Dear Family and Friends,
Angela and I are writing you today to share a big update with you. After many months of prayer, fasting, and seeking wise counsel, we have made the difficult decision to move back to the US this summer.
This coming October will be our 5-year anniversary of moving to Vancouver. As we entered this significant season in our journey, we sensed God inviting us to seek his voice about whether we should continue our church planting journey in Vancouver or if he might be leading us into something new in the next season.
Angela and I began praying together about our future on Ash Wednesday, February 26. It was just a week after we entered this season of prayer when I was contacted by the leaders of Vineyard Columbus, which is the church where I served as a pastor before moving to Vancouver. The senior pastor, Rich Nathan, will be retiring in January, and Eric and Julia Pickerill will be stepping into the role of co-senior pastors at that time. They are putting together a new team and staff to help lead the next chapter of the church. And I was asked to prayerfully consider joining this team as one of the campus pastors.
Returning to Columbus was not something that we were actively seeking or hoping for. So, when they asked us to pray about returning, it caught us by surprise. But the more we prayed about it, the more we sensed that this was a door that God was opening up for us. On Friday, June 5, we formally accepted their invitation to return to Vineyard Columbus.
Our prayer journey leading to this difficult decision was filled with so many emotions. We laughed and cried a lot. We remembered the day when we moved to Canada five years ago, crossing the border with the Florys into the unknown; we remembered buying our long dining table that practically filled our small apartment; we remembered cramming our church family into our home, around that huge table eating, talking, playing and doing life together; we remembered worshiping in our home, then in our community room and then our first meeting at Soundhouse; we remembered times of outreach in the community as a church family; we remember amazing retreats at Galiano, Rosewoods, White Rock, Vancouver, and North Van; we remembered walking through the immense grief with the Flory family; we remembered all the people that we’ve said goodbye to over the last five years, as well as all the people who have been with us as constants, leaders, volunteers, encouragers, helpers, visionaries, servants, co-laborers, friends. It was all so beautifully messy! This has been our journey together with you! God brought strangers together and made us into a family. Our hearts have been forever marked by each of you!
For those of you who have supported us from afar, I want to take this opportunity to say THANK YOU! This church planting journey would not have been possible without you. Thank you so much for how you have supported us, prayed for us, encouraged us, and loved on us these last 5 years. Thank you for walking this journey with us! Thank you! For those of you who live in Columbus, we are really looking forward to doing life together with you once again!
We don’t yet know exactly when we will be moving back to Columbus, but it will be sometime late July or early August. We also don’t know where we will live, what schools the boys will be attending, or what life will look like for our first few weeks back. We would appreciate your prayers for us in this season of transition for us. Thank you!
With Love,
Insoo, Angela, Elliot, Isaiah, and Oliver
PS: For our US friends, if you contributed financially to Love Vancouver to support us in 2020, you will receive your donation acknowledgment letter from me in the beginning of 2021. If you sense God inviting you to continue supporting the Vancouver church plant, please let me know so that I can send you the information on how you can continue to do that.