28 - Vision of Development for Youth Training Centre — Ben Torrey

Good evening. This is Ben Torrey back again with you after all these weeks. It is good to be back on the air myself. However, I am deeply grateful to my good friend Chung Soo Kim for faithfully sharing my words with you while I was away.

Our trip to the US was very successful. We conducted North Korea schools in different places participated in an important North Korea missions conference and attended to other business. We also had a very restful time away with our family.

We come back to Korea full of expectation all that the Lord is doing and will do this summer. We are especially looking forward to the work camp schools that we told you about last week. That will be an exciting time.

A Vision for the Three Seas Youth Training Center

Tonight I would like to share with you our vision for development of the Three Seas Youth Training Center. In the past I have shared about our vision for Christian education and the Jesus Abbey Global School.

We have also spoken about the Fourth River Project and our vision to prepare for the opening of North Korea. As well as the North Korea schools and work camp schools that we conduct. All of these are or will be carried out at the Three Seas Center.

There is one more aspect of our grand plan for the center. That is for short-term youth training programs as distinguished from the longer-term middle and high school education program. Young people are the future of our country.

Today's youth will be the ones who will be involved directly in the process of reunification or Reconciliation and healing between North and South Korea. We believe that it is imperative to capture the imagination of this youth generation for North Korea.

This does not mean that we want to see every young person committed to going to North Korea or Working to rebuild the nation or preach the gospel there. No, we have a broader perspective. These things are very important, but not everyone will be involved in them.

Beyond those who do have a specific call in relation to North Korea, we think of all those who live and work in the South. Most of them will be involved in earning their livings and building their families in the cities, towns and villages of South Korea.

Without any direct involvement with the North. Yet it is precisely these who will play a major role in the future of a united Korea. They will be voters, they will have opinions, they will influence others.

Our hope and intent is to impart to the young people living now. Who will be these ordinary citizens in the future a vision for a new Korea. We believe that it is very important for them to understand as much as possible about their brothers and sisters in the North.

Biblical Principles for Life in a United Korea

We also want to instill in them fundamental biblical principles about living and working as men and women, as families, as citizens of a united Korea. We also believe that it is very important to pass on Christian values concerning healthful living, good stewardship of God's creation.

Living and working with others and being thoughtful and caring of others. This is certainly a big task. We do not see ourselves as doing the whole job. What we hope is that others will join with us in this work both at the three seas and elsewhere across the country.

For us we see our task as touching the lives of as many young people as we can and Awakening in them an interest in these matters. Some will be believers, but many who come may have no relation with the Lord.

Yet even they will be able to learn and grasp the principles and information that we want to impart. So what will we do? We are building a youth training center with a capacity to take several hundred young people for short courses.

Short Courses in a Mountain Setting

These will last one two or three days. The participants will be middle and high school groups who will come to our center for the training that we offer. The 3C Center is being built in a lovely mountain location in Taebaek Gangwon-do.

The air is clean and the views are beautiful on a clear day. You can see the East Sea. Sometimes we look out our window and see the clouds below us with the mountaintop showing like islands at a white sea.

I Have rarely seen prettier places. We also have a cattle ranch with about 30 head of cattle at this time. We're continuing to build the herd with plans to have about 100 altogether. We are surrounded by national forests with the Pektu Trail skirting the property.

This is a ridgetop trail that runs from Chirisan in the south to Pektusan on the Chinese border. All in all the Three Seas is a wonderful place to enjoy fresh air beautiful scenery and healthy exercise while learning about the value of hard physical work on the ranch as well as hiking and camping.

Service, Stewardship, and Christian Community

Our programs will take advantage of all these benefits to bring to our young people exciting new experiences. We stress a number of values. Such things as caring for the creation that God has given us as we learn to be good stewards of his earth.

We also believe very strongly in the importance of service to others care and prayer for others. The value of manual labor and community and of course we teach about upright living. We also want to pass along a concern to seek and fulfill One's purpose in life in other words to discern God's calling.

All these things we will teach and model through the life of our Three Seas community Jesus Abbey our mother community and the program of the center. In addition, there is one more thing that we will bring to all this.

That is an awareness of North Korea and a vision to prepare for when it is open and eventually for reunification. We will draw on the resources and knowledge of the Fourth River project providing special lectures and educational programs about North Korea as it is now and The history of how the nation became divided.

We will also teach about how to prepare for a future that is coming. That these young people will be involved with we will seek to instill in them a Concern for their brothers and sisters in the north and get them thinking about this future what their role in it will be.

Perhaps some of these young people will return later on to participate in more advanced educational programs about North Korea. Perhaps some will catch the vision to prepare themselves for an active and leading role in the process of healing reconciliation and Reunification.

At the least our hope and prayer is for each one to go back home With a new awareness of this situation and a thoughtfulness about their future and the future of all Korea. If we do no more than awaken such an awareness in each young person We will consider ourselves to have succeeded.

Experiential Learning Through Nature and Community

What is particularly exciting to us is the natural way that all these things can and will be integrated to provide a rich and rewarding learning experience. We think that the young people who come who will be separated from their cell phones mp3 players and electronic games.

Who will work with their hands on the ranch play with our dogs? Hike on the land spend time camping. Who will have time to see the beauty of the heavens at night unaffected by the lights of the city? Who will eat healthy food and experience the love and care of the community?

These young people will go back to their schools back to the city and their homes. Remembering a special place a special experience and a new vision. This is our vision for the three C's youth training center we believe it is God's vision and are excited at what he is doing to bring it about as I said at the start of this evening's program.

It is good to be back and working on bringing all this about of course. I'm not alone in this Next week. I will share with you about our greatest asset for this work our people until then good night.