This weekend, the Lake Junaluska Assembly is hosting around 70 people who have registered for the Southeast Retired Missionary Reunion. Meeting every three years, the group is headed by Dr. David Wu, who served the United Methodist Church in Singapore, and his wife, Shirley, former missionary to Korea and Singapore. Combined, they served their church for 51 years in these faraway places, with strange-sounding names.

Probably the couple traveling the longest distance to the reunion are Ut and Karen Vanto, coming from Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Indonesia and Malaysia will be represented by several attendees. Retired missionaries now living in this country hail from California to New York State. Last week, Polly Ingold’s home was completely destroyed by one of the brushfires in Colorado, yet this veteran missionary of 25 years in Indonesia is attending.

There is something about this group of retirees that is refreshing. They will be sharing photos of their former assignments and will be listening to reports on their work from Dr. Robert Hunt, Director of Global Theological Education at Southern Methodist University, who returns today from a missions conference in Malaysia.

Another interesting report is expected from Maimunah Natasha, Jakarta businesswoman and a former member of the World Methodist Council, representing Southeast Asia.  This is a partial list of the participants.

“Lake Junaluska Assembly is fortunate in hosting this gathering of outstanding missionaries,” said Jack Ewing, Lake Junaluska’s executive director. “In retirement now, they will be sharing stories about their former work and will talk about the harvest of their seeds planted half-a-world away.