By Prof. Dr. Peter Beyerhaus, Prof. at Tuebingen University (1965-1997), Director of the Institute Diakrisis, Rector of “Freie Hochschule fuer Mission”

With great joy I greet the participants of the European Summer Bible Conference of University Bible Fellowship at Eringerfeld in celebrating her 40th anniversary of campus mission in Europe!

Still, I vividly remember the Winter Leaders’ Conference in Mücke this February, where I had the honour of contributing as a speaker. For the numerous personal testimonies of Korean and German participants – young women and men – showed me plainly and lively what a blessed work UBF is doing in many cities and especially at the campuses of our nation and of other European nations.

In the anniversary volume I have read with great emotion about the historic circumstances leading to this gospel ministry when the first group of Korean nurses left their homeland in 1969 and came to Germany in order to perform a sacrificial nursing service in the hospitals. From my own experience as an occasional patient I know about the love and professional expertise these young women show in their service, how well they adapted to the fellowship of their German colleagues, and how quickly they won the hearts of the patients.

They had been called to Germany because here we had an acute nursing emergency, and they bid farewell to their families with tears as Korea – even 15 years after the fraternal war – still suffered from social needs, and they wanted to support their beloved ones with the money they would earn through hard labour in a faraway country. Not all of them were Christians; but their Christian colleagues invited them to join Bible studies after work and on Sundays, led by UBF evangelists – foremost their founder Samuel Lee and his coworker Sarah Barry. In this way, many of them found Jesus as their personal Saviour and thus discovered the true happiness for their lives. I was deeply impressed by the baptism of two Korean nurses in the Methodist “Peace Church” of Tubingen in 1984.

Europe had the historical privilege of coming to know the gospel through Christian missionaries even from the first century, nation by nation, and on this foundation of Christian world view and ethics she has established her occidental culture. Later, through the great missionary movement, people in other continents have come to know the Christian faith, e.g. Korea in power since the end of the 19th century. While indigenous churches have grown there and have left a Christian impact on their environment, Europe has fallen prey to a process of de-Christianisation and secularisation after the age of enlightenment, and the campuses are dominated by a spirit of science-based atheism.

It is amazing that now evangelists have come from the Far East, especially from Korea, and try to win over European students for the Christian faith through their own personal testimony and deep roots in the Holy Scriptures. The history of UBF in Europe proves that this is possible through the presence of the Holy Spirit, so that now Korean and German and Swiss academics stand side by side in this blessed service for Christ and form an inseparable fellowship. May the LORD himself be noticeably present at this anniversary conference in Eringerfeld and encourage all  participants to intensify their efforts!