The Gospel we received,
carried beyond
borders.

I never planned a life that would connect Korea, Scotland, East Africa and the Middle East. I simply wanted to follow Jesus Christ and serve His Church faithfully. Yet, as the years passed, God kept widening the boundaries of that calling.

My ministry began in Korea. For twenty years I served as a pastor in the Korean Church, training people and sending them into mission. Then, in 2011, God called my wife and me to become missionaries and sent us to the United Kingdom. Leaving everything behind, while our children remained in Korea, was not an easy journey. Nevertheless, by God's grace, we spent four and a half years in Wales receiving missionary training, and in 2015 He finally led us to Edinburgh, Scotland.

From 2015, I began teaching Korean in Edinburgh, meeting local people and sharing the Gospel with them. In some ways, it felt like a continuation of the legacy of the Scottish missionary John Ross, who, around 150 years ago, helped bring the Gospel to Korea through language. The bridge that had once carried the Gospel from Scotland towards Korea was now opening in the other direction.

Then, in 2022, God led us to plant All Nations Church in Edinburgh, serving people from many nations and helping them become one family in Christ. My dream is not simply to grow a church. It is to raise disciples who know who they are in Christ and who are ready to go wherever God calls them.

But God opened another door that I had not expected: East Africa. I had been travelling to Africa since 2011, and in 2016 I first went to Uganda to teach. What began as a teaching visit gradually became a much deeper relationship. In 2017 I began serving as a professor and academic leader with Wycliffe theological education in East Africa.

There I met pastors and Christian leaders with remarkable faith. At the same time, I saw how limited their access could be to theological education, books, Bibles and ministry resources. That is why I became more deeply involved in educating pastors and seminarians and in helping to raise local leaders.

Over the years, I have been able to teach pastors, seminarians and Christian leaders in Uganda, Kenya, South Sudan and other parts of East Africa. I have also helped develop doctoral programmes, connect African theological institutions with lecturers from overseas, distribute Bibles and strengthen local theological education.

Yet, during this journey, God began to change the way I understood mission itself. For a long time, Africa has received missionaries from many parts of the world. Then a conviction began to grow in my heart: perhaps the African Church is being called to become one of the final runners in fulfilling the Great Commission.

What if pastors and young Christians from Uganda, South Sudan, Kenya and other African nations were to carry the Gospel northwards? What if they were to go through North Africa and into the Middle East, and then on to places where the witness of the Gospel is still limited? These questions have become a deep missionary burden in my heart.

I believe that one of the significant missionary movements of the coming generation may rise from Africa to the nations. And so my calling has become clearer: to connect nations, to equip people, to train disciples, and to help those who have received the Gospel become those who carry it to others.

On a map, Scotland, Korea and Africa seem far apart. Yet in the Kingdom of God, they can become part of one story. Perhaps mission is ultimately this: first receiving the grace of Jesus Christ, which we could never earn or purchase, and then offering our lives so that this grace may reach someone else.

This is the journey God has entrusted to me. And it is not a journey that can be walked alone. Mission depends not only on those who go to the front line, but also on those who pray, give, encourage and send. I invite you to become part of this remarkable journey with us.

Continue the journey ↓