SEOUL (UCAN) -- The dust and the motorcycles, not the poor living conditions, made the deepest impression on the first Korean missioner to Cambodia when he arrived in 2001.

"It was the dry season and the streets were barely paved. I couldn't even breathe well. I wondered how Phnom Penh, the capital, could be so dusty and soon realized the poverty of the country," Father Michael Kwak Seok-hi recalls.

After arriving in March 2001, the Korean Foreign Mission Society (KFMS) priest, now 37, focused on learning the Khmer language. Three years later, in June 2004, he began a full-time mission assignment as parish priest in Suong, almost 100 kilometers northeast of Phnom Penh.

Besides tending to the three parishioners who live in the town and attend Mass at the church, which is an ordinary Cambodian wooden house, Father Kwak also drives his 20-year-old-car to celebrate Mass at two mission stations. One has five Catholic families and the other has 20.

"Although the mission environment there is not good, I still see hope for the Cambodian Church. Young adults and youth show great interest in Christianity," the Korean priest told UCA News on Sept. 22 in Seoul. His society had formally celebrated its 30th anniversary two days earlier.

His mission in Cambodia, he said, is about "proclaiming God's Good News," not just increasing the number of Catholics. "My primary work there is to console the poor and to share the love of God," he stated.

Like Father Kwak, 49 KFMS members have been doing mission work in various parts of the world. He and other mission heads were back in Seoul for the anniversary celebration and meetings.

Archbishop Nicholas Cheong Jin-suk of Seoul led the anniversary Mass on Sept. 20 at Myongdong Cathedral, with 20 KFMS priests concelebrating. About 350 supporters of the society attended the special liturgy.

Bishop John Choi Jae-son, former bishop of Pusan, founded the society in 1975. The first three missioners it sent overseas went to Papua New Guinea in November 1981. Now it has members in five places in the Asian region -- Cambodia, China, Hong Kong, Papua New Guinea, Taiwan -- as well as in Russia and in Mozambique, southeastern Africa.

In his congratulatory message, Archbishop Cheong, the KFMS moderator, said the mission society's work had impressed him deeply, and he thanked its benefactors and supporters.

Its founder, Bishop Choi, is now 93 and could not join the ceremony, but he sent a congratulatory letter. "Foreign missions are important work for the universal Church, and work the Church needs to do," he wrote. "Korean Catholics grew with help from foreign missioners. Now it's time for the Korean Church to pay back."

The Korean Foreign Mission Sisters, which the bishop founded in 1984, shares that mission and currently has 55 members working in foreign missions.

Father Augustine Kim Myoung-dong, KFMS superior general, told UCA News on Sept. 22 that as "the second oldest Asian Catholic foreign mission organization, the KFMS tries to widen the understanding of the foreign mission and to set up systematic support for the work." The Mission Society of the Philippines is the first foreign mission society founded in Asia, in 1965.

"For 30 years, the KFMS has sustained interest in foreign mission work in the Korean Church and served as a catalyst for other dioceses' and Religious congregation's overseas mission work," said Father Kim, 45.

According to statistics compiled by the Catholic Bishops' Conference of Korea, the local Church has sent 431 South Korean nuns, 109 priests and 33 Religious brothers to foreign missions. Among the priests, who include the KFMS members, 44 are working in Asia.

"However, compared to the rising interest in foreign missions, a systematic organization for foreign missions has not yet been established," Father Kim continued. "We will build a mission center to integrate the interest in missions and to teach mission work to laypeople."

The superior envisions the center as a hub for mission work for dioceses and Religious institutes that will collect information on missions and be a place for missionary groups to share experiences.

KFMS personnel are preparing educational materials for courses, but financial constraints are delaying completion of the center, Father Kim said. "However, that's our job. No matter what, we will have one in the near future," he promised.

"Also, we will keep up our primary job, sending missioners all over the world from the rising of the sun to where it sets. That's our answer to the call of God," he declared.

END