This year, due to COVID-19, we had to adapt the Nikan (Japan-Korea Youth Meeting) and what was going to be a few days meeting in Korea, was reduced to an online sharing. However it was just as deep and full of life and hope for each one of us. 14 young people from Korea and 8 from Japan took part, plus the missionaries from each country.
It was around this time last year that the Japan-Korea Youth Meeting (Nikan) took place. It was a great joy for me to be able to see Nanami and Wakano again, after so long, and to meet other young people and missionaries that I did not know. So this year I was also looking forward to the Nikan. Here in Korea we were preparing for this meeting, thinking about what activities it would be good to do this time. However, no one would have imagined the changes that COVID-19 would bring with it, which would prevent the meeting from taking place as we had thought. At first we were hopeful that everything would pass quickly and that by the summer, COVID-19 would be over. However, it is still very present in our midst, and it seems as if it is laughing at us.
Although this time we could not physically meet, it was a huge joy for me to have the possibility of doing the Nikan online. It had been a long time since I had seen the missionaries or the Daejeon youth who had helped us prepare the program, and yet it seemed like yesterday. We caught up with each other: how we were doing and the best way of facing up to this whole situation. But the best thing was being able to laugh out loud after so long. We could not shake hands, or look directly into each other’s eyes, but it was as if we were together in the same place, sharing for as long as we needed. It gave me a lot of encouragement and made me think: “Surely it`s God who is looking at us and has made this meeting possible?” I would love us to be able to do the Nikan again, when all this is over and to be able to hug each other again like before.
Kim Jinuon Marcela
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