Isaiah 43:1~6
1. The Prayers of Two Mothers who Feared the Lord
I want to bear my testimony about my mother and adoptive mother who feared the Lord and prayed all the time and revealed the glory of God through me. In Yongjeong, China, my father was an independence activist and my mother established Yongjeong Chosun School. They lived in poverty to take care of the students and our three siblings. My mother prayed with each of our three siblings every night, and when it was my turn she prayed in tears that God would use and glorify me. One day, when I was 7 years old, I asked a Chinese girl for a little bit of bread. She spread her feet and said if I crawl under her feet, she would give me one more slice. My mother, who saw this from afar, called me and prayed in tears that it was her fault that I was hungry. And she explained to me about Jeong Mong-ju of Goryeo dynasty, and about the song, White Egret that his mother had sung. She told me that I would be like a white egret flying above pine trees when I grow up, so I should act with dignity. Since then, that kind of presence has always been deeply ingrained in me.
After coming to Seoul in 1949, the Korean war broke out on June 25th. When I was a freshman in middle school, they started recruiting North Korean volunteers based on the height of the students. A senior student said that only if we set fire to the school can we all be exempt from recruiting, so we did. After setting fire I was hiding in the tree of our house for fear of being caught. From the tree I saw that my parents were shot and killed by a peoples trial. Just like that I suddenly became an orphan at the age of 13. With a few words of English I learned from the missionaries, I was found and taken by the American troops and cared for for a while until the troops were all killed in the enemy attack. Then I entered the orphanage where I happened to see the atrocities of the director, but I chose to stay silent because I knew I would starve to death if I went outside. I could get away only after my younger brother was beaten to death inside the orphanage. When I left the orphanage, many children decided to follow me and we stayed together as a homeless group. While wandering around I met Chun-sam Kim, known as a beggar prince at that time, and was given a chance to live in an empty shelter.
In the face of the death of 19 children because of lack of medicine overnight, I thought about the power of money, and from then on I fell into a thief. While looking for a pickpocket target in the waiting room at Seoul Station, I saw a car with a US Air Force general arriving and ran into the trunk to steal a bag. However, I was caught right away, and I returned the stolen bag and documents to the US general, saying I was sorry, and explaining that all my younger brothers and sisters would starve to death if I did not steal. General White kindly made me work as a houseboy in his dormitory, and my brothers and sisters were sent to stay at one of the nicest facilities in Jeju Island. After General Whites only son was killed in combat, he adopted me as a son and we went back to the United States where I was able to go to the university and study communism. I only slept for 3 hours, excluding weekends, to study, and I got good grades. It was not my efforts but my adoptive mothers devotion that made me a good student because she called me every night at the same time to pray for me. After graduation, I enlisted in the U.S. Army and did special training. I still have an unbreakable record of the number of falls, but I am well aware that it was God who has given me courage and strength.
2. Prayer of Repentance and Miraculous Escape
After that, I was assigned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Embassy in Japan. When I was in the United States, I went to the church with my adoptive parents, but in Japan, where the threat of the Vietnam War was one step away, I worshiped once a month and instead went to follow my own pleasure. At that time, thanks to Gods work, the advice of a Japanese student girl resonated with my heart, and I remembered my adoptive mothers advice to always look after myself to see if I lived a good life today. I came to repent before God. I volunteered for the Vietnam War after asking the Lord for forgiveness by burning the records of my sins that were written in 21 notebooks. Before I went to war, I prayed that I would fight for the glory of God, and my duty as a captain of a special forces unit was to work with the Korean military to secure the site where a Korean construction company builds a hospital.
One day, I happened to use the land with three other soldiers while transporting the wounded soldiers. On the way, we were attacked by the enemy, and while defending at the very rear, I was taken to a prisoner of war camp. The words of Isaiah 43 held me, and whenever I asked for a days meal in the harsh environment of captivity, God allowed each time a frog or a snake to pass by. The camp guards, when bored, took prisoners to a pistol killing game where prisoners had to fight each other and the chance of survival was only 1/6. Having experienced it once, I looked at the stars in the night sky and prayed earnestly to God to save me. I practiced for a month an escape plan in which I attacked the most menacing foe and defeated them in 4 seconds before they pulled out their pistols and ran towards the river. The Mekong River where I jumped was full of snakes and crocodiles, so I continued to pray earnestly to God, and he helped me survive. I hid in the jungle and continued walking south until one day I heard the sound of an American helicopter, and ran to the sand nearby where I jumped and waved hands. However, they thought I was an enemy because I was wearing Viet Congs black clothes, so they fired with machine guns. I hid again in the jungle to avoid the bullets, and when I heard the sound of the helicopter for the second time, I cried out that I would entrust my soul to God and waved at the helicopter again. At that moment, the American helicopter pilot thought that I was willing to surrender and made an emergency landing on a white sandy beach to rescue me. I was soon transferred to the Air Force Hospital. Soon after I was awarded the Silver Star Medal of Merit for saving three colleagues and sacrificing myself. Later the film was made and released based on my story, especially about Russian roulette, the pistol killing game, under the title, The Deer Hunter.
3. God who Did Great Things
I made it very clear that I wanted to save my colleagues, so I went to the second Vietnam War, and attacked the POW camp a total of 282 times and carried out a POW rescue operation. When I was ordered to return to the United States, I was called to the White House for the first time by President Johnson. For me who was bewildered, my adoptive mother prayed that God would use her Son for world peace. I was appointed a secretary of state security to the president and worked on diplomacy with former US Secretary of State, Kissinger. It was a time when diplomacy was cut off between the United States and China, and moreover, China had no room to infiltrate any foreign culture due to the Cultural Revolution. Only table tennis matches were not rejected by the Chinese government, so as the head of the Olympic evaluation committee, we congratulated the Chinese team on their victory and offered a friendly match. So, while the American table tennis team toured Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, etc., the exchange of sports between the two countries was gradually carried out through table tennis. When I visited China, I met then Chinese Prime Minister Zhu Enlai and delivered Dr. Kissingers letter, and in 1972, the United States and China were promised a summit meeting, and the world changed with the beginning of the end of the Cold War. I would like to testify that I was able to steer the foreign policy direction with the help of Gods wisdom by receiving my adoptive mothers prayers and advice. All these things were accomplished thanks to Gods answers. In any case, please remember that God is with us and He will never forsake us as long as we kneel and pray.
