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Home > Praise and Thanks Volume II |
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Where are you?
For the past few years I had gathered all necessary information about Reverend KyungJik Han. I had much valuable information from a kwonsanim (who was in Korea) who was a long time member of the YoungNak Presbyterian Church and from internet as well. Also from my files I had gathered, I made a seminar called “How Reverend Han affected my Life”.
When I left Korea I took a small amount of dirt from the church’s front flower garden, so that when it is my time to go, I would have that dirt sprinkled on me. I had it wrapped up carefully into a neat box and had it with me while moving to United States. But while moving around from city to city, the valuable dirt was lost. While moving, I always had the movers take not only my things, but other people’s things as well in large compartments while moving from California’s northern trip to southern, from West to East, etc. From the midway point, there would be a stop in the service and then continue on to final destination – which sometimes the packaging’s can get lost or mixed up, in which that particular item would be gone forever. One of those items was the “small pile of Dirt” from YoungNak Presbyterian Church and I lost it.
In my 45 years of marriage, to this date, I had lived like a wanderer. After getting married, I never owned my private house. After checking how many times I had moved during our marriage, the total was (combined with Korea as well,) was 36 times or so. Some would not believe who reads this. But wonderfully enough, the writing that Reverend Han gave me, “Young man, where you are?” still is with me to this day. After being around for 40 years, the paper may have become yellow, but his writing still comes out very clearly. I had it framed and is taking care of it very dearly. Whenever I see the writing, I get reminded of what all this is about right now, where I am going, and the goals I have in steady pace, and of all the time that had passed along with it.
The reason why I got this writing was, from the bible studies held during Weekday Evenings, as I was the lecturer for Young Adult’s Bible Class, the meeting was not simply to get more knowledge in the bible, but to gather young adults to “Spread the gospel to the entire nation”. This passion had gathered to “World Evangelism”. It all started with Reverend Han’s sermon about how important to evangelizing the nation and of the world mission was super important and urgent, and that the sermon was deeply impacting the young adults at that time.
As such, for the Young Adult’s Bible Class, the young adults association in church and daily evening Bible study meetings all prayed, and were decided to have a bazaar to raise funds for the world mission. Since just the items being auctioned by individuals weren’t enough, some were even donated. After explaining our goals, some things were bought cheap to be sold as market value, and some even had hand made things to be sold. To expand even from that, we wanted the pastor emeritus KyungChik Han, and the senior pastor Jojun Park’s writing to be quilted and framed.
The writing for Reverend Han, I was decided to get. After explaining to him the reason why we wanted his writing, he gladly wrote it. This writing, “Young adults where are you?” is the family treasure I have kept for the past 40 years. After receiving the writing, I asked some of the more skilled female members of the church who knew how to quilt very well to do that exact writing on silk and to frame it in a good frame. Since the original writing was on a standard printing paper, it was a small writing. I took the writing to a Photographing Center to have it enlarged and have it quilted.
Two of them were completed for the Bazaar. Such a valuable frame…
Reverend Han’s writing of “Young adults where are you?” is the only writing he had ever left to be framed. The frame could not be priced. But one elder wanted both the writings and purchased for a large sum of money and purchased both. One of them now hangs in the Reverend KyungJik Han Memorial Library”. That framed writing was still hanging when I moved to United States. This amazing work of God was done in 1976. After I finished serving the young adults in 1978, I started to focus on YBA ministry in Korea. While immigrating to United States in 1980, I asked one of the young adult members and found to my amazement that the fund in the World Mission had neared 40 million Won!
To my life, Reverend Han and YoungNak Presbyterian Church is one of the most important parts of my life. In my life, I wanted to follow the path of Apostle Paul and also of Reverend Han as contemporary. That is the reason why read Reverend Han’s sermon almost daily, and from internet if any of his writings were available I would buy it and read it.
There was one thing I did regret was, at the time when I left Korea, there were 12 published works of Reverend Han and I had purchased all of them. Unfortunately, there were 6 more published afterwards that I couldn’t purchase. Since this was in the 80s when Christian bookstores were much rarer than the ones in Korea, it was impossible to purchase those 6 remaining books. I tried to order online from many bookstores but none worked, so I tried contacting the “Reverend KyungJik Han Memorial Foundation”, but as if they didn’t want to sell those books, their response was rather dull. But thankfully, one of the kwonsanim who reside close to me let me borrow his video tape about Reverend Han’s passing away and funeral. The tape showed how Reverend Han was by God’s amazing grace, and giving his entire life to him, and to obey to his commands. Watching that particular tape made me give many thanks to God.
One day, a bright idea came into my head.
My daughter, who resides 15 minutes from me, had a visitor that was taking care of Carys from Korea. She was raised from a Christian family and after graduating college, wanting to learn more about United States, started living in my daughter’s place and had started a program to watch for her children for 40 hours per week. After taking care of Carys very well, she returned to Korea – which I explained to her about my respected Reverend Han. I asked her if she would have any time available to visit “Reverend KyungJik Han Memorial Foundation”. Despite her being from Pusan, she worked in Seoul, and after returning to Korea, she met her Seoul friends and wanted to visit her old workplace (that she took off for a year ago) and gladly accepted.
I had called the “Reverend KyungJik Han Memorial Foundation” many times to see if there were any newer information I can learn, and was connected to a deacon named ByungKi Ahn. Before she left, I called the Foundation and said that a sister in Christ is sending a small amount of fund to there, and see if there are any new information that I can purchase.
When the sister visited Reverend Han Memorial Foundation, Deacon Ahn welcomed her gladly and showed around the place. Also he told her to deliver something to me and gave me a package.
It was the writing that Reverend Han did, “Where are you?” in a small frame, and on the reverse side, there was the “Correct Path to Faith” which was held every year, along with his picture (there were 4 different things to discuss and he sent me multiple copies), and also finally those 6 sermon books I couldn’t purchase along with CDs, live videos during his ministries, etc, that were sent in 2 different packages. Apparently all of these were recently completed. I think the phrase “Where are you?” was made after several people have seen the writing “Young man, where are you?”
Last December, the young lady returned to United States with the gifts.
Words cannot express how elated I was to receive them all.
The small frame was hung in the living room, and as for his sermon, discussions about his life and how well he did his ministry, I have been busy reading them / seeing them for the last 3 months. Recently, I started to listen to his sermons (two each daily,) from 1960s which was the first recorded sermons.
In my current office desk, “Where are you Young man?” along with the “Correct Path to Faith” is in the same frame. In the last month of 2015, I was finally able to collect all the things about Reverend Han for the last 30 years, and I give thanks to all the grace I was able to receive from God and all those who helped me get them all.
(February 18th, 2016)
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Youtuber Reverend? (23,000 views coming soon…) 
Where are you?