p April 2011 Volume 3, Issue 2 Edserv and Third World Leaders Once again, the year is rushing by, and it s time to update you on what is happening through the ministry of Edserv International, so that you can be faithfully informed partners as you continue to pray for and support this ministry. As the activities in this issue indicate, God has been pleased to bless Edserv s activities in many different ways. It is most gratifying to see so many dynamic leaders from the two-thirds world respond with enthusiasm as they prepare to return to their home countries for Christian service in education and pastoral ministries, newly equipped and empassioned with the reformational worldview perspective that has permeated their studies at Kosin University. There are also some who will finish studying this semester but who have not yet come to appreciate the profound scope of a reformational worldview perspective. Please pray especially for them that they will be sensitive to the leading of the Holy Spirit. It is our prayer for all of them, and for us all, as Paul prayed for the Philippians: This is my prayer, that your love for the Lord will abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ. This is my prayer, that your love for the Lord will abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight India It s a great thrill to continue our involvement with Paulus Samuels in India, and his Christian education initiatives both in the formal context of the schools and teachers college, and also in the village-based homework tutor program spread across hundreds of villages in Tamil Nadu. With the help of Edserv and Kosin University, Paulus was able to spend several weeks studying with us in Korea earlier this year. Following up on the visit by the Edserv team last year (Pete & Bev Hanrahan and Ella Meyer), it s exciting to report that next month Ken Meyer also will be visiting India to assist Paulus in the design and implementation of a technical training institute for young Indian boys to help them acquire a trade from a Christian worldview perspective of course! Please pray Paulus Samuels talking to the Hanrahans in India for Ken and Paulus as they work together on this important project. Richard will be meeting with Paulus in Singapore in September (both will be there at the invitation of the 4-14 Global Summit to discuss Christian education in the developing world) to explore other activities, including Peniel teacher trainees making use of the on-line worldview course mentioned below.
Page 2 Sunday Evening English Fellowship Sunday Evening English Fellowship has continued to provide a vital lifeline every week for many foreign students from Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. Several foreign faculty also attend. Numbers have grown to around 35-45 each Sunday, as we join for prayer, fellowship, and biblically-based reflection upon current issues. It is also interesting when the students share different worldview perspectives. For example, for many of the Africans, life is not time centred but rather event centred. One example that they shared was that a funeral is not over until everyone has attended. For these students if someone dies in their village, when they return they will visit the family and the gravesite. The funeral will not end until everyone has been. That could be 10 years. How should they respond to this from a Christian worldview perspective? How does it influence church activities, school activities, evangelism, employment and every other area of life? Another example relates to the prevalence of war in African countries. It was explained to us that if you see your brother in a fight you join in to help your brother. You don t stop to ask what the fight is about. You don t question if your brother is right or not. You just step straight in and fight with your brother. How does this perspective contribute to genocide in Rwanda, a supposedly Christian country, for example? How much of our attitude to these issues is our own cultural bias and how much is truly a Christian worldview. There are just a couple of examples of the issues that we discuss on Sunday nights. But Sunday nights are about more than discussing issues. Lots of these students see us as their parents (even calling us Mum and Dad), so that the relationship is very special. They enjoy being in a home once a week enjoy being in a home once a week after living in the dormitory. Annette works hard to prepare a meal for all of them (for many it s the main meal for them on Sundays). Feeding 40 people every week is very costly in both time and money (imagine also the logistics of cleaning up and doing the dishes afterwards in our little apartment sink!), but it can also be fun when we try cooking foods from different parts of the world. Some of the students help with the dishes so that is also wonderful.
Page 3 MEd graduating students with Richard New Graduates We are excited on 18 August, to join with several of our students who will be graduating with a Masters degree in Christian education. Kathryn and Li Yan come from China, and Susanto comes from Indonesia. They have been incredibly dedicated in their studies. Their theses have covered topics such as: The Christian Teacher in the Public School in China, Teaching Science in the Middle School in Indonesian Christian Schools, and Human Relationships and Development from a Christian Perspective in the Communist State. Please pray for them as they leave us for their new fields of service. Because we have nurtured these folk not only in class but also in our home on Sunday nights for example, Annette and I feel a bit like parents saying goodbye to young adult children. We will greatly miss them, but we re also excited about how the Lord is going to use them. They are aware that persecution is one possible outcome for them, but they are determined, by God s grace, to live as faithful witnesses for him. Amazingly, mainly through a generous scholarship from the Faraday Institute, but with help through Edserv, Susanto has also had the wonderful experience in July of being involved in a conference at Cambridge University on the relationship between science and religion. We look forward to his report. This what how one of the students wrote in her expression of gratitude: It is difficult to overstate my gratitude to Dr. Richard J. Edlin. His wide knowledge and his logical way of thinking have been of great value for me. His understanding, encouraging and personal guidance have helped me in all the time of research and writing of this thesis. Throughout my thesiswriting period, he provided encouragement, sound advice, good teaching, good company, and lots of good ideas. I would have been lost without his enthusiasm, his inspiration, and his great efforts to explain things clearly and simply. I am deeply grateful to Prof. Annette Edlin, for her valuable advice and friendly help and insights she has shared. Her kind support and guidance have been of great value in this study. Busan International Christian School Some of you will know that, ever since the 1970 s, we have been involved first hand in setting up new Christian schools in different parts of the world, ranging from New Zealand to Russia to the US, to Australia. Currently, we have joined with some Korean and foreign Christians to work towards the establishment of a new Christian school in our city as well. In the Korean context, this presents us with unique challenges and opportunities, especially when most churches are captivated by dualism and the notion that the key requirement for a good education is solely to help students get a high mark in the Year 12 public examination, so that they can get into one of Korea s ivy league universities. Pray that the Lord will reveal the best way to move forward in this project in terms of parent education, location, staffing, funding, government relations, and curriculum.
Page 4 Educational consultancy services Online Programs A couple of years ago, a Christian teacher group in Korea commissioned Richard to develop a series of internet-based seminars concerning education from a Christian perspective. Ultimately, this series was endorsed by the Korean Ministry of Education as an approved inservice program. To date, many hundreds of Christian teachers in Korea have studied the course. This is a strategic time in Korea as Christian parents begin asking questions about the education of their children (until recently, educational choices were strictly the prerogative of the state). Please pray that this course will enable Christian teachers to overcome the dualistic prejudices of Korean teacher training programs and that it will help them develop credible and biblically faithful educational models to which Korean Christian parents and churches can favourably respond. Kosin University also has begun exploring on-line education. Last semester, Richard was one of just four professors in the university who developed pilot programs of study in their own areas of specialty. Richard developed a 15-week unit of study on biblical worldview. The finishing touches will be completed this semester, and the online material (in English) will be made available at the start of 2012. Kosin s missionary vision means that this supervised course of study will be made available worldwide at an affordable rate (free of charge in some cases) for Christians everywhere. We ll let you know more detail as it comes to hand. Edserv and the Future We give thanks for God s grace in giving Richard health to be able to continue to minister at Kosin and elsewhere following his heart attack a year ago. Currently, as health allows, we intend continuing in our ministry partnership with Kosin University for the next three years. However, the financial viability of what we are doing remains precarious. Though financial support from Kosin and a small handful of faithful Edserv partners underwrites our activities, the income falls well short of what is needed to continue what we do. We personally have provided funds by increasing the mortgage on our own home, at a time when most folks our age (Richard Kosin Globe, Inaugural Edition In order to share more broadly the experience of the international students at Kosin, Dr Kim Sung Soo, the Kosin President, commissioned one of our students with a journalism background, Benson Kamary, to develop a magazine about the life and times of our international community. Richard accepted supervisory turns 60 in November) have paid off their mortgage and are preparing for retirement! This is not sustainable, and we ask you to join with us in praying for 20 more supporters who understand the global opportunities and responsibilities of the body of Christ and who value the ministry of international Christian education to the extent that they contact us to become partners with Edserv. True, the Lord owns the cattle on a thousand hills and he has entrusted them to his people to exercise godly stewardship over these resources. With this in mind, the Edserv Partnership form is attached to this edition of. Please share it with potential contacts. responsibility for this task, and Annette helped greatly in the proofing and development. We ve attached a copy of the front page with this edition of, and you can read the entire magazine by going to the Edserv International website at http://www.edservinternational.org/fil es/kosinglobev1n1.pdf
Page 5 Living in Korea Recently the Busan Police Department gave all the international students and faculty some advice and guidelines on how to live within the law in Korea. We thought you might be interested in what was said. For your information 1000 won is approximately 1 Australian dollar.