My Gospel Ministry Relayed to the Karen Refugees (Romans 16:25-27)
Hello, I’m not here to give you the word but I’m here to give you the reports and the prayer topics for our mission trips to Karen, one of the three missions trips we’ll be going on this year. We received the word about “My Gospel,” and when I think about my gospel, it is only the mount of Calvary, the covenant, I’m not here to give you the message like a theological pastor.
As we declare the gospel, the covenant of Jesus Christ, the covenant of Mark’s Upper Room, and the covenant of declaring God’s kingdom that has been hidden from long ages past. It has been made known now, and even though I’ve been listening to the message for so long, the command of the eternal God has been flowing through me through the pulpit messages. I’m simply delivering my testimony as the Church Officer, and for me, that is to make all nations believe in and obey Him, which is what we are doing in our mission trip now, and it is discovering the reason why God has made us leave behind our home nations and made us stay in America.
It is so that we may obey what is now revealed, and for me, that is the power of the throne of heaven which we the children of God get to enjoy, and I am just now realizing this. The blessings of the throne of heaven are from heaven and they are given through God. No matter how much we succeed, no matter how much we try to learn and do with the things of the world, we cannot receive the blessings of the throne of heaven because we have lost them. It is absolutely impossible for us to restore that.
This has been revealed to us by the only wise God forever, and this means we are able to enjoy the blessings of conquering through God. It is through the gospel, only Jesus Christ, and it is to the only wise God be all glory forever and ever. So I’ll give you this brief word, not as a pastor, but as a church officer on where our thoughts and hearts must be centered on. Within this stream of the Word, God is giving us the word of the 70 disciples, 70 regions, 70 people groups, and 70 nations.
I was born when Korea was colonized by Japan, and for me, these Japanese people seemed so beautiful and so great, but there were a lot of children who were handicapped. When the Japanese people left for their countries, they left the handicapped children there. I was four or five years old. I realized that there were a few children I used to play with, and all of their mothers would leave their handicapped children behind. I can understand why they did that, because they had to escape quickly, otherwise they would be killed, so all of the adults and the healthy children would make it on the ship, and there was not enough room for everyone.
We were living in North Korea at the time, so we had to run quickly down to South Korea, and my father went first, and my mother had to follow suit with four daughters, and my older sister was fifteen years old. And I had to be on the back of my older sister. We had to take all of our things with us and cross over the Han River which I couldn’t do on my own because I was so small. I saw that these beautiful Japanese women and my mom were so different. As I saw the children who were left behind, it really hurt my heart, and seeing these children has left a scar on my heart.
Six months later, the Korean War started, and because of the Korean War, there were a lot of mental diseases and my neighbor had a terrible illness. Seeing that, I decided to believe in the God my mother believed in. Because I saw that my mother believed in her God, she was able to escape with all of her children, yet all of these very beautiful Japanese women, that I looked up to, would leave their children behind and I couldn’t understand that; it was very troublesome.
That was the reason God had hidden in me, from a long ages past, and revealed now as my lifelong calling for children’s ministry. I’ve lived a life of war like this, but I didn’t know the life of a refugee. I didn’t want to send my three sons into war, so we immigrated to America.
As I was living in America, there was a terrorist attack on the Ahown Song Cemetery. The terrorism from North Korea was very extreme at that time. And 17 government officials passed away there. Among the 17 people who passed away, there was someone who I actually went to school with, and he was very young, he was the president’s treasurer. Back then, I did not know the answer of the gospel of only Jesus Christ, I did not know missions and evangelism, I only knew the faith my mother had and I began to pray for Myanmar.
Then I came into the Upper Room Organization. I received the gospel and I met a missionary from Myanmar. Once I met the missionary from Myanmar, I remembered all the prayers I prayed back then. Around July 2020, there was a Kakao group chat, with 1600 people in it, and because there’s so many people, we cannot read every message that came in. It’s a room I had recently been invited to, and it’s all the pastors and missionaries gathered there.
At that time, it was after RCA, so someone had uploaded all the music and songs for RCA praise, and there was someone who texted just one sentence. That one person, that one sentence they wrote is, “We will teach these American praise songs to the children we have in Karen.” So, the Karen people were actually refugees who were kicked out of Myanmar during the change in government, and they were also kicked out of Thailand, and there is one section only for the Karen refugees and it’s quite large. These people have nowhere to go, so they just live without any forms and they have to stake their lives every day.
This missionary had been doing missions with Karen since the beginning of the Mark’s Upper Room Movement, and she said the children in Karen were very thirsty for the word of God, but they were in such a pitiful state. I saw the word, “Karen” in that text, and I realized that this was a mission God had given to me. Because this was a ministry I knew God had given to me, I reached out to this lady even though I didn’t know her name, and we’ve been doing ministries for a year and a half.
In the very beginning, there was a pastor and his wife who were doing ministry with the Karen refugees, and there were about 80 students there. However, at the time I joined the ministry, everyone had scattered and they were in such a pitiful state. They had no strength, their churches had closed down, and it took an hour and a half to get to the nearest Myanmar village.
They were such a mess for those who were in Portland, it was so rainy, and it was snowy. They were living in a very difficult situation. Because of COVID, we were doing all of our ministries online through zoom or on the phone, and every week, she would send me pictures of these Karen refugee kids, and all I could think about, remembering my history with refugees, is, “I must save these kids.” The minister who was in the field had completely lost all their strength and had completely given up.
Last year, during the children’s spirituality conference, 14 of those students were invited. Even though we did attach them to different counselors, the system there wasn’t set up, and they had not received any training before, so not a single one of them was able to connect to their counselor. This year, we did it again. I went there personally and I first went to their village. I did a lot of research on Youtube on the Karen people before going, but once I met them in person, I lost all my words.
These refugee children grew up in the camp, they were born there, but it was such a bad state , and when I asked them to write their personal information, their handwriting was illegible. I went into one of their homes, and the men were wearing dresses and lazing around, chewing tobacco, while the women were so busy working that they couldn’t even stop to talk. All of their handwriting was so small, but these were all the physical things. I asked the students, “Why did you write so small?” but they didn’t know the reason.
All eight students wrote the same way, it was like one student’s writing. My heart broke so much and I cried so much for these people. I wanted to save them because this was God’s command. They were in a state where they couldn’t even answer questions. If they say “yes,” they might get kicked out of their land, and if they say, “no,” they might get shot, so smiling and looking was the only instrument they had. I realized that they had completely lost hold of the blessings God had given to us in Genesis 1, and they were completely trapped in Genesis 3 and the only thing they needed to receive was the gospel.
The flow of the Word is to save the American churches, and God’s desire is to save souls. Even though we had such a busy schedule now, this year and the pastor was so busy, these children are thirsting for the evangelism camp there. During the three-day spirituality camp, these students wrote down and drew pictures, and all their states were so pitiful. I was wondering how someone could live in such a desolate state.
I went from house to house, and they were all living with their relatives, they were all cousins, and because they were all so afraid, they just had to gather with their families. Even though they had different houses, they lived all clumped together. While we were listening to the first message, we all gathered together and watched in person, and a kid was lying down and the young adult was touching people. They didn’t even recognize it as homosexuality, but that’s just how dead their spiritual state was.
This year, of the eight students who gathered, we picked out four as leaders, and we’ve attached them to remnant ministers here, like Tim and others. I gave them the mission that, “From now on, go into an Upper Room meeting with them every week, and really just give them the Way of Salvation so that when we go back in July, they can really stand as evangelists.” It’s to a point where if you open the door to their place, there are children all along the hallways, and I have to walk around them so I’m not stepping on children.
All of them are foreign refugees, some of them are Muslims, and they asked me to please, sincerely, do evangelism camp here. In the meantime, please continue to pray so that through these online trainings, the leaders and evangelists can arise. Another prayer topic, there are some leaders in the Karen refugee camp who want to come down to LA to receive training in the gospel, but there’s no Mission Home. … but there’s no home for these children to go to, and I realized … because this is the time schedule God has given to us to pray for it.
We are the ones who receive blessings through faith, and we believe in God’s time schedule. … that God desires for us is for missions and evangelism. And even though it may seem that these children are so lacking and strange, we may wonder why they are the way they are, I believe that God has entrusted the future to these remnants, … therefore we must really stake our lives for the remnant movement.
That’s my testimony, let us pray.
Prayer
God, we thank You so much. Lord, we thank You so much for giving us this precious gospel and for giving us the works of re-creation. We believe there is no power to overcome the world other than only Jesus Christ, only the Kingdom of God, and only the filling of the Holy Spirit. God, we are so thankful that You are opening the doors to raise up the disciples and the 237 nations and the 5000 people groups that are dying. Lord, we thank You for using the stream of the pulpit message, and for opening doors for missions and evangelism so we may hold onto the Word You gave us and to go out to save. We pray that You will allow us to continue to prayer of 24 hours and 25 hours that we may enjoy the blessings of the spiritual soldier, farmer, and athlete. Lord, we pray You will work upon the future generations so they may truly taste the fruits of Temple Construction for the continuation of these missions. We pray that this may become our preyare topic, for we know it is rightful, inevitable, and absolute. in the name of Jesus Christ we pray, amen.
Let us pray one more time with the Word we have received just now. Just as Assistant Pastor Lim’s ministry, each of us have a field given to us by God from long ages past. Following that stream of the Word, God has been giving us the Word of the 70 disciples and 70 regions. Let us really hold onto this word and pray for each of our fields as well as the world missions conference and Pastor Park who is attending that. Let us pray.
Our second prayer topic is for the Temple Construction that will enable us to continue missions and evangelism, and the Temple Construction that will allow us to raise up the future generations and the disciples. Let us pray for all the remnants who are connected to the church, especially those who are Out of State as displayed on the board. Let us pray.
Finally let us pray for the pulpit message we will receive on Sunday. So that Pastor Kim is giving the Word, let us pray that the Word God truly desires will be relayed through him. There’s a lot of things we’re doing in the church on Saturday,s so let us pray for Saturday Mission School, the Prayer Summit School, as well as the Young Adult Evangelism School, and especially for the next Sunday, we will have a separate worship for the youth, so let us pray for all of these programs to be a platform for world evangelization. Let us pray.