I’ve never been to South Korea, but I’m very tempted to go if only to try the coffee! Koreans seem to love it. The coffee shops are proof of that with one travel writer claiming there were over 18,000 in the Seoul metropolitan area in 2021 and another two or three hundred opening every month!

I’d like to attend the Boryeong Mud Festival too. That’s right, I did say ‘Mud Festival’! This annual event, which claims to be the largest summer festival in the world, offers a range of mud-related experiences like mud baths, slides, and even mud wrestling. The mud I’m told “has excellent efficacy for anti-aging, skin waste removal and skin care”. The same travel writer, however, has suggested that it includes masses of mud shipped in from a cosmetics factory, which means that countless devotees could be said to be wallowing in ‘an expensive beauty product’.

But if I ever did decide to visit that fascinating land it would be to spend time visiting the enthusiastic churches that have faithfully and lovingly sent teams to pray for us here in the UK especially for us in Wales over the last decade or so.

This year marked our 11th Korean Prayer Mission with some ten church groups visiting the ‘land of song’. As always, the team that visited Pembroke belong to a Korean church based in Central London. The other teams flew in from Korea (at their own expense) for two fundamental reasons. Firstly, because they are convinced that wonderful things can happen when we pray, and secondly because they want to say ‘thank you’ to the people of Wales for Robert Jermain Thomas’ role in introducing them to the Christian faith.

As always, this year’s team stood out because of its passion, conviction and deep sense of service. This became abundantly clear as they related to the residents of a care home, the children who greeted them in a local school and the Mayor of Pembroke when he met them in the Council Chamber. To our amazement, they had even spent time learning to sing a well-known hymn in the ‘language of heaven’ itself.

And boy, did they pray! They prayed with several local churches in their regular meetings of course but they also did so with any individual that asked them to do so. Best of all though they spent time between 9.30 and 12 every night praying ‘Korean style’ If you’ve never savoured this type of prayer you have missed a delightful experience.

I have had the privilege of worshiping with our ‘Pembroke family’ in London and for that I am deeply grateful, but I can’t help thinking how fantastic it would be to worship with our Korean brothers and sisters in their churches too. If I do go, I think I will make sure my visit coincides with the mud festival because that would let me ‘slip slide away’ in an expensive beauty product. I’m up for anything that will improve my looks!