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M. Timothy Park completed his chemo treatment finally after 2 1/2 years of all the treatment, and now he will visit his doctor for regular check and blood work. He attended Montreal/ottawa Easter Bible conference and shared his life testimony.  Thank you for all your prayers for M. Timothy Park, his health is much better now. May God give him complete healing.

I attached M. Timothy Park's life testimony and pictures which was taken at Humber when we all congratulated his completiong on treatment.

Thank you, Paulus Cha

Symposium for 2012 Montreal-Ottawa EBC/ April 6, 2012/ Life testimony by M. Timothy Park

CHRIST LIVES IN ME

“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” (Galatians 2:20)

This is Apostle Paul’s confession of faith about God’s grace upon his entire life.When God crucified Christ on the cross, he also crucified Paul there. The Greek tense for “have been crucified” means that Paul’s crucifixion had a permanent effect. His crucifixion had present end results. The words “have been” mean that Paul received crucifixion. This is not something that Paul did; it was something that God had done to him. We can understand that being crucified with Christ means that when we received Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, we died to our human desires and to our human nature. This human nature is no longer in charge of our thoughts and decisions. Instead, Christ is in charge. We rebuke our desires, dying to them. Paul taught the Romans, "…knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin." (Rom 6:6). As Christians, we cannot continue to live in the ways of sin (Rom 6:1-2). We must surrender our wills to the will of Christ. Christ leads us to self-denial. We take up our cross and follow Christ. We live, even though our human nature has been crucified, because Christ died for us and gave us a new nature, a spiritual nature. We are now called to live for Christ and follow His plan for our life rather than self or our desires. Christ living in us is all about the new nature that rules our lives. God has done this good work in us. His part in our salvation is done and now he is in control of our life.

In my view, I thought that I was the owner of my own life. I thought that I could help in God’s work by being special and doing great things for him. Instead of dying to myself, I wanted to upgrade myself and I tried to develop myself. Outwardly, I seemed to have no problem since I had a stable job, a nice house, and a happy life of faith. However, my life was like a nice car accelerating toward the cliff of death. God, who is the true driver, stopped my car. Why?  He wants to save his people from a life that leads to death. On September 11, 2009, as I was on my way home from work, I received an urgent phone call from a clinic. I was told to come immediately to the clinic for a blood test result. I went there filled with anxiety. My doctor sent me to the emergency room. I received a thorough blood test and was hospitalized. Later at the Princess Margaret Hospital, which is renowned for the cancer treatment, I was diagnosed with Acute LymphoblastLeukemia (ALL) after a bone marrow test. My doctor told me that I had to start cancer treatment right after my hospitalization. He also got me to write a will. I accepted it calmly. However, I shed a lot of tears as I was being transferred to the emergency room.

However, my disease provided me with a precious chance to examine myself and my life. I communicated with God by writing a daily journal. I realized that I received precious grace from God to be clear minded, not slipping into a coma, which allowed me to look back on my life. I knew that God is the creator and sovereign God. So my critical question was about myself, “What am I?” Amazingly, God protected me from complaining about my situation and helped me to realize God’s great purpose and will. When I thought about my disease, there were two ways it could end: First, I could become a witness of resurrection after full recovery, which is wonderful for sure. Second, I could go to the kingdom of heaven, which is even better since I can live with my Lord forever without pain. I thought that it could not be a loss if people remembered me as the first Canada UBF martyr. I was not worried about my family and coworkers because I thought I had faith in God who would take care of them. Either way was good to me.

My cancer treatment started on September 29, 2009 which was my 17^th Wedding anniversary. The first stage of cancer treatment was a four-week inpatient treatment. If it had worked well, I could have received outpatient treatment from the second stage of the cancer treatment. However, the right side of my face down to my chest became swollen and the outside of the right side of my mouth became inflamed and sunk in like a big hole. Also my nose sunk in because of the side effect of cancer treatment. Since my white blood cell count was zero, I had no power to fight against infection and disease. My doctor couldn’t help me at all. I couldn’t eat food since I was not able to open my mouth and I had no appetite. I lost more than 20kg (44 lbs), I went down to 40 kg (88 lbs). I took morphine to relieve the pain and struggled to swallow food. Daily tests and especially epidural shots were so painful to bear.

My spiritual condition hit rock bottom when I suffered from mouth inflammation, which seemed to make my treatment endless. In the middle of the night in the hospital, I was filled with a desire to go to heaven where there is no pain and only happiness, thinking and dreaming about those who were in heaven already. I prayed, “Father, I am coming to you. Please accept me into your kingdom.” Then, I tried to kill myself using a call wire in the room, blocking my mouth and nose. However, God showed his mercy and love for me while I was under the power of Satan by sending his angel, as He did for Abraham when he was about to kill his son Isaac. The angel was right next to me, attached to my back in my bed. God opened my spiritual eyes. I found I could not exist without God’s grace. By the way, later I was curious about the angel who was with me. Then, I could believe the angel was Jesus who promised to be with us always to the very end. Through this, I learned an important lesson about suffering and I found myself as a terrible and weak sinner who looked forward to victory without suffering. God helped me to trust God alone through my unhealthy condition.

Actually I was crucified with Christ when I was in the hospital. I was like a dead man, for I could not eat food by myself and I could not make it to the bathroom by myself. Likewise, God completely lowered and humbled me. He led me to confess about myself, “I am nothing. I am just dead soil and dust.” God helped me to find the answer to the question that I had from the beginning while in the hospital, “What am I?” God revealed me as nothing denying me existence in myself. Then he led me to totally depend on him and hold onto his grace alone. Figuratively speaking, I did receive my life back from death. Christ began to live in me. In Christ I received a new life. Receiving the cancer treatment made me meditate on Jesus, who shed his precious blood to redeem my life and renew his grace upon me.

I learned Jesus through more meditation on His grace when he shed his blood on the cross. When I was hospitalized, a nurse drew blood from me at 6 o’clock every morning and I received a transfusion. My life depended on that blood. I, who got blood cancer, learned how essential blood is as the Bible says, “For the life of a creature is in the blood… (Leviticus 17:11)” I felt that my sinful and dirty blood was being replaced with the holy blood of Jesus. I no longer live but Christ lives in me. In Christ my white blood cell count gradually increased and the inflammation in my mouth began to be naturally healed. I confess it was possible because of the prayer support and love from my coworkers all over the world. I finished the second round of the three-week cancer treatment successfully. After two and half months of inpatient treatment, I came back home and received outpatient treatment once a week for 2 years. Finally, all my treatments ended on April 4, 2012 to the sound of a beautiful bell ringing in the hospital. From time to time, I had wanted to give up receiving the treatments due to the difficulty, but God gave me a victory to complete them by his grace. Praise God!

By the way, I had already begun a new government job, and it was after three weeks that I became sick. The new job had been my precious Isaac, for I had gotten the job after 10 years of missionary work in Canada through many tests. But, during the treatments I was given a note that I was laid off from my office due to my serious illness. But I could not make any objections to my employer because I was just a training worker. Then, in my prayer, in order to restore my job, I had to find out the best thing to do.  And so on March 21, 2010 I wrote a letter to my manager. In my letter I expressed how much I struggled with my disease while dreaming to go back to work and won the victory from my illness. And I asked for mercy and to have them reconsider my return to work. It seemed impossible for me because they had already decided to kick me out. Also, they gave me a formal letter and reported to the chief of the corporation. But I came near to God and prayed earnestly for his mercy believing the God who is the sovereign Lord and is the God of Abraham who blessed Abraham to receive Isaac back to life from death. After then, God gave me peace in my heart and I was waited for God's leading. Finally God amazingly answered my prayer and I could experience a miracle of God. On March 24, the third day after I had sent my letter, like Jesus who rose again on the third day after his death, I received a letter that I would be reinstated in the job. To me it was just like Abraham who received Isaac back from the dead. I thank God for giving victory in Jesus and for granting me an opportunity to experience the grace of cross and resurrection through my job training.

By God’s grace I returned to a normal life, even to full-time work. I am thankful to God because I know Christ lives in me and He is working in my life even through the disease. God has been pouring out numerous spiritual blessings throughout the period of hospitalization and cancer treatments. When I was in the hospital, I couldn’t do anything outwardly. I could do nothing but pray, depending on his marvelous grace. M. Paulus Cha worried about the work of Humber UBF due to my health matter, but he decided to support me fully along with all of the Humber coworkers. However, God himself did his mighty work while I was in the hospital and all Humber coworkers were involved in my health matter. Brother Joseph came by himself to resume Bible studies. Joseph brought his younger brother Tino who is full of spiritual desire. They are pillars of the Humber ministry. God also sent Syed to be my Bible student and I have been serving him with Genesis Bible studies. It is the miraculous work of God.

God also did his mighty work upon my family. My family became solid in the faith of Jesus Christ. My parents, two brothers, and sister came before God to pray for me earnestly. My wife consistently sang hymns and read the Bible for me. My three daughters became mature in spirit. God showed his special love through his precious peoplewho visited me. Especially, M. Samuel & Rebekah Lee ran to me from Ottawa as soon as I was hospitalized and encouraged me with a powerful word of God, “Don’t be afraid; just believe.” (Mk 5:36) I owed a lot to the prayer support and intimate fellowship of God’s servants all over the world.This is a special grace and blessing to me.

In conclusion, God is the sovereign God and he is in control of my own life. I believe that God’s love will hold onto me and lead me with Christ in me to the end. God raised me from death and made me be a witness of his resurrection power. I pray that I may learn Jesus and his grace all the more throughout my life. I pray that I may continually be used as a powerful witness of God’s grace for campus students.

One Word: Christ lives in me!