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Wednesday, May 07, 2008
Hallelujah For Hea Jung
Our church family has been blessed this school year by Hea Jung Noh's leadership of our youth ministry. (She came our way last September immediately after finishing a chaplaincy internship at Alta Bates Medical Center in Berkeley, to work part-time here while finishing her Master of Divinity program at San Francisco Theological Seminary.)
Of course, Hea Jung has blessed the families of our high school students. Her ministry to the youth includes their parents and siblings. As she spent time one on one with this young person or that one, she made it a point to get to know their families as well. Moms and dads appreciate both her personal warmth and her professional skill. They trust her with their kids, and with themselves.
All of us have benefited from her good work with the youth. I've observed our young people growing stronger in their fellowship and in their sense of Christ's daily presence. Their long-standing enthusiasm for volunteer service has a new spiritual resonance. So I look forward all the more to this year's Vacation Bible School and our All-Church Retreat, which are both famous for the youth group's mentoring ministry to our children.
Hea Jung fit right in to their annual snow trip to Tahoe. Then she led them into a new mission trip as well. They worked for a week in post-Katrina construction ministry in New Orleans. Daily blog entries kept us posted on their prayer requests and praises throughout their stay. Their testimonies upon return helped renew our compassion for the hurricane's thousands of victims, 2 1/2 years after the devastating storm tore through their hometown.
I can't thank Hea Jung enough for her contribution to our church's life and work. But this is the season for us to say one last "thank you," for she will be leaving us on May 25. She's returning to her family home in Korea to assist her parents for a year before entering the Ph.D. program in Berkeley's Graduate Theological Union. We will miss her, and we will pray God's best blessing on her as she steps out to follow God's lead from here.
Hea Jung will be our preacher on Pentecost Sunday, May 11. A week later we will honor her at the coffee hour on Sunday, May 18. I hope you can join us for both of these very special events in our life together as God's church -- one congregation right here in little Alameda and one small part of Christ's Body spread all across God's good earth.
posted by Jack Buckley at
8:35 PM
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