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Young man! Where are you?
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Chapter 16 - Young man! Where are you?
All the separate groups in YoungNak Presbyterian Church’s young adult daily bible fellowship had great motions to it.
It was like one great family. It was great seeing the leaders would come in and prepare desks and have flowers to decorate. All the members in the group had a great vision of studying God’s word to not only spread the gospel into the nation but to the entire world. I had gathered books for the young adult world mission through the Billy Graham Evangelical Association and the Intervarsity Bible Fellowship.
It was natural to see the missionary support fund from all separate groups. The fund was first used to run a program called “YoungNak Young Adult’s Time” in Far Eastern Broadcasting Company. It was when Reverend ChoJun Park was the senior pastor. The reverend was glad to see the program “YoungNak Young Adult’s Time” and said that “it would be great to see the young men from the church to run the program,” and told me to run the program. I was to follow the reverend’s word again in this impossible mission. At first I went to the radio station to record. I had usually recorded what had insight me from Reverend KyungJik Han’s sermons or from meditating on Quite Time for about 15 minutes each. But I had requested that the senior pastor’s words would be more powerful, and because it was to the North Korean young adults.
The young adults had a great heart for the Radio Mission because, it was decided during the negotiation Martial Law regime, the Korean CIA Minister went north and said the radio frequency of the South would not be disturbed. It was a priority thing to have the radio mission first because the YoungNak Presbyterian Church was mostly planted by North Korean refugees. I’m not sure if the radio mission still exists now.
The World Mission Movement lacked in funds because a lot of funding was used to run the radio program. I had served as the Laymen’s Department’s young adult group advisor. After the steering committee had met and prayed, there was a rummage sale to be made. Every Tuesday after the early morning service the steering committee had gathered to have a prayer meeting. Every brothers and sisters from the bible study group had gathered for the rummage sale. There were several hand-made items to sesame seed oil. The one that had the most attention was though, was Reverend KyungJik Han’s hand writing. I saw Reverend Han and the purpose of the rummage sale and asked him to write “Young Men! Where Are You?” which he did on the spot with a pen. His hands were shaking because of his old age. Several of the sisters were requested to embroider the writing after it was taken to a photographer to have the writing enlarged. I still have the original writing in pen. The 2 embroidered writings were framed and set to be sold in the rummage sale.
Something amazing happened.
An elder who had come to the sale bought the 2 framed works for a large sum of money. He said it was because there was nothing to honor Reverend Han at the time. One of them was donated to the Reverend Han Memorial Library while the other was to be taken to the elder’s house. I heard later that the sister who had wrote a lyric for the young adults had the inspiration from looking at the embroider sign when she was her hard times. It looked like “Young man! Where are you?” had drawn her closer to God through that embroider. I did another rummage sale once more before I had moved to the United States. I think this fund would be a restarting fire for world mission in YoungNak Presbyterian Church. We also raised fund for the mission through selling Christmas cards we designed and printed. I had made the church responsible to use the fund so that it wouldn’t be used without the authorization of the senior pastor. Some of the English Bible study group members were sent out on the first mission using that fund.
During the Korean War, short time after Seoul was liberated YoungNak Presbyterian Church had sent out 2 missionary families to Thailand. I don’t remember when it was, but they were disconnected from the church. Usually they had preached when they returned from the mission field, but we didn’t have that for many years. No reports either. Reverend Han had traveled many countries as a speaker for church leader’s retreats, evangelical meetings, and Lausanne World Mission Movement. He thought that as a frontier member of the world mission, YoungNak Presbyterian Church’s young adults would have to solve that problem because there were no missionary to be sent.
As I look back, I thank God because all the young adults love God and one another. Also because they were members of the World Mission together with Reverend Han, I also again to the devoted members of the young adults, who’s prayer and love for the mission had raised a large fund for the mission and to Reverend Han who had wrote the “Young man! Where are you?”
(January 2011)
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YoungNak Presbyterian Church World Gospel Mission 
Young man! Where are you?