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“"You do not want to leave too, do you?" Jesus asked the Twelve. Simon Peter answered him, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.”” (John 6:67-68)

I. 2015 Annual Review

In 2014, I had two questions on my mind – First, “How can we raise senior leaders as self-reliant servants of God?” and second, “How can we widen our vision?” 

First, raising self-reliant servants of God! In 2015, God worked through three fellowships. Fellowship leaders – Sh. Lesedi, Desmond and Khomo – were encouraged to take ownership over each fellowship. They led fellowship meetings. They gathered every Friday along with missionaries to discuss church issues. As young bachelors, Saturday is a precious day of rest, doing laundry, buying groceries, etc. But they took care of young brothers every Saturday by listening to their testimonies and counseling them with love. They also took turns preparing the Sunday message sincerely. In many ways, they served God’s flock and supported missionaries. It is God who grew them as shepherds and friends of God’s flock, and as co-workers of missionaries. 

The problems lie with me, who tried to correct and fix them, instead of accepting their unique God-given characteristics and promoting their unique God-given talents and embracing even their weaknesses. I often closed my ears, afraid of talking with them. I didn’t realize that they also loved to serve the Lord, tried very hard to co-work with missionaries, and sometimes struggled to accept the missionaries’ weaknesses. It is by the help of the Holy Spirit that they could respect me regardless of my weaknesses, and that I could lower my ego to respect them and accept them not as my sheep but as fellow co-workers. We agreed that a lot of prayer and necessary arrangements needed to be made to allow for shepherds and missionaries to beautifully co-work well together, and for future leadership to transfer over. May the Lord help both shepherds and missionaries to grow until they agree with each other with humility and to create one vessel to serve the Lord together!

Second, widening our visions! In 2014, we were forced to fix our eyes on our personal issues – financial issues, visa issues, health issues, family issues, etc. We used to say, “I have enough problems of my own!” It was a tough year, and many of our problems continued on into 2015. One thing I realized was that I cannot resolve their personal issues. Yet, I felt like I needed to do something, but I didn’t know what to do. To be honest, I didn’t want to do anything because I was tired too. I did what I was supposed to do as a missionary simply because I didn’t have a choice. I knew what I have to do as a robot, but I forgot the reason. 

At that time, we had a few brothers from the Kingdom of Lesotho, attending the University of Johannesburg, who were regularly coming to our Bible studies and Sunday services. It was the awakening moment. Through them, God opened my eyes to see the reason, the reason why I’m here in South Africa. Our problems say we have to focus on our own problems first, but God wants to lift up our eyes to see something beyond our territory. Encouraged by the Holy Spirit, I raised one prayer topic that we serve God’s flock in Lesotho. Of course we didn’t know how, but we started praying. In February this year, Sh. Desmond with two Lesothoan brothers crossed the border to visit NUL, National University of Lesotho. They had two Bible studies with several brothers and sisters. About a month later in March, three sisters joined our Easter Bible conference. And in October two sisters and a brother joined our Spring Bible conference. They took a bus and crossed the border to join the conference. 

It’s an amazing work of God. God opened up our eyes to see the work of God that is beyond our capability and imagination. Through this, we first repented of our unbelief and of our narrow-minded hearts that were so focused on our own problems, our own family, our own fellowship, our own ministry, and our own country. God helped us to slowly get out of self-pity and self-love. Most of all, we came to understand the vision of God who wants to widen our vision and enlarge our territory. We prayed that we visit Lesotho more often next year, and that some day God will send a missionary there. I hope and pray that even though we are small in number, our visions and the territory of our hearts may enlarge to cover not only Johannesburg, but all of South Africa, Lesotho and even the whole world. 

In order for the above prayer topics to be realized, God helped us go deeper in the knowledge of Christ Jesus throughout this year. Through the Bible conferences in March and October, we learned that Jesus is our Christ and Saviour and that that is the reason why we should follow Him. Our knowledge of, and faith in Jesus could be deeper through the studies of Matthew’s gospel this year. In Jesus, we’ve learned from the gospel, that we could experience the work of God which is beyond our imagination. In Jesus, who we’ve experienced this year, we could see God’s vision, the vision of the world mission, and the vision of pioneering Lesotho regardless of our own problems and regardless of our capabilities and limits. Because of this Jesus, our visions could be widened and our territories could be enlarged, and shepherds and missionaries could grow as self-reliant servants of God. 

II. 2016 New Year’s Key Verse and Prayer Topics

This year we tried to have more prayer times. Whenever we met, we tried to pray. It’s not because we were so spiritual, but because each person is living with pains in our hearts due to personal life issues. We tried to pour out our broken hearts in God’s presence to survive. It helped while praying, but the medicine didn’t last long. It gave us one question, “How do we really get help from the Holy Spirit? How can we really rely on the help of the Spirit in our practical lives?” We agreed to gather in January to find the answer from the Scriptures. Fundamentally, we need to trust in the Lord in all circumstances. Isaiah 26:4 says, “Trust in the LORD forever, for the LORD, the LORD, is the Rock eternal.” We will continue to pray to trust in the Lord forever, and then the Lord will be the Rock eternal in each person’s life. 

￭ Prayer Topics in 2016 

1. For three Sunday messengers (Sh. Lesedi, Sh. Desmond and Msn. Jacob)

2. To establish house churches for Sh. Lesedi and Sh. Desmond

3. For Msn. Matthew’s family to get PR

4. For Lesotho pioneering

Msn. Jacob Kim