Asia director's conference was held at the foot of beautiful Fuji Mountain in Japan from January 22 to January 24, 2009. Asia director's conference opening message was delivered by M. Jimmy Lee from India. Asia is called as the continent of idol worship such ancestor worship, emperor worship, animal worship, etc., but 60% of the world population lives in this continent. This continent will be the last spiritual battle ground to reach out many unreached people of the world before the second coming of Jesus. Asia is the mission field to preach the gospel. Jesus opened his disciples' spiritual eyes to see the field ripe for harvest. Asia is dynamic and multi-cultural, and it is our mission field. God wants to open our eyes to send many mission workers to Asia. God sent American shepherds-Dr. Steve Haga and Allison to Taiwan, Phillip and Sarah Brown to X nation, and Tommy Pharm to Indonesia as harvest workers in Asia in 2008.

Dr. John Jun delivered the first main message titled "Restore your first love." Dr. John Jun delivered this same message 7 times for the African, European, CIS, Asian director's conferences, and Sunday worship services. He suffered a lot due to time differences and changing environments. Ephesus was a city of pleasure-seeking and corruption but they were changed by the gospel of Jesus. But Jesus rebuked the church saying, "Yet I hold this against you: you have forsaken your first love." (4) We must know the love of Jesus who laid down his life for us on the cross. Our first love comes from the cross of Jesus. We must love because God is our Creator. It is our duty to love God. We must love God because he is our Savior.

Dr. John Jun said, "I experienced the burning love of Jesus on the cross when I first studied the Bible and I was willing to give my life to Jesus. But as time passed by, my love for Jesus grew cold. I too had forsaken my first love and I must restore my love 100 degree." There is a movie called, "Hot is better." Our Lord also likes "hot." We should repent "lukewarm" faith. Jesus promised that he would give them the right to eat from the tree of life when they overcome temptations. We are threatened by the post modernism of hedonism and materialism. We must study the word of God daily and restore our first love. We must love God and our sheep with first love.

Thirteen national directors shared their reports with vision and hope. God is working powerfully in India, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Philippines, Thailand, Mongolia, and Taiwan. The following people shared the report: M. Moses Kim – X nation. Joshua Hong from Singapore, M. Peter Lee from Indonesia, M. Bansuk Peter Lee, M. John Jeong from Philippines, M. Barnabas Baek- from Sri-Lanka, M. Andrew Chung from Brunei, M. Daniel Jeong from Japan, M. Mark Kim from Hong Kong, M. Joshua Chin from Vietnam, M. Jimmy Lee from India. We saw that Asia is a vast field ripe for harvest. Asia is replete with many different religions-Tribal worship, Hindu, Unbelieving communists, Muslims, and Buddhists. The hosting country Japan is a beautiful country but there are many idols. But God blessed Tokyo UBF to buy a new center last year and began to raise up Japanese disciples. M. Jimmy Lee asked us to pray for pioneering Malaysia, Nepal, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar by faith. Please pray for Asia to be changed by our love and prayer. I repented my lukewarm love and Jesus restored my first love. May God bless your new year 2009!

God blessed the second day of the Asian director’s conference with the powerful messages. Shepherd Barnabas Kim from Kwangju UBF delivered the evening message based on Nehemiah chapters 1-2. His message challenged us to renew our faith to rebuild the work of God to remove the disgrace as God’s chosen people. His message moved our hearts to renew our fighting spirit. The title of his message was “Let us rebuild the walls of Jerusalem.” He focused on four points in his message-ABCD. A is Ask, B is Battle, C is co-working, and D is Disciple-making.

First is to ask and pray earnestly to God. Nehemiah began the work of rebuilding through prayers. Nehemiah prayed day and night, bearing and confessing the sins of Israelites. Spiritual revival comes when we pray with broken hearts. Revival comes when we pray confessing our sins with broken hearts. It does not come from the new method or special program. In the book of Nehemiah, we see the picture of Nehemiah praying before God 13 times. Nehemiah chapter 1 starts with a prayer and chapter 13 ends with a prayer. We pray to God and God does his work. God’s work is the work of prayer. S. Barnabas said, “Kwangju revival came when all leaders fell down on their knees every Friday. We had a new year’s fasting conference for 2 days. We held this fasting conference for the first conference. I thought that all people would run away but they prayed more. They prayed more because they were hungry. There was a spiritual revival. We have to move God’s heart before we move people’s heart. Without moving God’s heart, we cannot remove anyone’s heart.” Martin Luther said, “Make God, God through prayer.”

Second is the battle. Nehemiah challenged the king with challenging spirit. He challenged people with battle spirit. Nehemiah planted faith to the people. Nehemiah challenged them to restore their spiritual confidence as a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. President Barack Obama planted faith to American people, “Yes, we can. All this we can do.” He was elected as the president overcoming all obstacles. Challenging spirit is important. In the same way Nehemiah planted hope and faith to the people of the chosen people of Israel. Nehemiah had pure love to God and pure love for his own people. He believed that God’s people are the kingdom of priests and a holy nation in spite of adverse situation. He brought the revival to Israel people because he was a man of prayer. Nehemiah was an excellent leader when it came to encouraging people. Leaders must plant faith to people. He removed the disgrace among God’s people and restored the glory of God by rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem. Barnabas said, “One shepherd in Kwangju center said to me, “Please move my heart.” In order to move the hearts of leaders, I made a CD of UBF history. Through the CD, the leaders received much grace. They said, “Our UBF history is God’s history even though we have many weak points.” When they were moved, they began to give their hearts to the ministry and gave offering sacrificially. If the leaders are moved, there will be a great work of God. If we become complacent, we will lose challenging spirit.” In 1980s, we shouted, “We are history makers.” In 1990s, we shouted, “We are priestly nation and holy people.” We are captured by the passion of Christ. But in 2000s we lost the challenging spirit and suffered a lot last 10 years due to our failures and division. We lost hope. We were discouraged. But now is time to rise again. We live in the 21st century. God is calling modern-day Nehemiah to rebuild our broken spiritual Jerusalem Wall. God is calling Nehemiah for Asian mission. Let’s become the modern day Nehemiah for rebuilding Asian mission. Let’s become Nehemiah for China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Thailand, Hong Kong, Taiwan and all Asian countries.

When Dr. John Jun was moved by the message, he gave a new name Nehemiah to Shepherd Barnabas Kim because he rebuilt the new center of Kwangju UBF. He built the beautiful Kwangju Bible center by challenging spirit. Now he became Nehemiah Kim. We celebrated the new name given to the speaker.

Shepherd Samuel H. Lee delivered a special lecture in the evening titled “Nevius mission strategy and UBF future mission.” Korean church growth in the early days was based on the Holy Spirit and John Nevius mission strategy originated from Apostle Paul’s mission strategy. His strategy was based on three-self formula. The main points of three-self formula are self-supporting, self-propagating, and self-governing. The first step is to raise up native leaders. Missionary Underwood arrived to Korea in 1885 and he invited Nevious and had 10 day conference and adopted Nevious three rules as the principle of church pioneering. Korean church grew as self-supporting churches from the beginning. They raised up local self-supporting leaders. As the church expanded, they began to hire fulltime pastors. They focused on Bible study from the beginning. They studied the Bible systematically based on Acts 20:32. They gave them the language training. He made several suggestions about the future work of God for UBF.

1. Build a community through 66 books of the Bible-Study all the Scriptures so that we may see the trees and forest of the Bible. Raise up 66 Bible experts for 66 books of the Bible.

2. Transfer leadership to local native leaders-next generation leadership

3. Relocate missionaries (3 families as one unit) to pioneer new campuses after they received language training to prevent from complacent church members.

After the message, M. Peter Lee from Indonesia, M. Paul Kwon from Mongolia, and M. Mark Kim from Hong Kong presented Asia mission strategy. M. Peter Lee explained the status of the Muslim mission in Indonesia. Indonesian government persecuted Christians by the requests of the Muslim majority. We should not attack Mohamed or Koran to preach the gospel to the Muslims. We should win their hearts by understanding what they need. We have to love them with the love of God patiently. We have to win them not by theology but by our influential life. With prayers God may work out his plan for the Muslim salvation. Muslim is not our enemy but people who need God’s salvation.

M. Paul Kwon shared the mission strategy. He emphasized to pioneer the Muslim countries where the gospel is allowed like Indonesia. We can pioneer Buddhist countries like Thailand, Sri-Lanka, and India. M. Mark Kim presented the way to pioneer the communist countries.

After the panel discussion, Dr. John Jun gave us prayer topics as follows:

1. Rebuilding the work of God and going back to the Bible

2. Raising true disciples to overcome post-modernism

3. Pioneer Asia 38 nations where 4 billion people live

Asia Mission Coordinator

Jacob Lee