Shalom! Peace be with you
- janastettler9
- Dec 3, 2023
- 7 min read
Updated: Jan 1, 2024
Hello everyone,
We love to share our last Newsletter of this year with you. Through this newsletter, we will share about the work of God we experienced during the time we spent in Korea over the past two months and our ministry plans for next year. Thank you to everyone who has always prayed and supported our family! We pray that this newsletter will encourage and strengthen your lives as well.
During the day of Thanksgiving, we took a moment to look back on this year and counted how many blessings God has given us. There were so many blessings, including our engagement and marriage, amazing fruits in ministry, God's faithful provision, and the love we received from countless people around us. But more than anything else, we were able to remember that the greatest blessing we have ever received: We can call God our heavenly Father and that He has always led and guided our lives in a good and faithful way.
Hallelujah, praise the One who set me free
Hallelujah, death has lost its grip on me
You have broken every chain
There's salvation in Your name
Jesus Christ, my living hope
Living hope - Phil Wickham1. Wedding & Honeymoon
Both weddings in Switzerland and Korea were well held by the grace of God. Once again, we would like to thank everyone who prayed and blessed us.
Thankfully, SeongEun’s family was able to come and attend the Swiss wedding, and Jana’s family was able to come and attend the wedding ceremony in Korea as well.
Before and after each wedding, both of our families spent a time in Switzerland and Korea were we traveled together. This trips brought both our families closer together and it was a time filled with love, fun and joy! We are so happy that our families are united in God’s love even though there are differences of languages, cultures and backgrounds.
After my family returned back to Switzerland, we enjoyed our honeymoon in Indonesia. As soon as the DTS was over end of August, we were busy with preparing for the wedding(s) and spending time with both our families traveling in Switzerland and Korea.
With this said, our honeymoon was truly a time of just being, resting and spending time as a fresh married couple. most of our time was filled with reading books, meditating on God’s word, swimming, watching movies, exploring Bali and dreaming and talking about our future. Summarised: loved it :-)
One thing we really enjoyed is watching the show "the Chosen"which is talking about the live of Jesus and his disciples. This show really helped us to imagine more of how the people during the time of Jesus must have felt when they spent time with him and encounter his love and care. It brought a wider and deeper understanding of the salvation we have and our desire grew even more to see life transformations happen in the lives of the people we are encounter and working with.
It's only been two months since we got married, but we are already amazed of what God is teaching us as we are sharing life together. We are learning to embrace our differences, respecting one another above ourselves, encouraging each other, and not holding ourselves back to ask for forgiveness and be quick to forgive. We want to ask you to pray for our marriage to be united by the love of God, learn to walk with Jesus as one body, and experience the work of the Holy Spirit every day.
Don’t just pretend to love others. Really love them. Hate what is wrong. Hold tightly to what is good. Love each other with genuine affection, and take delight in honoring each other. Never be lazy, but work hard and serve the Lord enthusiastically. Rejoice in our confident hope. Be patient in trouble, and keep on praying.When God’s people are in need, be ready to help them. Always be eager to practice hospitality.
Romans 12:9-132. Visit YWAM Base
During our stay in Bali and Korea we had the opportunity to visit other YWAM bases.
During our stay in Busan, we visited the YWAM Base in Gadeok, Busan who is also running a bilingual Discipleship and Training School and Seongeun got the opportunity to share the message during the community meeting.
While praying for the theme of the topic, God spoke the word “Identity”. So Seongeun shared about the differences of how the world identifies Identity and what the bible is saying about it. During the time of application we layed down the things that hinder us from accepting the truth of who we are in Christ and that he calls us son and daughter of his.
After the sermon, some staff and students came to us and told us.
"What we heard today fit perfectly with the topic of this week's lecture. Through these words, I was able to proclaim who I am in front of God once again and accept the truth as truth. Thank you for sharing my message!!"
"I was wondering what to do because there was no one to share a message for this community meeting but I'm so surprised that God has already prepared a person with a perfect topic for the message!"
"I was encouraged and challenged by your words. There were many moments when I felt lost because of all the many difficulties in the world, but once again, I will hold on to this identity God has given me: I am God's precious treasure! Thank you."
This opportunity thought us once more that God's working is beyond our imagination. We can find that the things that seem like "Coincidence" in our eyes were actually done by God’s “Providence”. All glory to God, who teaches us, guides us, and uses us to bless others.
One of the things that changed after marriage is finding the joy of preparing things together. Whenever Seongeun thought of the direction and ideas of the message, he shares them to me, and God used me to give inspirations and thoughts towards it as I was praying for him during the time of preparation. And one thing is for sure: It's definitely more fun and better to work together as a team than to do it alone :)
We are learning to walk together and serve together with one heart and unity. We hope that God will be honored and His kingdom will expended through our family.
3. Catching up with friends & God's provision
During our stay in South Korea we met many friends and family and the time we had together was very special. One week of our stay was in Japan, where we met a former student and friend. We loved to catch up with everyone and to hear the different stories. It was a time filled with joy, love and laughter and we will miss each one of you.
God also opened a new door for us to start a connection with a Church in Busan. We had the opportunity to meet the pastor, having a meal together and sharing our testimonies and vision for the ministries we are doing. When we heard through the pastor how God started the church, we were moved by God's amazing work. We also got challenged about what it means to live a life of obedience with the fear of God and a life of humility and faith.
What a blessing it is for our family that in our early stage of keep building our financial stability seeing friends, family and churches committing to the work we are doing through their prayers and financial giving.
Every giving from each and everyone of you means a lot to us and we do not take it lightly. Through your yes and willingness to stand with us in prayer and investment we are able to train and disciple young people.
Thank you!!!
4. End of 2023
We are super excited to share with you all that we will move into our first apartment as a new family by end of this year. We are very excited for this new step, especially as we moved and changed our place of staying many times in the last years. So, thank you to everyone who prayed for this special step!
In particular, we have always prayed and dreamed that we could stay in a place with a living room, even if it is a small one. We love to host people and to practicing generosity and hospitality to the people around us. Our heart is it to have an open house where we can welcome and encourage people and that our home can be the place of comfort and rest to the people around us. So please pray for us that our place can be used as a precious channel of blessing.
This December will be a time of settle into our new home and preparing and working on legal papers like visa or name changes.
5. Looking ahead for the year 2024
We are excited to announce that we will lead the next January Discipleship and Training School (DTS) 2024 and the starting date is mid-January next year. During our honeymoon and stay in Korea, we have been inviting speakers and preparing for our school schedule. Please pray for wisdom so that we can find a good staff team and right outreach locations. We don’t want to lean on our own experience and understanding, but we want to seek God's wisdom and guidance in it all.
In the January DTS, we have so far 19 students from 9 countries: Australia, the United States, the Netherlands, Romania, Brazil, the United Kingdom, India, Colombia, and Canada. Please pray for unity in the school by the love of Christ. We are really excited for this school to come, especially as many students shared a passion and heart for the missions! Please pray for wisdom so we can help them to maximize their vision and deepen their passion for the Lord.
How our schedule will look like:
Lecture Phase : 14.01 - 27.03
Outreach Phase : 28.03 - 30.05
Final week : 31.05 - 08.06
Week 1: Orientation & Bible Overview | Week 2: Hearing God's Voice | Week 3: Nature and Character of God | Week 4: Holy Spirit | Week 5: Lordship | Week 6: Relationship |
Week 7: Evangelism | Week 8: Spiritual Warfare | Week 9: Identity | Week 10: Missions | Week 11: Team Unity & Children ministry | |
6. Prayer points / Support
Once again, we would like to thank everyone who is always with us in prayer and support. :) It is such a huge blessing in our ministry to know there is someone listening to us and praying for us. Please keep praying for us!
Pray for the preparation of the staff team and that the process for inviting DTS speakers will go smoothly.
Pray that all students in the DTS will be able to experience being one with the love of Christ. Please pray that we are also filled by the wisdom and love from God, so that we can overflow to our students.
Pray that all legal paperwork processes can be done smoothly.
Pray that our marriage will be full of love, humility, and fear of God. Pray that we will learn how to serve and love each other with the love of Christ during this time when we are taking our first steps in marriage.
Thank you so much for all your prayers and support in it all.
We pray for you and wish you a blessed advent season filled with hope, peace, joy and love!
For a child is born to us,
a son is given to us.
The government will rest on his shoulders.
And he will be called:
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Isaiah 9, 6Blessings
Jana & SeongEun Kwon
Comments