As I walked through suburban St. Catharines, Ont., it was strange to think that behind one of those doors lives a couple whose work reaches over 5,000 Christians every day.
Jung-Sook Song and Dr. Seh-Hoon met at elementary school in Seoul, South Korea. After getting married they immigrated to Buffalo in 1969, eventually settling in London, Ont., with their four children. As a dietician and doctor respectively, both were eventually employed at Victoria Hospital. It was through the hospital that Jung-Sook Song discovered Our Daily Bread.
Our Daily Bread has become a staple devotional since its inception in 1956. It is distributed to churches, hospitals and care facilities worldwide. To accomplish this it is translated into over 40 languages by a series of volunteers throughout the United States and Canada. Placed in healthy piles throughout waiting rooms and lounges in Victoria Hospital, copies were available to patients and visitors alike.
Mrs. Song found that those patients who read the devotional regularly were getting better faster. Intrigued she picked up a copy for herself. Despite enjoying the text for its content, the two faced difficulty because English is their second language. Realizing this problem would exist for many other immigrants, especially in an increasingly Korean church, the two sought out a solution to this problem.
Teaming up with a third elder from their church, they attended in 1983 the regular convention of RBC Ministries, which publishes the devotional. There they asked to translate the text into Korean.
A slight hitch came with the presentation of this document. RBC Ministries had initially wanted them to create an exclusively Korean version of each text to be distributed among Korean speakers. However, the Songs wanted each text to be presented in both Korean and English. As it would be distributed primarily in Canada, the two believed the majority of their readership would be immigrants like themselves. The use of both languages would allow those readers to not only access the devotions, but also practice English, especially the English of worship at the same time. This was eventually accepted and the group began their translation.
What started with three elders and a 200-person distribution has grown to include nearly 5,500 regular subscriptions worldwide. Today the translations are handled by a church in the United States, however the distribution is still handled by many of the original founders—a group that has grown to nine members. Meeting every three months to repackage cases of devotionals for redistribution, the group sings hymns and tells stories among themselves.
In addition, meetings are also often held to host missionaries and speakers, as well as additional mission projects of their own. These can include shipping commentaries and Bibles abroad, or even shipping the printing press itself. Additionally, Jung-Sook Song now writes her own devotions and faith reflections, both in Korean and English.
Despite the contribution of this lay ministry, the two remain extremely humble about their part in it. They remained quick to thank those elders and translators who helped, as well as RBC Publishing itself. All the while they regaled me with stories of their children and grandchildren’s accomplishments.
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