What is Rm1 in Korean?

Seung Kwan Kim
Originally uploaded by Oxygen KB YFC

Hi, I wanted to give you a quick update so you could pray for me. I am please to report that most of my projects are mostly fine. Further to the prayer request from a couple of weeks ago in Korean Club, I'm having a good relationship with those guys, and which is really great.

However this week the Korean work is set to grow as for in a new development I will begin work with Korean Boys who are attending in Coombe boy school. This is an exciting new focus for Oxygen’s Korean work, instead of working with young people after school, I am providing support to the Korean students around the school day – providing mentoring, support and help with their English. I also hope in time to be able to encourage them to come along to Rm1 and get to know us there. From there I hope over future weekend to run other events such as talent shows, basketball competitions and the alike.

So this is my prayer request for this week

Working with Korean young teenage boys is sometimes really difficult, they often are closed and don’t want to chat. Could you therefore pray for relationship between me and Korean guys.

Pray too for this new focus for Oxygen’s work, that it would grow, have a great impact and that many Korean teenagers, not just in Coombe Boys, but across the Borough would be able to be supported

Comments

[Dick Waller]

Seung Kwan's item must be read in the light of the Korean Homework Club which his predecessors from Jin Hwa to Hee Jin ran in New Malden over several years. It started with secondary school pupils but more recently tended to include primary school people as well. Occasionally the activities were extended informally to include help with English for the parents who came with some of the latter, but the children were always put first.

The Club always suffered from confusion over its purpose and the nature of help required from people like me, so a lot of what happened was a bit ad-hoc: looking back, I see that as no bad thing because mission has to start from where people are and not from where we think they are. One consequence of the slightly "fuzzy" but God-inspired approach is that I now have two Korean god-daughters who are doing very well in the 6th at Holy Cross and are themselves helping younger Koreans in much the way Seung Kwan describes.

Another consequence is that all over New Malden there are young people who have been helped spiritually and practically through one-to-one encounters at the Club. Many remain my good friends.

The demise of the Club took all us helpers by surprise, even Seung Kwan whose sister had been running it enthusiastically only three months earlier! One Korean-speaking Chinese girl in the Christ Church congregation had been looking forward to being a helper this year but was no better informed than anyone else. Can I say without meaning to be unkind that this was not one of Oxygen's best-managed public-relations exercises?

Before Seung Kwan gets too dug in, can I humbly suggest that Oxygen should review how it is going to manage this kind of task overall and how it is going to manage relationships with those who want to help? I remain available as one of the latter, but like many I need to know whether I am really wanted and then to be consulted over where, when and how.

The review might usefully extend to embrace how any informal English-language help given to Koreans by our churches should relate to help given in schools. The work currently done at Christ Church sprang out of an initiative by Seok Hee and of the needs of adults and students which became evident from contact with them alongside the Homework Club. Christ Church is currently trying to pick up the pieces following its decision to end Seok Hee's ministry there, so perhaps this is the time to share ideas.

Ultimately our purpose is to glorify God. Is that a good place to start the thinking?

Dick