(A)E-verybody – A sketch of a DTS outreach team

By Amy Eunjung Lee/ School of Worship

(In Chinese, “Ae” means love. When the name of the team is pronounced ‘Ae-verybody’, it can be heard humorously as ‘Love everyone’ in Korean.)

It is not harsh to say, but many people agree that the ‘highlight of DTS’ is the outreach. Outreach is a time that we share God with the nations which we learned about during the lecture phase, and experience His grace and presence on the way of witnessing. There is a DTS outreach team that has just departed for this blessed journey from Jeju, South Korea.

Intimacy DTS, from the 3rd quarter (July-September term), were divided into two teams for their outreach period. One team which is “Everybody” has 2 brothers and 9 sisters, a total of 11 people, who went to S. Korea and Japan. They named their team ‘everybody’ in the hope of being united as one body in love. So they set the vision for their team to pursue love and unity.  

When they prayed about possible outreach locations God showed them that there was no peace, rest, or hope among the team members. God challenged them to worship and intercede for Korea and Japan, leaving behind every stereotype and wrong thoughts from the past. God also told them to see and experience the nations.

Now the team is currently serving in Busan after having been in Incheon, Seoul, and Daejeon in South Korea. They teach mini DTS’s in these cities sharing on topics such as ‘Hearing God’s Voice, Identity, Worship, and Intercessory Prayer.’ Alongside this they’re also visiting universities in Busan, doing waffle-evangelism, worship, and sharing the gospel using different ministry utilities. After evangelism, they spend time with students and have fellowship with them at their campus.    

God is faithfully working in their team after a month of outreach already. A female team member gives testimony on how the living God is residing among the team and in the ministry. She said,

“The busy schedule of DTS lecture made me feel burdened, and I could not pay attention to my intimate relationship with God and knowing Him much. I didn’t even know why we should go to outreach. I was hardened and thought that I have nothing to do with this outreach. This thought eventually closed my heart completely. 

After I finished the lecture phase, I went back home for a break and God did not give up on me. He was constantly saying to me that I was avoiding His voice and not willing to listen to Him saying ‘Come with me, I will give you a new experience. Come with me, I will show you amazing things.’ But He assured me of His will using my colleagues in DTS and brought me out from the blurry fear and negativity in my heart.

And now, I am standing on the ground where God told my team and I to go. Although sometimes negative thoughts about my duties come up or I see some difficulties, I still see that God continually strengthens me to overcome and obey Him with thanks and joy. This is the grace of God.

This time of outreach is a time of promise that God wants me to enjoy. He set this up first, stretched His arms to me and invited me into this. I pray that through this time may any bondage in my life be broken so that I could be more intimate with Him. I want to bless my team as they listen to the voice of the Lord and obey in the remaining two-thirds of our outreach period.

We will soon move to Chiba and Tokyo in Japan after S. Korea and will be serving together with Korean churches. In particular, Korea and Japan are currently in a conflict, and boycotts are in progress within S. Korea. The media is dealing with the negative relations between Korea and Japan, and the public sentiment is not good. However, as a disciple of Christ, I want to look at this situation from God’s point of view and expect our team to be used as a channel of blessing, not of conflict, but of reconciliation and unity.”

Finally, she asks for the reader to pray for their team specifically. The team asks to pray that they may love and stay in unity so that they could be a channel of blessing that the love of God can flow through. Although we are not with the team physically, I hope that the “family” of God stands together in prayer for them!