A small delegation of leaders from the Ohio Episcopal Area of The United Methodist Church will accompany Bishop Hee-Soo Jung to Korea at the end of April. The team representing the East and West Ohio Conferences will be guests of Bishop Seong-Bok Kim at this year’s session of the Seoul Annual Conference on April 24.
Bishop Kim is resident bishop of the Seoul Conference, one of 12 annual conferences in The Korean Methodist Church. In a message to the clergy and laity of the Seoul Conference, the bishop said, “This year marks the 140th-anniversary of the arrival of Mary Scranton and her son William Scranton as missionaries in Korea. To commemorate their arrival, we will carry out a mutual exchange program and a project honoring Scranton in collaboration with the Ohio Episcopal Area of The United Methodist Church, which originally sent Scranton as a missionary.”
“Celebrating, witnessing, and peace building will be focuses of our trip,” said Bishop Jung, who will address the Seoul Annual Conference and show a video highlighting local church, district, and Conference ministries of the Ohio Episcopal Area.
In addition to participating in Annual Conference, delegation members will sign a mission agreement with Korean churches, preach at churches started by the Scranton’s, visit Bishop Jung’s home church and community, attend chapel at Ewha – the largest women’s university in Asia, go to Panmunjom, and foster relationships with Korean Methodists.
“Ohio mission is such an amazing influence on worldwide Christianity, and I am the fruit of Ohio mission,” said Bishop Jung. “When I was 16 years old, I first met Jesus through Rev. Sung Chan Kim, a local preacher who was building a church next to my family’s home. He changed my heart in a strange and warm way and my course has been set since then. I had to take a strong stand as an early Christian to challenge my family’s long, long Buddhist-Confucian tradition. But Methodism was strong in me and that Methodism came to Korea from Ohio.”