We held a worship service in Haeundae on October 8 to commemorate the Busan International Film Festival.
In mid-September, I received a call from Heejeon and she told me about the service which was organized by her entertainment prayer group and church, and they decided to hold it at a symbolic place near the Haeundae beach. I was also scheduled to give a special lecture during the Busan International Film Festival, so I decided to participate. However, I got the coronavirus before Chuseok, and although I recovered, my voice was shaky and unsteady because my bronchial tubes were tickling, so I decided to have Heejeon's youngest sister, Eunyoung, a musical actress, sing with me, and it turned out to be a beautiful worship. Initially, we were going to have all the songs in English because it was an international film festival and a lot of Asian-American filmmakers who are friends of Heejeon and Eugene would be participating, but the Korean-American filmmaker teams were leaving the country a day before the date of the service because they had finished all the events for the Korean diaspora section, so we ended up adjusting the language of the lyrics to a ratio of about 70% Korean and 30% English to accommodate the Koreans and a few foreigners.
As I thought about the service, I prayed that it would be a time to meet God, not people, and that it would be a time to honor the Lord rather than expose myself, and that I would not be embarrassed by a big mistake in language or music.
Sister Heejoo from the Entertainment Prayer Group provided the subtitles, and Sister Banya gave the opening greeting. And Heejeon led the whole service, prayer time, and translated.
When the praise began, everyone joined in worship in unison. The sermon was given by Rev. Sung-eun Kim of "Beyond Utopia," which won the Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival, and it happened to coincide with the Busan Film Festival schedule, so he stopped by briefly and delivered the sermon on a tight schedule. I got to realize about his ministry of saving countless lives at the risk of his own life, and I was deeply moved by the tremendous hardships he has gone through, and I felt a lot of joy and gratitude for being able to worship there.
After returning to Seoul from the film festival, we had a prayer meeting to conclude the festival service, and during the prayer, we all felt the same way and decided to share our feelings with Pastor Kim, who is doing life-saving work. During the prayer meeting, there was a Bible verse that kept ringing in my mind, Isaiah 58:6-7.
“No, this is the kind of fasting I want: Free those who are wrongly imprisoned; lighten the burden of those who work for you. Let the oppressed go free, and remove the chains that bind people.
Share your food with the hungry, and give shelter to the homeless. Give clothes to those who need them, and do not hide from relatives who need your help.