In Person

"Tell me your story again."

A few days later, I met with Daniel and Austin, one of the leaders of EBPN.

Austin appeared on Zoom looking older than I had vaguely imagined. He didn’t feel like someone simply passing through as a staff member for a season. There was a depth to his presence that made it clear he had given himself deeply to this work. He described himself as serving in something close to an elder role and introduced himself as part of the international leadership of EBPN.

Actually, “introduced” may not be the right word. I only learned those things because I asked first.

Neither of them led with titles or positions.

After exchanging a few brief greetings, they immediately turned the attention back to me.

Daniel said he had already heard a little of my story, but that it had moved him so deeply he wanted Austin to hear it directly as well.

So once again, for over an hour, I shared my story.

Why I first went to Guinea-Bissau. How I encountered God. What kind of training I received in YWAM. What dreams God had given me, and the things that had unfolded because of them.

As Austin listened, he seemed genuinely moved the entire time. Like Daniel, he was someone who was sincerely stirred by the dreams of the Kingdom of God.

After I finished sharing, Austin spoke.

He said that YWAM had begun paying close attention to Guinea-Bissau — especially to what was happening through the EBPN ministry there and the fruit that was beginning to emerge. He said he wanted to share more about it, but just as I had shared my perspective directly, he wanted me to hear this time from the voices of the local leadership themselves.

So he suggested another Zoom meeting the following week, this time together with leaders from Guinea-Bissau.

Leadership in Guinea-Bissau.

When I first visited the YWAM base in Guinea-Bissau in 2019, there had been almost no workers there besides one elderly woman. But now, Austin said, remarkable revival was taking place, and strong local leaders had emerged doing incredible work. He told me I needed to hear their testimonies for myself.

Then he added something more.

He said they wanted to partner together in the work of EBPN. They had wanted to see whether we truly carried the same heart and vision. And now, he said, he already felt certain of it.

He admitted he still did not know exactly what the next steps would look like, but there were already so many possibilities coming to mind. He said they wanted to support the work I was doing for Guinea-Bissau from Korea in any way they could. He even said they would begin thinking about how EBPN equipment could potentially be brought into Korea.

It was an exciting conversation.

Not long after that, the Zoom meeting with the local leadership in Guinea-Bissau finally took place.

Jefferson and Gianni were a married missionary couple. They had stepped into leadership around the same time I had first visited Guinea-Bissau. At first, they said, there had been almost no visible fruit. It was exactly the Guinea-Bissau I remembered — difficult days, slow progress, simply enduring and remaining faithful.

But after the Bibles began to be distributed, they said things suddenly started happening everywhere.

They explained that they themselves had wanted to distribute printed Bibles, but the more they explored the possibility, the more impossible it seemed, and eventually they gave up on the idea. Instead, they began distributing audio Bibles, and what had first begun as an audio ministry within YWAM later became connected with EBPN.

Then one day, they suddenly heard that printed Bibles were coming into the southern region of the country. When they heard that a Korean YWAM team was bringing them, they were shocked. But they never imagined they would actually meet us personally.

They laughed as they admitted that even now, the whole thing still felt mysterious to them. And yet they were deeply happy that we had finally connected.

They told us that ever since they began distributing audio Bibles, extraordinary things had been happening. There were already so many testimonies.

And then they said this:

“When you come to Guinea-Bissau this time, please come visit us. Come and see it for yourselves.”

Almost like the words from Scripture itself:

“Come and see.”

I wanted to.

More than anything.

As soon as the meeting ended, I contacted Dan immediately.

“Dan, I think we need to go to Gabú.”

Dan had traveled there with me before, so he knew exactly how far away it was. Ten hours south, then another ten hours back to the capital, Bissau, and then another six hours north from there. Trying to fit all of that into a fifteen-day schedule clearly caught him off guard.

But I couldn’t say anything else.

“It’s probably going to be difficult. But we still have to go. I want to see with my own eyes what the Lord is doing. I really think there’s something more.”

Throughout the entire Bible project, I had never once believed the story ended with simply transporting Bibles.

Whether we moved 10,000 copies or 100,000 copies, that was never the conclusion. It was only the beginning.

And this journey felt like an extension of that beginning.

I could sense that God was connecting this work to something beyond what we had imagined.

Like light slipping through the crack of a door.