Eight years ago, in 2016, Kerey Smith was part of the team from Seoul International Baptist, now Freedom Village Church, that planted a church near Camp Humphries in Pyeongtaek, South Korea. The church started with Saturday night services so Kerey and pastor Dan Armistead could lead services on Sunday mornings in Seoul. After two years, they realized that it wasn’t going to grow past a small group unless they shifted to Sunday mornings. In 2018, they started the Sunday morning service with a rotation of pastors and worship leaders. Kerey wasn’t preaching at the time but was helping with the administration and on the rotation for worship leadership.

Kerey shared, “The church has never had a fulltime pastor, but that was always our goal. We’ve had a few serious candidates, but it never worked out.” At the end of 2021, after Pastor Armistead had retired and SIBC merged with the Way Church to become Freedom Village Church, their new pastor, James Lynch, and Kerey found someone willing to preach consistently at the Pyeongtaek church plant.

Kerey said, “We saw the church thrive under consistent preaching, but the preaching pastor’s wife’s mother fell ill, and they had to head back to the US earlier than expected. This was at the end of 2022.” That’s when Kerey volunteered to fill in as the interim pastor until they could find someone willing to take the role more permanently.

In 2022, they had two serious candidates, but when both fell through, Kerey realized after a lot of prayer and consideration that the church was too small to be able to offer what all the candidates were asking. Both Kerey’s wife, Bora, and he have a heart for this church and knew that the area needed a solid bible-teaching church with leadership willing to make sacrifices and minister to the military community and English-speaking civilians there. After prayer and discussion with Bora, Kerey decided to step forward and offer to take the position.

Please pray for Kerey and Bora Smith as they serve in this new role and for Freedom Village Church and Pastor James Lynch as they support their work from Seoul. Freedom Village Church is a Hawaii Pacific Baptist Church and part of the Asia Baptist Network.