Our church has many Korean-born women who married non-Koreans. They are faithful members of our church, but their husbands are usually nonbelievers. Since their husbands do not provide spiritual protection for their families as spiritual leaders, these families have a great deal of spiritual problems. So I have been praying for a couple who could form and lead a house church for families like these. It’s hard to find because because they both need to be able to speak English fluently and be dedicated to the ministry. But my prayers have finally been answered through Fred and Sun Edwards, who are going to be ordained as co-shepherds today.
Fred works as an attorney. He is a graduate of Virginia Military Institute. He met Sun through his sister, who was a classmate of hers. Feeling called to pastoral ministry, he enrolled in a Baptist seminary in Virginia. After graduating, he served at a small rural church, but after a couple years he realized that he couldn’t serve well at a traditional church and quit. He then went to law school and earned his J.D., although he was still seeking to serve as a home or foreign missionary. He came to Houston to serve as a missionary for mariners, but found he didn’t have the aptitude for this type of mission. So he decided to work as a prosecutor in a small Texas county until God gave him a clear direction for ministry. Then his wife Sun started a house church for interracial married couples and asked him to join.
When the house church was about to start, Yoon Myung Hee, the shepherd of the house church Sun belonged to, asked me to appoint her as a shepherd. But I wanted to wait until the house church got settled. After three families started meeting in the house church regularly for a few months, I decided that it was time to appoint Fred and Sun as co-shepherds. Then an invitation came from a Korean church in Canada asking him to become a full time pastor for their English speaking congregation. An opportunity to serve as a full time pastor had arrived! But I was not sure it was really God’s will because accepting the invitation meant abandoning members of the newly started house church. I expressed my feelings to them and after much prayer, they decided to decline the invitation.
When they made this decision, God showed that He was pleased by it in a marvelous way. Fred had applied a year ago to be a prosecutor in Fort Bend, a large county near Sugarland, but he never heard from them. Out of the blue, they called and asked him to come for an interview, after which he was practically hired on the spot. Then a missionary friend who works for the North American Indian Mission called and said that a pastor there was planning to retire in a couple of years and wondered if Fred would be interested in filling that position. The church is a multiethnic one and Fred has an excellent chance of serving there if he wants to in a couple of years.
If you meet people who need this kind of house church, introduce them to Fred and Sun. If this house church multiplies and we get ten similar house churches, I’d be willing to hire Fred as a full time pastor. My prayer is that all interracial couples in Houston are saved through these house churches.
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