Archives for August 24, 2022

Well, our trip home didn’t go as planned. First, there were mechanical problems on our plane in Seoul heading for San Francisco which delayed our flight for 45 minutes. When we finally landed in San Francisco, we then sat on the tarmac for another 45 minutes waiting for a gate, and when we finally got to the gate, we sat another 15 minutes waiting for someone to open the door. By the time, we made it through customs, we missed our flight to Denver as well as the next flight to Chicago. Now we will not be landing in Chicago until after midnight, EST, tonight. Our son-in-law Isaac has graciously offered to make the 3.5 hour drive to Chicago to pick us up and drive us to Grand Rapids as there are no flights available tomorrow in time for me to make the all-day PRTS biannual Board meeting, plus tomorrow evening our annual PRTS Conference commences, and I am the opening speaker.

You can still attend the Puritan Reformed Conference which will focus on the beautiful theme of “The Grace of Salvation”! The conference will be held at the Heritage Reformed Congregation (August 25 – 27, from Thursday evening to Saturday noon). Hear Dr. Jonathan Gibson, Rev. Hensworth W.C. Jonas, Dr. David McWilliams, and various faculty members of Puritan Reformed expound the glorious theme of how God graciously works salvation in our souls. You can register online here, or attend without registering ahead of time for a price of $10 per session. See the schedule here.h

We look forward to seeing many of you there. For those of you who cannot join us in person, please try to join us as enabled through live-streaming here.

Your prayers are treasured.

We’re finally on the way home from our 2.5 week journey to Bali Indonesia), Singapore, Jakarta (Indonesia), and Seoul (South Korea). Right now, we are sitting by our gate in Seoul ready to take off for the long flight to San Francisco.This morning, David Woollin (CEO of Reformation Heritage Books who is with us in Seoul) and I met with two brothers associated with Reformation and Revival Publishing (who have published five of my larger books in Korean) to become better acquainted and to discuss additional possibilities for the translation of my books and other RHB authors into Korean (photo 1).

I was also interviewed this morning by a young editor (photo 2) for the religious section of a Korean newspaper that reaches 4 million readers by paper copy and on-line. She asked me a number of questions about my Reformed Systematic Theology which is now being published by Reformation and Revival Publishing in Korean as well as my personal convictions on several issues and my impressions of the current condition of the Korean Presbyterian churches.

Our faithful host then drove us, together with David Woollin (who is flying on to Australia to meet with our book distributor there) to the airport where we had our final Asian meal on this trip, and then the time for saying goodbye had come (photo 3). Thank God for bringing us through this rather intense itinerary and for upholding me through three dozen preaching/lecturing occasions on this journey, and please pray for many fruits upon these labors.

And now, pending traveling mercies, we look forward to seeing our precious family, church and seminary people and students–and especially our 11-day-old grandchild who was born after we had left home!

On Monday and Tuesday, I had the privilege of lecturing five times and preaching twice in Seoul, Korea for the KIRP (Korean Institute of Reformed Preaching), which is celebrating their 30th anniversary. This is the fourth time I have spoken for their annual conference. They exist to promote Reformed and expository experiential preaching. The board members and their wives met in the pastor’s study (photo 1). The theme I chose for my lectures was “Growing Spiritually in the Ministry.” I spoke on growing in: assurance of faith, private prayer, coping with criticism, coping with affliction, and preaching with experiential application. I preached in the evenings on “Christ Forsaken!” and “Christ Married!” Dr. HoSub (Joseph) Shia has translated several of my books into Korean and he interpreted one lecture for me (photo 2). Other interpreters were Chang Won Shu and David Kim.

We had time to take a short walk outside our hotel (photo 3), on a beautiful walkway along a creek. Seoul has many green areas like this built into the city landscape.

Dr. Joey Pipa arrived late Tuesday, and we enjoyed breakfast with him Wednesday morning (photo 4). He is leading the KIRP conference the remaining two days, as we head for home.