Farewell to my colleagues

It's an early Monday evening in late September in Seoul. I'm sitting in what can only be described as a very expensive coffee shop attached to the usual business hotel. You know the kind of place. It's perfectly adequate for what it was designed to do, but it has no soul. It could be anywhere in the world. The canned piano musack, only underscores the corporate feel. A couple of business men chat over coffee. I drink my water, I'm too mean to spend $9.00 on a coffee. It's been an interesting few days in this hotel. No free Wi-Fi in the rooms, so your forced down into the hotel lobby to make your free internet connections. The lobby is always busy with all types of people, holding all shapes and sizes of devices, tapping their screens sending messages. Never wanting to be one of herd I've slipped into the coffee shop which is just an extension of the lobby for a seat to write the blog. Today we've been out exploring the Subway on our own. We made a few wrong choices but on the whole it's easy to move around this city. The ticket machines are easy use. The writing is in Korean and English so it wasn't the nightmare I thought it would be reading a Korean script. However it did cause me to stop and consider how difficult it is for those in our societies who cannot read. We had lunch did a little shopping and returned to the hotel. However all good things come to an end. Iain Cunningham my Chaplain and Vice Convener of the Council of World Mission leans over and says, " Sandy and I catch the airport bus in an hour." Sandy is the Asia Secretary for the Council, both have been accompanying Martha and myself at the General Assembly of the Korean Church. We've all got on really well. Martha and Sandy originally come from Coatbridge so you can imagine they have things in common. The same school and the same church connections. Sandy's mind, however has been on other things over the past few days. For sixteen years he was a missionary in Pakistan and on Saturday he received the devastating news that the church he worked and worshipped in had been burnt to the ground by extremists. Today Sandy is on his way to Pakistan to help and support his friends. Please remember him as he undertakes this mission.
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