Language school network wants to expand; with wise growth, church officials warn
Valerie von Stitt, a 29-year-old Seventh-day Adventist, says she always wanted to be a missionary but didn’t know what to do about student loans and bills. “‘Go to South Korea,’” a friend told her. “‘They’ll pay you to do missionary work.’”
In 2001, von Stitt flew from the United States around the world for a one-year commitment as an English teacher at one of the Adventist Church’s 39 language schools, the church’s main evangelism tool in that country. She ended up staying for more than three years and says she’s eagerly waiting to go back after she finishes a master’s degree.
“I have 10 months and counting,” she said with an enthusiastic laugh.
With about 1,200 people joining the international denomination each year through the Seoul-based SDA Language Institute, administrators are hoping more Americans and people from other English speaking countries will come serve as a teacher for several months or a year.
“We would like to get as many missionary teachers as we can and to expand this great mission outreach program,” said Kim Si-Young, SDA Language Institute director.
“The more institutes and teachers we have, the more Koreans can get to know what our church believes and our Savior.”
But despite plans to expand, recruiters say they are struggling to even meet current demand for roughly 300 teaching positions.
Launched in 1969, the network of schools now draws more than 50,000 students each year throughout South Korea, the world’s 12-largest economy according to the International Monetary Fund. Employees of multi-national companies requiring English proficiency are attracted to the schools for their quality, small class size and instructors from English-speaking countries—something not always found among hundreds of competitors.
Classes are taught on weekdays and students can attend an additional Bible class to practice their English on Friday nights, the beginning of the Sabbath kept by Adventists.
The denomination, now with 15 million members worldwide, used to send college students as missionaries to South Korea, but Korean law has since changed requiring teachers to have a four-year college degree.
“It can be a degree in farming, as long as English is their native tongue,” said Vernon Parmenter, director of the Adventist Volunteers Center at the church’s world headquarters.
In April he and other world church officials traveled to South Korea to meet with leaders who are eager to expand the institute.
“We need to be able to deliver what we promised,” Parmenter said of the institute’s reputation and his concern about rapid growth. “We want to support Korea as much as we can and work together, but we should keep it in connection with the ability to provide an adequate number of qualified teachers who are committed to the church,” he said.
Typically a school rents a building and builds student clientele before buying property on which to build a school and a church, usually in an area without an Adventist church.
“It would be very disappointing to put up a school and have the structure in place and not be able to staff the school,” Parmenter said.
The institute is financially successful and pays missionaries about $1,600 per month plus round-trip airfare and a furnished apartment.
In 2002 the church in Korea sent a pastor, Nam Young-Kim, to live and work close to the Adventist Church’s world headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland, near Washington, D.C. to aid the screening process of applicants and help recruit others.
Kim said Koreans are receptive to the Adventist denomination because many are already Christian—some reports indicate as much as one third of the country’s population.
Church leaders in Korea said few young people attend church, but many attend English classes. “If we don’t have young people there’s no future for the church in Korea,” said Ken Yoo, institute teacher recruiter for North America.
“The institute is the most important means to reach young people,” Yoo said. “I think if more people knew what was going on there, we would have enough teachers.”
For more information, see the Web site www.koreasda.org.