One of the blessings of my spiritual life was that I had the opportunity to meet Missionary Dick York. Before I met him, though I knew the Bible, I could not apply it to my life. So my life was always far away from the Bible. Even though it is written in the Bible that God shall bear all my problems, I could not entrust all my problems that I was facing daily to the Lord but instead, I was fighting and struggling with them. Missionary Dick' first goal was to train us to live by faith. 'Have a quiet time every morning. Listen to the voice of God while you read and pray. If God shows you something, take a step by faith.'
He had a lot of hardships while he was leading faithless us to faith. He was misunderstood and was unable to communicate with the Koreans while he was doing the ministry of faith. Sometimes, we even had trouble with him. After I had received the training from Missionary Dick, I was able to open my eyes toward faith little by little. When I made the Lord responsible for my daily problems with the word of God, I could see my small and great problems were solved.
Peter was a fisher before he met Jesus. However, after he met Jesus, he no longer caught fish, but followed Him. Likewise, after I was called I no longer lived for myself, but lived and walked with the Lord. While Peter was following Jesus, he had walked with Jesus, he had taken a boat ride, he had been starved, he had been fed, and he had also watched Jesus healing the sicknesses. Being with Jesus, Peter saw and experienced things that he could never do himself such as Jesus feeding five thousand people with the five barley bread, walking on the sea, raising the dead and etc. Jesus Christ remains the same yesterday, today, and forever. If Jesus who had called Peter, called me, the power of Jesus Christ, should come out of me, too. But yet, that didn' happen in my actual living. When I faced difficulties or problems, I tried to solve them in the human ways.
As time went by, Jesus led me to faith. I didn' rely on Jesus from the beginning. The Lord put me in a certain problem, and he cut off all the human ways so there was no other ways to solve it. Then I had no choice but to depend on Jesus and walk in His way. Amazingly, God worked out every problem, one by one miraculously. Seeing how God was working in me, faith was growing in my heart gradually, 'ah, God lives in my heart and leads my life!' Ever since I had faith, whenever I started a project I did not ask questions such as 'is this possible? Who will help me? Are financial resources prepared?' I simply started the work. One thing that I learned in the life of faith was that, 'if God is delighted with my work, He can easily help me and complete the work no matter what my situation is like.' Therefore, it is the most important thing to ask what His will is and listen to His voice, asking 'God, are You really pleased with this work?' When I started something with faith that God would be pleased with that matter, although it seemed impossible to me, I experienced He accomplished it miraculously. From then on I started to think, 'I know that there is will of God in the Bible. What is God' will in this?'
One day, while I was reading the Bible, I paid attention to a verse: "Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession."(Psalm 2:8) Before it says "I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession," it is written, "Ask of me." God says 'ask of me,' because He wants to give something to me. I have a daughter and a son. I was happy to see my daughter being happy when I bought clothes for her and to see my son being happy when I bought a loaf of bread for my son. Likewise, I came to know that my happiness in accordance with God is also God's happiness, and God wants to give me heathen for my inheritance. So, I started to pray about it. It was the time when I was starting the church in Taegu, which was the beginning stage of our church. It was a very difficult time and we were very hungry, cold and poor.
After we dismissed the night service and all the brothers and the sisters went back to their homes, I lost strength in my heart. In our church, there were not many new comers. Also some brothers were going through temptations. So I locked my door, knelt down, and started to pray to the Lord. First, I started to pray like this: 'Father God, we don' have any food to eat. Please give us food.' But, after a while, I was praying about other things led by the Holy Spirit. Whenever I started the engine of my prayer, the Holy Spirit led my prayer. It was the same when I witnessed the gospel. The Holy Spirit made me preach the Word. Like the starter of a car, once we started it, soon the engine ran.
"God, allow us abroad mission work. Let us start a Missionary School. Let us publish books with our sermons. Let us do broadcasting mission."
Although I prayed about things that I did not think of, I surprised myself after I prayed. 'A person like me! It is ridiculous! This is a dream, just a dream!' Nevertheless, the Lord led my prayer to the same direction while I was praying. After I prayed a couple of times, faith came to my heart that God would make it happen. Therefore, one day, after I finished the service, I told about my faith to the brothers."Brothers, let's have strength! We might seem to be shabby, but we will publish sermon books. We will start the Missionary School. We will send missionaries to the foreign countries. We will send the sermon through the air, and we will have the retreat."
Those words didn' suit our situation, so everyone just laughed and did not pay any attention to them. One of the brothers comforted me. "Pastor, the dream should be big like yours. It is good to have such a big dream. Do not be discouraged."
It sounded to me as if he was saying, 'you are dreaming.' Even when I had thought about that, it seemed like a dream. Also, it did not suit us. 'Look at yourself! Do you think that you can manage if God gives you the world for your inheritance? Wake up!' As I looked at myself, those were delusions of grandeur, and they didn' make any sense. Therefore, I thought to myself 'his prayer never makes sense.'and I stopped praying about it. I did not think about that any more. And a few years later, while I was reading the Bible, I looked up that verse again. That verse brought me the hope again. 'Right, if God gives me the heathen for my inheritance, He will also give the power to control it. He will have everything ready. He won't just give the heathen for inheritance.' So I started to pray again. I was sure that the words were from my Father God. After that, I gave my testimony to the church often.
"Brothers and sisters, God gave me these words, 'I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession'as a promise. According to the promise, we will publish the books, have broadcasting sermon, start the Missionary School, establish the churches all over Korea, and will send missionaries all around the world. I believe that the Almighty God will accomplish all these things."
Then God started to open the ways just as He promised to me. We started the Missionary School and we sent pastors to all over the country. We started broadcasting mission, and we have published books after we established 'Good News Mission Publishing House' God opened the way to send missionaries to Germany, America, and Japan one after another. Also, He let us establish the church in Russia, China, South East Asia, South America, and Africa, etc. God has done lots of things we had never imagined.
The missionaries whom we sent to other countries have lots of weakness. However, God helped them. So whenever they went many gospel works sprang up. Also they left beautiful testimonies, for which I give thanks to God. Also we have already sent missionaries to Eastern Europe such as Poland and Hungry. So far, twenty percent of our pastors went to other countries as missionaries. God will open the way to send more missionaries next year. I can see the great hopes in the countries where our missionaries are. Although many countries are desperately requesting for missionaries, I am praying for more workers because there are not enough workers to send. I can testify God fulfilled all my prayers whenever I prayed for something, even though it was as small as a mustard seed.