News > Latin America

I, David Kang was born as the youngest of a brother-and-sister fivesome in a Christian house in Andong, the Province of Kyungbuk, Korea in 1967. After graduating from high school, I entered Sejong University of Seoul in 1987 with the vision to be a painter. At that time I participated in a UBF world mission conference invited by a senior UBF member. I was impressed enough to vow to be a missionary. After that, I began Bible study and attended the Sunday worship service at Chongro III UBF. However, within the next year (1988), I moved to pioneer the Sejong UBF by the urging of Sh. Paul Kim (now the director of Choonchun UBF) with three other brothers.     

I married Shs. Elizabeth in 1994, and in the following year (1995) we were sent to Guatemala in Central America. Soon after, I was badly wounded enough to develop hemiplegia according to the doctor, after being thrown out from my car during a trip with my friend. But through God’s mercy, I could walk miraculously within a month even without an auxiliary medical tool. I came back to Korea, and was newly sent to Paraguay as a missionary in 1998. I prayed, focusing on the Asuncion National University, and began fishing at an Agricultural College. There I met a veterinary college student, brother Oscar, and I helped him to grow as a shepherd through continuous one to one Bible studies. At that time he was a student, but now he is a professor at the college.     

God guided me and my family to Honduras from Paraguay to be self-supporting missionaries in 2002. This guidance was based on the Lord’s direction through M. Sarah Barry at that time. She said, “Let’s pioneer all the 33 countries in Central and South America!” We sold beverages, candies, and vegetables, opening a grocery store in our living room. Honduras has many unmarried mothers, the literacy rate is only 40%; it is a naked country with more organized gangs than policemen, a country with much lawlessness and political corruption, and a poor country economically at that.  

We have kept helping one sister, Henry with the Word and prayer, even under such poor circumstances. We pray that she may be a mother of faith. Around this time, my wife and I encountered a great and meaningful accident. We were under fire from two armed burglars on the 25th of January 2013. Though this was a dangerous situation, God was with us, looked after us and protected us even “through the valley of the shadow of death.” God did not let a bullet shoot through my head, instead let it stay in my head; not a hair on Missionary Elizabeth was harmed. A leading physician said, “angel’s hands protected you.”     

I was able to leave the next day by simply closing a wound with two stitches and applying ointment. I can summarize the meaning of the accident in two ways. First, I experienced God’s unconditional love to love others unconditionally, so I also accepted the Lord’s word, ‘Love even your enemies!’ with a mind to obey it in any circumstances. Second, I heard a voice of the Lord who wants me to live as a shepherd for intellectuals, continually staying in the campus. The day after the accident, a father and a professor from the Department of Education at Asuncion National University, of a student who attends the same school with my children visited me at my sickbed. At that time, hearing my words the professor said to me that I can teach the Korean language at the Educational College. Within a month of the accident I began teaching the Korean language class at the Department of Education, so that I might meet diverse students and pray for guiding their souls to seek the truth.  

As time passes by, though the accident seems to be forgotten, the side effect seems to keep influencing  my  wife and me with mental trauma. Last June, I suddenly could not hear from one of my ears and I needed surgery. I am now having an opportunity to refresh both physically and spiritually, staying in Korea for two months. Three weeks ago, the operation was successful, and now my sense of hearing have been completely recovered. Though I had a vision to be a painter in my young age, now I can acknowledge the Lord Jesus more deeply and let the light of the gospel shine on souls on campus.

My ultimate desire, as Apostle Paul confessed, is ‘to have fought the good fight and to have finished my race, and to have kept the faith’ (2 Tim 4:7) so as to draw a praise of “David Kang (Min Ho Kang), you have fought well” from the glorious Lord.

Prayer topics of Honduras UBF are as follows:

1. For the Sunday worship message, based on Genesis, and 15 attendants at this worship.
2. To buy a Bible house near the National University this year.
3. For one Abraham and one Sarah of Faith.
4. For maintenance of public order in Honduras.