitive to others. He attempted suicide many times unsuccessfully. His mother became a Christian and he wanted to prove that success was possible without Jesus. He started working hard to justify himself. When he did not get into a top
University but instead into a trade school, he got into alcohol. Then he found out about CMI from his friend who was secretly attending it. He was enticed by the women of CMI and attended for non-Christian reasons. He spoke to others against giving one’s life to Jesus. However, he then attended a CMI camp on an island. Despite wanting to escape, he was convicted by Christs crucifixion after a message on this topic. Jesus appeared to him and told him that He loved him despite his persecuting the church. He likened his own testimony to Levi’s whom Jesus chose despite his status as a serious sinner. he emphasized that sinners are the exact type of person that Jesus calls as that is His mission.
 
 
 
Testimony of Shepherd Go Yujin
Shepherd Go Yujin shared his testimony. He prayed to meet the Lord inspired by his father who was moved to quit drinking and smoking through attending a revival camp. However, he did not meet God and tried hard to meet Him by studying to become a doctor and medical volunteer. But he failed and then tried again and prayed and failed again. He came to hate God for this perceived betrayal. He got into university and compared himself to others. He tried to go to church but his heart was still resentful and began drinking. His father has a brain infarction and he prayed to God. His father was healed but he discovered that he had a genetic danger. He began to think about death. He was asked to become his university CMI president, which he accepted only for the meals. He started a bible study with his shepherd and felt a strong empathy with Cain who didn’t know the law and sacrificed his best but was still rejected by God. His shepherd explained that God still gave Cain many chances and even protected him after he was banished. He went to a Bible camp and during the worship session was moved. Then he studied Luke 15 about the prodigal son. He turned back to God and confessed Him as the Owner of his life, the God who kept giving him chances and found him again and again.
 
 
 
Message of Shepherd Jangho Lee
Shepherd Jangho Lee delivered a message on Mark 15. He paints a picture of the crucifixion, describing how Jesus refused the pain killing mixture of myrrh and all his disciples had not attended this crucifixion. He explains that the crowd mistakes His last words and how badly Jesus had been beaten as He died so quickly.
He then emphasizes how Jesus was crucified with a robber on His left and His right. He connects this with the disciples asking to be seated on His left and right in glory. Jesus says they can’t drink of the same cup. At the crucifixion they were not at His right nor His left but robbers were. The wrath of God is the cup. They could not have borne it. Only Jesus could and be raised up again.
He explains how the eternal weight of Gods wrath could only be borne by an eternal Being of Jesus.
He emphasizes how Jesus looked so pathetic to onlookers on the cross. People through He needed help from Elijah. They mocked Him and tried to give Him some bitters. God seemed silent and they cast lots for His clothes so He may have been stripped naked.
He testified about His personal experience of hearing the voice of Jesus outside after he held the wrists of his friend who had attempted suicide, telling him that he had other sheep for him to feed.
He explained that he had a back problem that made endeavors difficult.
He then suffered a family breakdown and failures getting into the university he wanted and failed crushes and bad grades.
He faked obedience to God but was mad at God for not doing what he perceived as His duty toward him.
He felt abandoned by God like Jesus did on the cross.
God delivered him and he got into medical school however then back problems and family crises continued. But he learned his lessons about Gods way of bringing him to his own cross.
However, as Jesus still entrusted Himself and committed Himself to God even in the face of the coming abandonment on the cross to the wrath of God.
He asks how much more should we commit ourselves to God.
He says we should bear our crosses in His example (in humiliation and crushing) to be more confirmed to His image.
He emphasizes that the cross is used by God as a doorway to the Resurrection, even our own resurrections.
Message of Shepherd Paul Koh
Paul Koh delivered a message from Matthew 3:1-10. He emphasizes the near arrival of the kingdom of God and the wrath that comes with it.
He spent some time discussing the need for repentance and how important it is. Specifically, he brought up the sins of Israel and the repentance of Nineveh when Jonah warned them of coming wrath. He emphasized how God had shown them mercy upon their repentance.
He emphasized his own journey of faith and repentance, leaving behind his sins and old patterns of life of playing certain video games/shows/etc. He emphasized how we are to bear fruit in accordance with repentance to avoid wrath as it demonstrates the genuineness of our faith.
He exhorted the crowd to repent of their sins and not grieve the Holy Spirit. He even pleaded with the mature Christians to renew and grow their zeal as they are still subject to the flesh.
Message of Professor Sancheol Moon
Professor Sangcheol Moon delivered a message on his faith experiences. He shared how he came up through UBF/CMI in Busan.
He explained that the missionary calling is no longer a narrow calling. He cited 1 Cor 1:26 (For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong;) which testifies that God chooses those with poor abilities from a worldly point of view to share the Gospel as a missionary.
He explained that missionary service takes many forms.
He shared that he entered missionary service from an unusual angle.
He shared his life testimony of his father dying at age 10 and how he was raised by relatives. His family listened to radio messages which exposed him to the gospel, and he began to read Christian novels. He wanted to be a writer but did not have the talent.
He wanted to commit suicide. However, he was moved by marks description of how God reconciles man and the world when he sends Jesus to forgive our sins. Son your sins are forgiven!
This message moved him deeply and he was converted and began to disciple other through 1 to 1 bible study.
Shortly thereafter he committed to becoming a missionary, however not a normal missionary. The Holy Spirit moved him to start the Korean institute for missionary study to help missionaries to help develop strategies for missionaries to overcome obstacles and have effective missions around the world through questionnaire and survey methods.
He then founded the center for interpretive studies in 2020.
His lessons from missionary work:

1. Teachability. One of the characteristics that Jesus chooses in His disciples is teachability or willingness to learn. They were more pure channels for God’s grace than religious orthodox nobility, unencumbered by a body of knowledge, but with the Spirit to learn. Teachability brings about transformation in one’s life.
2. A listening posture: listening efforts in different channels and forms. One should always be listening. The collective wisdom can help us be strategic and realistic about our mission. He studied ethnography and it informed his understanding of how to be effective as evangelism. Listening is one of the best ways to find evangelism opportunities. We must also listen to Gods direction and especially His words. Start this process by preparing a series of questions for the people around us.
3. Overcome personal sense of deficiency: trusting Gods providential grace in our lives. Prof Sangcheol was early on beset by a sense of self criticism as he began his early missionary studies and left behind many research reports and papers and books that he authored as a result. He realized he need a more balanced spiritual sense of self-denial and self-care. He especially needed to learn thoroughly that God’s grace is sufficient for him.
4. Integrating spirituality and strategy: avoid extreme views. He studied missions and their strategies and also reflected on the Holy Spirits power to guide in his own life.
5. The pioneering spirit: Go to the frontiers of your field. Use strategy to reach unreached peoples although you have to also come up with strategies to overcome very difficult and novel challenges on the frontier. He studies and researches this.
6. Collaborative spirit: maximize collaboration through diverse forms of networking. This also helps us with learning about how to be effective and extends our abilities. We need also mutual encouragement.
7. Eternity in my mind. Overcoming this worldly orientation with eternity in my mind. Need to be free from power struggles and disputes with authorities to be an effective missionary. Need to have a sacrificial spirit.

He concludes by pointing out the necessity of missionary work to all nations if we take the gospel seriously. However, this can be done by bi-vocational/tent makers.
In this great international mission work, we must rely on the hope and provision of God to be able to endure the hardship associated with this work. He cites Timothy for this missionary work endurance spirit.
Message of Professor Stephen Yoon
Professor Stephen Yoon delivered a message on his mission life to North Korea as a medical professor. He first starts by exhorting the crowd to cast away the bad feelings they have toward North Koreans. He emphasizes that we must empathize with them to evangelize them.
He starts by citing 2 Corinthians to establish that through Jesus’s reconciliation with God and a new creation comes and that Christ gives us the “ministry of reconciliation” (since we have received reconciliation ourselves).
We should live as ministers of reconciliation.
He says that Christs love compels us, a direct quote from 2 Corinthians 5.
He then proceeds to share his experience in North Korea. He had a house church with his family and children only.
There was no heat in the winter, so they had to warm their small child with their bodies. He married an American who grew up in Korea where she was not accepted. She was converted at a church conference to overcome her identity problems. She realized the purpose of her hardship and identity difficulties which was to be a perfect missionary to North Korea.
Prof Yoon on the other hand wanted to evangelize Muslim countries. However, when he met his wife at college where they were both the only Korean speaking people his wife convinced him to change his missionary life to move to North Korea.
In North Korea, they asked him to work to fix spine problems which is his specialty. However, he told them he had to worship on Sunday so he would start on Monday. They said no problem.
When the patients had more severe problems instead of rehabilitation needs which is his specialty, he told them he could not help. They told him he must just try something. Therefore, he just touched them with healing and prayer, and he was able to heal.
He miraculously healed an old man and old woman. He then shared with an ailing patient, Marks gospel about accepting Jesus Christ for healing and then prayed. However, she was not healed so he touched her and prayed again. The Holy Spirit moved him to ask her to lift up her arm. 8 other doctors were amazed that she could lift up her arm and saw Gods miracle in a small room.
He testified that he found the Living God in North Korea.
He finished with the point that God calls us for a ministry of reconciliation with our enemies. We should use ourselves to heal and help our enemies. We just need to be present for and with them and God will change them through us.
We just need to Love and to hold others. That is the perfect worship.
 
 
 
 
 
 
Testimony of Shepherd Bang Ye-Chan
Bang ye-Chan delivered his testimony of growing up in a church family and community though he had little faith. He led a very normal church/student life and did relatively well. However, from a young age he became addicted to porn and became a porn addict for a long time even though he tried hard and prayed and repented. He then earnestly prayed for a heart of penance. However, he realized after his shepherd brought him to Ephesians 2 that he realized that God has to change him and that God in fact has already given him victory. He then began an intense time of prayer and reading the entire Bible and fasting. He finally accepted that God would transform him, and he obeyed. God finally changed his life, and he started inviting two people to CMI and is being sanctified.
 
 
Testimony of Shepherd Lee Junyeong
Shepherd Lee Junyeong testified about his growing up in the United States as a privileged kid whose parents established him in sports, bible studies, tutoring, and music.
When his father’s h1b visa expired, the church prayed earnestly for Gods intervention which occurred. However, he failed to realize it was God who did this.
During Covid he could not manage his time and mental health, so it showed him his weakness and how God has had to carry him in his weakness. He testified about how God humbled him when he became too arrogant and self-absorbed.
Testimony of Shepherd Yedam
Yedam delivers his testimony explaining his stuttering difficulties and feelings of inferiority. He explains how God gave him value and worth in him.
Message of Shepherd Moses Hwang
Shepherd Moses Hwang from Australia delivered a message on mark 8, and its emphasis on the calling to discipleship.
He explained that we are called to be tiny Jesus’s as disciples. We are called to give up lordship over our lives to Jesus.
Many times, we do things for Jesus and expect Jesus to follow us with blessings. But it is we who are to follow Jesus. We are the ones who are called, we don’t call God to do things for us for example paying tithes and calling Him to bless us or going to small group and calling Him to provide us a spouse.
We are promised that we don’t have to worry about all the things we want.
We are also promised to be whole and healed and victorious.
However, the cost is our selves. We must live for Gods glory. Everything we have, our jobs etc. should be used for Gods glory.
When Jesus called us to be disciples, he called us to stop living for our own glory and start living for Gods glory.
We will suffer for our hope in the kingdom of God. Remember suffering produces character and eventually hope.
Our taking up our cross is actually a call to an easier life with hope of a wonderous kingdom of God and light burden and easy yoke.
Through Jesus taking up His cross, He is now seated at the right hand of God! He lived for God’s glory! How much more should we live for God’s glory? We should remember the crown of glory that lies beyond the cross as Jesus did.
He then shared the story of Jim Elliot who tried to evangelize a tribal group who killed everyone who came near. He was killed by them. His wife testified that he gave what he cannot keep gaining what he cannot lose. His wife tried later and now a large portion of the tribe has accepted Jesus as their Lord and Savior.
He then gave his life testimony about how his parents moved to the Netherlands and he felt isolated at school as a foreigner and blamed his parents. He then got addicted to video games and porn and he couldn’t control his life anymore. His sleep and eating and relationships were disturbed. He became depressed and wanted to die.
He joined a disciple’s church with a pastor who had smile wrinkles and decided those are the wrinkles he wanted when he grows old. However, he kept being self-critical. Now he has adopted Jesus as his Lord and Savior fully. Now he has married a beautiful wife, and both are following Jesus.  Our reward for taking up our cross and following Jesus is infinitely more than we give. He is now after the glory of bringing many to Jesus.
Message of Shepherdess Kum Kum
Kum Kum delivered a message on Jeremiah 1.
She explained how the historical context of the book of Jeremiah. 10 of the tribes in Israel had already faced God’s judgment and wrath and Jeremiah was called to prophecy against the remaining 2 tribes in Judah.
She explained a prophet of doom faced persecution and death at that time.
She asked how God calls Jeremiah.
She says He reveals in His calling His omnipotence to Jeremiah. He formed Jeremiah as creator.
She testified that she grew up a Hindu chauvinist. She mocked her Christian neighbors and went to church to disrupt them and show them her Hindu idols were more powerful.
God also showed his omniscience to Jeremiah by giving him signs, showing that He knows far into the future about our fate.
Finally, God showed His power and authority to appoint Jeremiah and give him a mission. She testified that she has seen in the India mission how God’s mission changes, transforms and matures people with important and beautiful missions.
She posited that missions are difficult and entail poverty. Jeremiah did not want his mission to become a prophet; he probably would have wanted to be a scholar or social worker, etc.
She testified that she grew up in a society that oppressed women’s and subjugated them to being married early and producing children with no education. Her millions of idols offered her no hope out of this social situation and no meaning to affirm her.
She instead pursued education and Christ. Christ saved her and gave her purpose and meaning. She felt that her mission is to preach the Word of God to the scholarly community.
Testimony of Shepherd Shawn Desai
Shawn Desai, originally an atheist from Michigan, sought worldly achievements and idolized powerful figures. In his University years, he was approached by CMI Missionaries, Pastor Pioneer Kim and Missionary Deborah Kim, and began bible studies, but later drifted away. Miraculously, Shawn returned to the same University for law school, despite his low grades and late application. Around the same time, Pastor Kim reached out again. Despite studying the Bible intensely, Shawn's faith was challenged when he faced betrayal in a close relationship. In his distress, he had a vision of Jesus who comforted him and received the Holy Spirit.
 
Post this spiritual experience, Shawn was blessed with worldly successes, but he recognized their temporary nature and emptiness. He emphasized that compared to worldly pursuits, God offers eternal fulfillment. Shawn now dedicates more time to God and speaks about His teachings. He praised the global work of CMI, especially in countries facing hardships, and encouraged support for CMI's mission work, emphasizing the opportunities God presents to serve Him through the organization.
 
Message of Pastor Koo Jungoh
Pastor Koo Jungoh delivered message based on mark 16 saying that the basis of our faith is risen Christ. He affirms that it was a historical fact with 1000 eyes seeing Him. 500 brothers saw Him at the same time.
Only Jesus has no tomb unlike all other religions. Death cannot hold Him because He was sinless. If you believe that Jesus is risen, you should have confidence that He is God and the Way. You will be so inspired to go out and preach that you have found the Way, the Truth, and the Light. Eternal life!
He has had a fruitful discipleship ministry sending out hundreds of disciples and missionaries all due to preaching risen Christ.
When we preach the Gospel, power follows. When you go to the mission field, miracles happen!
When we obey the calling of the mission, we experience the fullness and power of the Holy Spirit. Miraculous acceptance of the Word where you go.
Pastor Koo talks excitedly and powerfully about how the call to Go out and make disciples is an incredibly exciting and powerful call to have a great powerful fruitful and meaningful life through His power.
He acknowledged the missionaries that were present as having obeyed the highest call to be missionaries living in foreign countries at the cost of their own security. They have gone to China and Iran and Africa.  Through accepting the call to be missionaries we can live powerful and miraculous life.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the 20th Anniversary International Conference was not just a commemoration of our journey, but a powerful catalyst propelling us towards greater commitment, deeper faith, and an intensified zeal for our mission.
We express our deepest gratitude to everyone who made this conference a success, and we are expectant of the great things God will continue to do through Campus Mission International.
In Christ's Service,
Shawn Desai
Secretary, Campus Mission International North America