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                                            Follow Me

By M. Kaleb Hong from Heidelberg, Germany

Key verse : “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”(Mark 8:34)

1. To be a Bible teacher for the German students

In 1949, I was born in Seoul. I spent my childhood in the 1950’s; Korea had just gone through the Korean civil war. This war left huge wounds. Most people lost their families and property, causing them to become depressed as their families were now separated by force. As a result, many were too poor to have meals. I grew up well under my parents’ love. But after my mom’s passing away when I was ten years old, my family became poor. In the early 1960’s, the Liberal Party, which had been in power for many years, fell through the “4.19 students revolution” and one year later “5.16 military coup d’etat” occurred. I spent my rebellious teenage years in conflicts and troubles with two step mothers. I was removed from my school just before graduation because I couldn’t afford my school fees. So I worked in a print shop, a factory, a painting production company and sold newspapers. I applied to a university in 1969 but failed and was called up for army service. Looking at the army warrant, I thought about my future. I had prepared and planned for nothing. I was afraid that I would be a failure after completing my duty in the army, so I fled. However, after I avoided doing my duty, my fear grew and I was even afraid to pass by the police station in front of my house. My future looked even darker than before. At that time, a system had just been established whereby those who entered educational college were exempt from military service. So I entered a college. Yet I wasted much of my time in college wandering because I had no motivation.

In 1972, I again thought about the question, “What should I be? What kind of life should I lead in the future?”  I thought life was fundamentally meaningless. I read literature in the library and pondered the meaning of life. But the many thoughts and theories of the great men of history seemed only relative. My days were gloomy because I could not find the absolute meaning of life.

One day, as I sighed in my dark room, my younger brother M. David Hong in Stuttgart told me. “Brother, I have met a group of young people who have already sorted out life’s problems.” So I went to them at once. They were from UBF Chongro centre. It was filled with young people who were very bright and holy. Especially the face of one girl student was shiny like an angel. She was M. Anna Yang, the Bible teacher of my brother. She kindly suggested that I study the Bible. I agreed, and Msn. Anna Yang found someone to teach me the bible. However, although I attended the Sunday worship services, I couldn’t believe in God.

That same year, I was touched by Luke chapter 2 in Dr. Lee’s message. All of a sudden I realized that Jesus is my Saviour. All of my doubt had disappeared and I came to believe the Bible and the world looked so different. For the first time in my life, peace and confidence overflowed from my heart like a river. Nothing was lacking. I possessed great joy through the Bible studies. When I read the prophesies and their fulfillments, I felt as if I had learned of all the secrets of the universe. But in fact, I was only a beginner who had just been born again.

Afterwards, I became a fellowship leader. Yet, it was not easy to serve God while working full-time. However, I was sure that this was the best way to serve God. By faith, I could overcome many temptations. Still, I had two problems to solve. One was to marry by faith.  My parents urged me to marry soon and tried to introduce some women, but I wanted to marry by faith, so I rejected their plea. The other was to go out as a missionary. When I studied the gospels, I was able to see the importance of serving World Mission. However, I still thought reality would stop me from going out as a missionary. In the beginning of 1978, we had a Romans Bible seminar and I was appointed as a messenger. On the last day of the seminar, Sh. Sarah Kim asked those who wanted to go out as a missionary to stand up. Almost everyone stood up since they had all received grace and was filled with world mission vision. Even the new Bible students stood up. She said to those people to come up. Only few people remained sitting, including me. That was a pretty tough moment.

God helped my two problems very personally in the following year. While we were pioneering a new chapter, Yonhee center, we began studying Marks Gospel. Through studying this gospel, I could have faith to trust in God’s sovereignty over my life. I decided to marry anyone whom God wanted me to marry. In particular, I received one word which read, “I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth.” And I decided to give my life as an offering for world mission. Soon after Dr. John Jun asked me to meet one woman missionary from Germany. He also encouraged me to pioneer Heidelberg in the future. When I went to Chongro centre, I saw the missionary waiting for me. She was so beautiful like a full moon! We went out together, but I didn’t know how to propose. We walked through the Chankyung palace and I asked her to pray together. I prayed, “Heavenly father, I believe that it is God’s will for me to marry missionary Sarah.”  After praying like this, I waited for her prayer in great tension. She also prayed that she believed that it was God’s will for us to marry. So, we married. In the beginning of 1979, I was sent out to Germany. I was so thankful to Dr. John Jun, Sh. David Kim and Sarah Kim who had supported me with much love.

In Cologne, I served the ministry whole heartedly. However, my heart became cold towards God because of the reality in the mission field. I was spiritually exhausted and didn’t want to get any help from anybody. On top of all of this, I became so sick to the point where I would cough blood. I was diagnosed as terminal tuberculosis. The doctor said that I could live up to 4 months. I took the necessary medicines and received a few treatments but things only got worse and worse. My heart was filled with sorrow and despair. In the beginning of 1980, Dr. Lee, who came to attend our Summer Bible Conference, had visited me. He advised me to read the whole Bible. I thought his advice was strange, since everyone in UBF was reading the Bible every day anyway. But, I decided to obey it. I started reading the Bible from Genesis. Many Bible verses such as Genesis 12:2 and Deuteronomy 6:5 were planted in my heart during those days. I could overcome my deep despair through God’s word. I started asking God to have mercy on me and to heal me from my disease so that I could live as a bible teacher for students in German campus. God heard my prayer and gave me another opportunity to live as a missionary.  My wife and I were sent out to pioneer a new place, Heidelberg.

In August 1982, we had our first service in Heidelberg. By that time we already had two children and missionary Sarah was working as a nurse. In the mornings, I dropped my children at the nursery so that I could go on campus and invite students. I had confidence in the pioneering ministry. On Sundays, I prepared the message and food and waited for students to come. However, there were many times when we held a service without any bible students.   However, in order to prepare the Sunday message, I often had to stay up all night. Yet, very often, it was only missionary Sarah who came to listen to that message on Sunday. Many times, Missionary Sarah was so tired and fell asleep. Then, there was no one who was listening to my message. This continued for the next two years.  I received a lot of support from Korea. They prayed a lot for us and faithfully sent us letters and messages. But nothing changed. It was hard for me to believe that such intellectual students would become disciples of Jesus. Being continually despised and rejected, my heart was withdrawn. Furthermore, I did not know how to support my family. I couldn’t see any hope in my future and by the summer of 1985, I had reached my limit.

2. If anyone would come after me

What should I do in a situation that I couldn’t overcome with my own human faithfulness and ability?  The help came from outside. At that time, I studied Mark’s Gospel. I was struck by Jesus’ word: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me“ (Mk 8:34). Listening to Jesus’ teaching about salvation and judgement, I could think about the meaning of self denial again. Jesus said, “For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it.” (35) I was amazed, thinking, “Wow, what a amazing paradox of life! Unbelievable!” How could I have denied the authority in this word and have doubted its truth! Jesus’ word must come from eternal God who is above all human history and time, transcending man’s experience. Because of this, I could be sure that this word was the absolute principal of life, prescribing my present life and future and eternity and so I couldn’t dare to disobey it. The fact is that nobody can live by Jesus word out of their own human nature. Therefore, nobody can teach anyone to live in such a way. Only God can say this because he sees man’s life from its beginning to its end and penetrates its true nature. On that night, I could feel Jesus standing next to me saying, “Kaleb, Why don’t you give your life for me and the gospel?”“My life?” I wondered how anyone could ask for my life. But I realized that Jesus could because he was the owner of my life.

I could look back on my life, thinking, “What have I lived for? ” I thought that I had dedicated my life to Jesus and his gospel. However, I realized that I had always tried to gain something rather than to lose myself. Whenever I woke up in the morning, I thought “How can I get Bible students today? When can I make this group bigger?” I realized that I wanted to get my self satisfaction and self achievement through serving the ministry. I worked with a calculating mind and suffered from a sense of loss. In this way, I tried to save my life by doing so and I was consequently losing my life. I was a selfish man because I lived for my self recognition and self satisfaction.  I was not what I had thought of myself. I was in deep despair because of this sin. And the despair crushed my heart and spirit so that I groaned, sighing up until the late at night.

However, that was not all. Jesus continued to say “What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?“ (Mk 8:36) Jesus taught me that my life was more precious than the whole world that I had tried to gain. Jesus who asked me to give him my life wanted to give me the true life, the eternal life. On that day, in the midst of deep despair, I could find Jesus anew who gave me the promise of eternal life and urged me to go to the whole way to it. Jesus had changed my thought and the direction of my life completely. When I woke up the next day morning, my heart was filled with indescribable peace and joy. In the morning, I took children to their nursery and went to the campus as usual. However, I could find no fear or sense of loss in my heart any more. I could say to myself. “Well! Let’s go and lose my time and myself. And what else shall I lose?“

This event became a turning point for me to change my own lifestyle. At first, I could look back my family.At that time, msn Sarah worked, looked after children, did house chores, served worship services and prayer meetings and visited students faithfully. In comparison, what on earth was I doing? When I saw myself from msn Sarah’s view point, I was a bad co-worker. In spite of that, msn Sarah bore with me and served God’s mission. When I realized this point, I came to decide anew to love my wife wholeheartedly. So I said to her, “Sarah, if I am born again and come to marry again, I will marry only you.“  She just listened without saying anything at that time. But later she also said, “So do I.” Afterwards, God gave me an excellent job in a labratory at Heidelberg University. He also blessed our family and gave us two more children. Above all, he blessed the disciple-making ministry at Heidelberg University.

One time in a bus, I saw a young boy reading a Christian book. I invited him to bible study. Our bible study was very intense because he wrote down everything that I had explained. It usually took about 4 hours. It was so long that I would need to take breaks. Soon after that, he made a decision to live as a shepherd. His name is Shepherd Reiner. At that time, there were two girl students who shared the same name and the same major, law. One of them was tall and very beautiful. After seeing Shp. Reiner change, they also decided to commit themselves. All of a sudden, three shepherds began to cowork with my family. God blessed us by sending one of them, the tall and beautiful one, as a missionary. I had the privelage of sharing common life with Shepherd Reiner. Missionary Sarah cooked rice and kimchi, and Shepherd Reiner ate everything that she cooked. Through common life, I could get to know him better and develop a personal relationship with him. But his first marriage was a failure. Dr. Lee had great compassion for him. Later, I visited Russia with Shepherdess Brigitte. Dr. Lee helped her to make a decision to marry with Reiner. At the wedding, Dr. Lee called me from Chicago. He asked me to take care of Shp. Brigitte’s hair, that it may cover her ears because she wore hearing aids. I wondered how Dr. Lee knew about this problem even though he only saw her one time. I was touched by Dr. Lee’s shepherd heart and understanding that a bride wants to look beautiful since weddings only happen once in a lifetime. So they married and now have three boys. Their family is a source of great blessing. Shepherd Reiner and Brigitte are currently feeding many sheep, including Shepherdess Simona and Shepherd Tony. She decided to follow the footstep of Mother Barry.

After sending missionary Birgit Pierce, the other Birgit lived alone in Hiedleberg. She became the prayer mother and now shares common life with Shepherdess Regina. After the common life with Reiner, our family accepted a new common life with Shepherd Markus, who was studying medicine. He is very tall (6 foot, 5 inches) and eats a lot of German potatoes. So I also had to eat potatoes. But when I went to bed, I still felt like I did not eat anything. So I went to the kitchen and secretly cooked ramen. When Sarah cooked us rice and kimchi, I was happy. However, Shepherd Markus had stomach problems. However, our common life lasted for 3 years. Surely, this was good preparation for him because he married a beautiful korean missionary, Maria from Yonhee center. His family has three girls and one boy. Shepherd Martin was invited by Shepherd Markus. He studied Physics. Although he was not a brilliant student, he was very faithful. He married Missionary Petra from Kyungsung UBF. But they were childless for a long time. This was a great pain for all of us. Last year, when we studied the book of Ruth, Missionary Petra was so touched that she made a decision to name her future three children, Naomi, Boaz and Ruth even though it seemed impossible. Because of her faith, we all said Amen. Few weeks later, she became pregnant with a boy and she named him Boaz. This is the brief story about the ancestors of faith in Hiedleberg UBF.

God called missionaries from Korea to Hiedleberg and entrusted to us many faithful German students. Nowadays, Heidelberg ministry has around 50 Sunday Worship Service attendees, including 20 missionaries. We pray for 120 one to one bible study groups and 120 worship service attendees each week. May God bless disciple making ministry in Hiedleberg, Germany and Europe.

One word: Deny yourself and follow me.