-
Korea1988 Yearbook of Jehovah’s Witnesses
-
-
EXPANSION IN CIRCUIT WORK
The branch has met the constant need for qualified traveling overseers in part by assigning Gilead-trained brothers to the circuit or district work. These included Norris Peters and Karl Emerson, who came to Korea in 1955. At first, as they visited the congregations, interpreters were needed until they became fluent in the language. Brother Chae Soo-wan, overseer in the Service Department and member of the Branch Committee, was an officer in the Korean army when he started studying. In 1957 he was appointed circuit overseer and he attended Gilead in 1962.
By the end of the 1958 service year, there was a peak of 2,724 publishers in the 54 congregations and many isolated groups making up the five circuits. With this increase in the field, more qualified brothers had to be found and added to those in the traveling work. Ok Ryei-joon and his wife were assigned to circuit work, as were Milton and Liz Hamilton, the first missionary couple to enter the traveling work in Korea.
For the Hamiltons this meant living with the local people and being immersed in their ways of life as contrasted with life in the missionary home. As foreigners, they had to learn the daily routine of eating and sleeping on the floor in addition to sitting on the floor while at Kingdom Hall meetings. At the time running water was scarce, and plumbing was nonexistent. Yet, it was all part of the missionary work. Today, Brother Hamilton serves on the Branch Committee and is the factory overseer.
Brother Park Ii-kyun began full-time service in 1956 and accompanied one of the missionaries in the circuit work as an interpreter. After Gilead training, he was reassigned to the branch office and now serves as a member of the Branch Committee.
After Jerry and Barbara Tylich arrived in Korea in 1966, they were assigned to a Seoul congregation and thereafter served in a circuit. Joining them in the circuit work in 1967 were Jim Tylich, Merlin Stoin, and Durand and Rachel Norbom. The Norboms are now members of the Kongdo Bethel family. Rachel remembers some of the questions she was asked when visiting congregations.
“Even as late as the early 1970’s a Western woman appearing in the countryside was a novelty, and one had to get used to some very personal questions,” she explains. “‘How old are you?’ ‘Are you married?’ ‘How many children do you have?’ and then, ‘Why don’t you have any?’ In one place a rumor spread that an American couple came to take some children to the States for adoption, and so several women came to offer their children to be taken to what they thought would be a more prosperous life.”
Others also serving today in the traveling work amid Korea’s 43 circuits are Joseph Breitfuss (from Austria), Perry and Geline Jumuad (from the Philippines), and John and Susan Wentworth (from the United States), all missionaries for the past 14 to 17 years.
-
-
Korea1988 Yearbook of Jehovah’s Witnesses
-
-
[Picture on page 181]
Missionaries serving in the traveling overseer work. Left to right: Susan and John Wentworth, Geline Jumuad, Josef Breitfuss, and Perry Jumuad
-