Tag Archive for my life

From University to Immigration to USA

2009/04/16 My Story No comments

My University time was really meaningful one. My life was established with the teachings from the Bible and I began to be disciplined by juniors and seniors at Student Christian Movement (SCM) from my freshman year.　They were my big brothers. My understanding about God and His reality was very vivid in my heart. There were many great opportunities for me to grow in the Lord. Of course, there were many distractions also. However, m y heart was straight forward toward God andHis guidance.

One week schedule was very tight from early in the morning till the bed time. However, I felt so much of God’s presence in my life and I was fully enjoying my life without loosing my time in wasting on other unnecessary things. So, I was well content with what I was during that time. God was there to hear my prayers and in many occasions, I was in awe how God worked things out for me.

Of course, there were lots of questions unanswered, but I could not deny His existance by what I was going through. If I could make detailed stories of what had happened, it would take weeks after weeks. But I would like to say that God is real and He is alive.

I had only one purpose in my life: to share the Gospel to others who did not know about Jesus and God. This thought and decision kept me going to newer places. From S. Korea to America, then to Japan.

It was during these years at the university when my parents visited America for two months. Since my older sister came to US when I was in Jr. High, my parents were welcomed to my sister’s place. They took the whole two months of exploring America. In those tho months, they decided to move to California where my sister lived back then. So when they came back to Korea, they called each child of 3 and asked if we wanted to move to America. It was 50/50 in the beginning. My brother had very good chemical company after his discharge from the military service. He was newly wed and the first son was about to be born. My sister had a boy friend. She was about to graduate from her graduate school. I was finishing up my freshman year at the university.

In those time, I went to one of the evening service at the church on Sunday. The pastor opened the Bible and began to read from Joshua chapter 1. As he read the chapter, somehow for the first time in my life that God spoke to my heart that I was supposed to go the America. I did not know how this was happening, but I knew in my heart that God was speaking to my heart about this. After the service, I ran to my home and told that I was going to go to the States. Then all of a sudden, everyone came to an agreement. It was like a magic. Then it took about a year from the application to actual move to US.

The time to go to America came on Feb. 20, 1983. I was on the plane to Los Angeles with my brother and sister. My parents came to America before us to prepare our place to stay. As soon as my plane landed at the L.A. International Airport, I felt that I came home instead I arrived a foreign country. Yes, it was true.There were about 100 brothers and sisters in the Lord from my university at the airport sending me off. There at the end of the gate, I exclaimed “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me”

The last message I remembered was that the blessings come through sufferings. As the plane took off, I was meditating on this profound truth not knowing what was ahead of me. At the airport, our favorite brother-in-law came to meet us. Anaheim California was our first place to live near my sister’s place.

After we arrived, the first thing we all did was to take the driver’s license. We all passed with the help from our brother-in-law. We all were endebted to Mr. Chin, our favorite brother-in-law. So our life in California started this way.

Until I came to Japan Part 1

2008/03/24 My Story No comments

This is my reflection until I came to Japan. How things were all happened. It serves as my biograph and also interesting stories after stories. It can be my personal testimony about how I met God in a personal way.

I was born and raised in Seoul, Korea on Feb. 7, 1963 at a mid-class family as a 4th child of 4. My father was a very diligent man who worked very hard each day. He was born in ChungCheongNamDo (Southern Province of ChungCheong). When he was young, Japanese dominated Korea from the expansion policy of Japanese government. My grandfather was a learned man who did not want his son to go to Japanese style of school. So it left my father uneducated. However, he was very smart man. He was able to educate himself with Korean, Chinese characters, and other mathematical ideas. This allowed him to start his own business with duck worker.

In my early remembrance of him, I still remember looking at his picture with several other American soldiers at his KATUSA(Korean Augmentation Troops to the United States Army). He was able to communicate to American soldiers at that time with very limited words he knew. My older sister ate chocolates and other American products when she was very little during Korean War and post-war time.

He was in the country side with a very wealthy family background. However, the domination of Japanese over South Korea deprived of my father’s family wealth by forced collection of the harvest and forced use of the land. Then Korean war took my grandfather’s life since he was the learned man. North Korean Communists came to South Korea (at that time, Korea was one nation though) and killed the wealthy, the learned, and the religious. Many Christians died during this time. My grandfather was shot by the communist party proclaiming that my grandfather was elite who should be eliminated for the peace of the community. Without rightful court case, he was shot and passed away leaving my father and my grandmother without proper process of leaving the wealth. Most of the properties were taken by the communists, and the remaining properties were secretly taken by property manager who was hired by my grandfather since he had the seal for my grandfather.

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