Dearest Friends and Prayer-Partners,
I hope that this fourth edition of our newsletter finds you and your loved ones in good health, safe from harm, and full of the joy that faithful service to our Lord provides. We are busy with the final preparations for our January return to the “Land of the Morning Calm.” Our Stateside Assignment to our hometowns of Seminole, Texas and Kansas City, Missouri have been wonderfully blessed by sweet fellowship with relatives, friends and fellow believers in the body of Christ. The Lord has provided us with an abundance of opportunities to share our ministry on Jeju-do with eight (8) different Southern Baptist Churches from Iowa to Texas. We are happy to report that 54 new prayer-partners have made the commitment to join our efforts to intercede with the Father on behalf of the people of Jeju Island. We also give thanks for the promise of at least two mission teams planning for trips to Korea in 2012.
As I informed you in our last newsletter, Helaine and I will be attending a language institute in Seoul upon our return. We covet your prayers as we will first undergo Korean Language testing to place us in an appropriate level for advanced language training. Our supervisors have graciously made this opportunity possible so that we can acquire sufficient proficiency to work alone on Jeju due to Sue Park moving to another ministry field within the IMB. I pledge to dedicate my time and effort to this work but I desperately need your prayers and the work of the Holy Spirit to open my mind in order to “think” Korean rather than attempting to translate from English to Korean in my head. We have been blessed with one year of study time to achieve the high standard of proficiency required to return to Jeju-do.
Finally, I once again plead with you to remain steadfast and firm in your commitment to pray for the haenyo, farmers, and fishermen that make up the majority of our people group on Jeju Island. They especially need the power and presence of the Holy Spirit to work supernaturally in our absence as seed we have planted needs to take root and grow. Please keep in mind the villagers of Hado-ri, SoGil-ri, and Changcheon-ri. These three villages remain our priority prayer requests as we conducted the majority of our ministry acitivity in and around these areas before our departure on STAS. The Hamline family wishes you all a very happy and fruitful New Year of 2011. May God richly bless you and yours.
Hamline Happenings
The past few months have been a real blessing to the Hamline family. It was so neat to see how the Father had prepared our time in Seminole. We were blessed with a wonderful house to live in, and teachers and counselors ready and willing to guide our sons into public school. It is with full hearts that we leave and return to Korea. The boys are all better prepared to enter international school this spring semester. They all made the honor roll each of the three six weeks. We aren’t sure what the standards are to make it, but our sons were so excited to see their names in the newspaper each time. The younger three had homeschooled with mom for the past 5 years so it was exciting to see that they could make it in a “real” school setting. It was so nice for each one to have their own class and friends.
We have an exciting transition coming in January. The boys are all dealing with sadness at leaving a town, school, church and friends where they were very happy. They are looking forward with nervousness to the new adventure that begins January 1st as we travel back to Korea. School in Korea will begin on January 10th for all four sons. David and Daniel will pack and move to TCIS, a boarding school in Taejon (or Daejeon), South Korea. It is about an hour by high speed train away from Seoul where we will be living. This is the same school they attended when we first moved to Korea for language training. There are still some kids there that remember them. They are excited about renewing their friendships again and seeing some of their former teachers. Andrew and Noah will enter Seoul Foreign School. This will be a first for them as they have never lived in nor gone to school in Seoul. It will provide them many opportunities to be involved in sports and after school programs as well as to make many new friends. Transitions while exciting, are rarely easy. Please pray for all of us as we all are going through many new, exciting changes.
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