The Re-entry Seminar organized by the General Conference Institute of World Mission (GCIWM) was held at Andrews University from July 16 to 26, 2015. It had the largest number of participants in terms of missionaries returning from all parts of the world back to their homes—54 adults and 22 children.
From the Northern Asia-Pacific Division, we had missionaries returning to their homes from Hong Kong, South Korea, and Taiwan. Ken and Ivanette Osborn, NSD Treasurer and assistant to the NSD Executive Secretary and NSD IDE Coordinator respectively, and they are retiring and will be settling down in Weimar, California; Drs Chek Yat and Sally Phoon, NSD Education Director and Children, Family and Women Ministries Director and Clap Coordinator, respectively, are retiring by the end of August and will be settling down in Singapore and as they claimed to have a “Macedonian Call” from there for a new ministry called the “Ministry of ‘GRAND’ Parenting”;
Mr and Mrs David and Ulena Robinson, principal and teacher respectively, from Taipei Adventist American School, Taipei, Taiwan, have returned from Taiwan at the beginning of 2015 and have already started their new assignment in North Dakota as teachers in an elementary school there; and Mr Dennis Johnson, who has first come to Hong Kong as a volunteer, but has decided stayed on and even acquired the status of permanent resident of Hong Kong and had stayed in Hong Kong for more than 20 years as a missionary—his last portfolio was the Cardiac Pulmonary Laboratory and Heart Center Supervisor at Hong Kong Adventist Hospital, on Hong Kong island—and he will make his new home as a retiree in the San Diego, California, area.
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The Re-entry Seminar of the Institute of World Mission was to assist missionaries who have gone over to other Divisions to serve and are returning home to their own home Divisions either to retire or to enter into their new appointment or awaiting a new call or assignment.
All of them have felt it was a rewarding and spiritual experience to reflect on their mission work and to prepare themselves for the next phase of their lives of ministry wherever the Lord will lead them regardless of whether they are retiring from active denominational service or not. As Mr. Dennis Johnson said that he has to make room so that a younger expert can appointed to handle the important job in the Heart Center and the Cardiac Pulmonary of Hong Kong Adventist Hospital, but he is ever willing to return to Hong Kong to serve if the Lord calls him again in whatever capacity He wants him.
The passion of the returning missionaries is unquestionable. The sharing by many of them who have had experiences of great losses during their missionary years due to wars, sicknesses and accidents was certainly tear jerking. All have rededicated their lives to put “Mission First” as their goal for the rest of their lives whether in a new mission field or at their home mission.
Article by Dr. Phoon, Chek Yat, NSD Retiring Education Director