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L'Abri Newsletter, July 2025

June 24, 2025

Dear praying family,

Since our last prayer letter, a new president has been elected in our country, and we have news that Israel and Iran, whose war has been causing anxiety across the world for the past two weeks, have signed an armistice. In moments like these, we pray earnestly for God’s rule throughout the world. “But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream” (Amos 5:24). I pray that we who obey God’s word will rise up today, and I pray that our prayer family will experience the joy of obeying our Lord regardless of circumstances.

In thinking about this past month, I would like to thank you all again for your prayers. I was feeling so tired in April that I planned to open only on the weekends of May and June, but God had something different in mind. Students from two high schools visited for three nights and four days each, and God continued to send people through church gatherings, personal visits, and funeral services. In particular, around the time when President Seung-hoon Yang of Eswatini Medical Christian University visited, many others came and had a good time of eating together and enjoying fellowship and Q&A sessions. This was all God! I am so grateful for your prayers.

The Lord, who knows our weaknesses well, often sent our neighbors, Kwang-sik and Nam-jeong, and our dear helpers from Goyang, Tae-yoon and his wife Hyun-ji. When many high school students visit, there is a lot of cooking, cleaning, and laundry to do, and there is more programming than usual. Everyone helps with all their might, and if the power of Jesus had not been with us again, we would not have been able to do anything on our own. The thank you cards left by students and the donations we got were reassuring, but I most sincerely thank everyone who prayed and worked together for the soul saving ministry of L’Abri.

As you all know, sometimes God heals illness and fatigue, but sometimes He lets us work even when we are sick and tired. InKyung and I are working even though we feel our physical limitations day by day, and our daughter Hae-jin is helping guests, managing accounting, and studying theology even she is not well. Thanks to this, we all have the honor of joining the Apostle Paul in his confession: “But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest on me” (2 Corinthians 12:9).

Please pray for our summer term, which will be from June 29 to July 28. Guests coming to study in the scorching heat are suffering, and the helpers who cook, do laundry, and teach need spiritual and physical strength. Similar to last year, Kwang-sik, Nam-jeong, Tae-yoon, and Hyun-ji will come again to sow the seeds of the gospel while working hard. From July 21 to 23, about 10 young people from Daecheon Central Methodist Church will visit for three days to do house repairs. The main building needs a handicapped access ramp, and the old gas station house needs interior.

Three open lectures (Tuesdays, 6:00-9:00 PM) are prepared. Please pray that every day will be a time for new faces to be welcomed and touched by the Lord Jesus.

Please pray for the Christian Worldview School that will be held from July 25 to 28. About 15 people have already submitted presentations, and I am looking forward to them, as they show more thought than ever before. Please also pray for Dr. Yoon-seok Lee, who will give the keynote lecture and listen to people’s presentations, and give feedback for three days. Please pray that this will be a time when God’s wisdom and power will be revealed.

A while ago, a group of elders and deacons from a church in Seoul asked for a lecture on C.S. Lewis’s prayer and Schaeffer’s prayer while they were staying overnight at L’Abri, so I prepared one. There was something I wanted to share with the prayer family, so I am posting it here. I would like to share because you all are working together in prayer for L’Abri. This is a quote from Mrs. Edith Schaeffer’s The L’Abri.

“L’Abri’s founding is set on the purpose that follows: ‘To demonstrate the reality of God through our lives and work.’ In other words, we decided to live a life based on prayer in several areas so that we could demonstrate to the reality of God to all who might be interested and watch. We decided to live a life of prayer in the following four specific areas.”

Instead of asking people for money, we make our financial and material needs known to God alone through prayer. We believe that God can reveal to the minds of those He has chosen the share they should have in this work.

We pray that God will send those He has chosen and block those He has not chosen. We do not make advertisements or flyers to gather people.

Instead of planning our future in a clear and efficient way through meetings, we pray that God will plan our work, show us His plan each day, and guide and lead us according to His will.

We do not seek workers through the usual channels of recruitment or selection, but pray that God will send those whom He has chosen. (Reference: Edith Schaeffer, translated by Yang Hye-won, The L’Abri, Hongseongsa, pp. 22-23)

Since the beginning of International L’Abri in 1955, all L’Abri around the world have kept these principles. The same is true of Korean L’Abri, which started in 1990. When Korean L’Abri was established, Wim Rietkerk, who was the president of International L’Abri at the time, told us, “If you do not keep these principles, take down the L’Abri sign and throw it into the Han River.” I cannot forget those words. In the 35 years since then, we have never forgotten these principles or his warning. However, as I prepared the lecture on “Prayer,” this prayer that I have always said felt new and more precious.

One of the guests who was listening to the lecture said, “It seems that faith cannot help but improve at L’Abri.” Even today, if the Lord does not send us food and necessities, we cannot live, and whether there are many or few visitors, we can only serve if the Lord sends us people, as we do not make long-term plans. The Lord must also send us the helpers, because we can trust the people the Lord sends us more than those we might try to recruit ourselves.

We pray for what we need, and we believe that the Lord is working out a grand plan that we cannot know, for something greater and more wonderful than what we are praying for. The reason we pray like this is not to boast that we are still doing the “faith mission” in the 21st century. It is to demonstrate even a little that God is still working. It is not because we have faith. It is because there is no other way but to believe in the power and grace of the Lord and pray. Let us think about the prayer that Jesus prayed for his disciples and the saints of later generations.

“I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world” (John 17:14-18).

The Lord has given us the truth while we live in the world. And with this truth, He sanctifies us so that we are not tainted by the world. If we do not come close to the world and come close to God and the Truth, God has promised that He will protect us from falling into evil. There is no promise that He will protect us so that we do not suffer and live comfortably. When I see the following verse 20, “I pray not for these alone, but also for those who will believe in me through their word,” I am moved anew by the fact that the Lord prays for us even now.

As the Lord says, I hope that you will live every day this summer in Truth and holiness and receive God’s protection so that you will not fall into evil. I sincerely respect those who always pray and help with offerings, and I earnestly pray that you will become people who testify to the living God in your daily lives.

In the solemn green of summer’s highlands,

I lift my longing to God.

KyungOk

Translated by Ye-Jin Ahn

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