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A LIFE WITH THE PRIESTLY DUTY

(I) A review of 2010

Praise and thanks to God for our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I praise God and give thank to him for his great grace and love to me. Thank you for your love and prayer for me and for missionary Esther last year. It was the year that God sent me and missionary Esther to Kampala Uganda as lay missionaries after I retired from my profession as a physician. In 1976 our family of five had arrived at Chicago O’ hare airport. Since then three decades have passed as quickly as three days. Now I have become a grandpa of six grandchildren. Personally I love little ones because they are pure and simple and are in need every way. Ugandan children are the baby sitters for their younger brothers and sisters and some of them work hard to assist their busy mothers. Some children from villages suffer from tropical illnesses such as chronic malaria, tuberculosis, HIV infection, chronic anemia and so on.

I thought about what kind of life I would have after my retirement. First of all I wanted to enjoy life with my grand children and take life easy as much as I can as other senior citizens do; and I had a hidden desire to live a life without having any obligations and burdens of life; such as playing tennis in cool time of the day and reading books and enjoying food with senior discount and traveling overseas if affordable. But against my wishes and desires there was God’s calling to go to a third country Uganda as a new missionary. It sounded good even romantic but in reality it was very hard to uproot more than 33 years of life in Chicago. It was even harder to talk the matter to missionary Esther who wanted to move near son’s house and take care of grand children. But the grace of God carried us all the way to our new mission field on December second 2009. So we praise God for his amazing grace. I realized that God’s grace is quiet different from human desires. Now I live more busy life with obligations than I was ; such as early morning prayer meeting, leader’s meeting, testimony writing and sharing, one to one Bible study, visiting and fishing, and caring patients and so on.

At this time I am not only thankful to God for his grace but also thankful to our coworkers esp. in Chicago who have been praying and supporting in all ways. There in Uganda we enjoy all kinds of Korean foods and all kinds of daily needs supplied from many chapters of UBF even from Seattle chapter. Above all we have enjoyed good weather around the year, good health and the products of the land such as delicious Ugandan rice, banana, mango, avocado, potatoes, onions, coffee and so on.

Uganda UBF was pioneered by Dr. Samuel and Maria Yoo’s house church near 20 years ago. During these pioneering years, they had to undergo many hardships beyond our imagination; their first child was gravely ill until the hope of her survival had become doubtful. They discharged her from the hospital care in hopelessness. But God had restored her fully miraculously and now she attends Yunse university. Dr. Samuel Yoo himself was contracted by Tuberculosis and prickled by a needle which was used for AIDS patient. They had and have financial problems too. But in all these God himself has been their perfect provider and care taker.

Dr. Luke and Dr. Rebekah Lim came to Uganda 10 years after the pioneering and took over Makerere UBF and Bethesda mission clinic. Dr. Yoo’s house church went out to Kymbogo area to pioneer a new campus. Our family has just joined to the well established ministry at Makerere UBF. If it had not been for their help and guide, we would have very difficult time to settle there. We thank God for that. I respect them as my senior missionaries.

As I prepared myself a whole year of 2009, I was so busy that I even forgot what my key verse was. After I arrived in Uganda, I felt urged to have a key verse for the year 2010. I prayed for God’s help to have a proper key verse to fit my new start here. God graciously gave me Romans 15:16 which says,” To be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles with the priestly duty of proclaiming the gospel of God, so that the Gentiles might become an offering acceptable to God, sanctified by the Holy Spirit.” It is a great Bible verse fitting to a great apostle like Saint Paul but not to me. But one word, “ the priestly duty of proclaiming the gospel of God” has remained in me all year around. Actually I had hoped in my heart to have a life obligation free after my retirement. I had entertained the idea deeply in my heart that life without having any obligation would be happy and free. But God does not think so that he provided for me this key verse about the priestly duty; a life with a duty from God. As we know well, mother Barry lives her life with the priestly duty of educating our missionaries with the word of God and with prayer up until now. Sometimes she travels thousands of miles to carry out her priestly duty in such an old age. Missionary Grace A Lee lives her life with a priestly duty as a prayer mother for us all; in addition to that she visits North Korea every year with a sense of obligation for North Korean students. It seems that she has a debtor’s mind to North Korean people. Many prayers of Chicago UBF and NEIU coworkers have not only reminded me of my priestly duty but also have enabled me to carry out my priestly duty day after day. So I could go out campus to invite students to one to one Bible study. Students here are poor in spirit and material that I cannot remember anyone who said “No” to my invitations for one to one Bible study though many did not show up. Later I realized that many of them are looking for sponsor for their tuitions and so on. In this way I have had near 10 one to one Bible studies weekly. Out of them 4 to 5 students have attended Sunday worship service faithfully. Theirs names are Patrick, Daniel, Ivan, Deo, and Dr. Arnold. God has blessed Makerere UBF one to one Bible studies to reach to 50 to 70 teams weekly; sometimes there was too many one to one Bible studies going on in the evenings that there were no spot left. Sometimes there was power outage that Bible studies were done under candle lights. God blessed the Sunday worship services attendants up to 70s that one group was sent out to pioneer new chapter at Makerere university business school

My other priestly duty was to pray for world mission. We begun early morning prayer meeting at 6 am. Six to 8 members gathered together and one person shares the day’s daily Bread. God has blessed this prayer meeting as source of power in every day work of God. As we prayed together, God has given Dr. Luke Lim a new vision to pioneer the neighboring countries beginning with Rwanda, southern Sudan, Congo Republic and Burundi. We visited Rwanda and two campuses and planted prayer there. As you may know that the country has a tragic history of genocide of one million innocent lives in 100 days 15 years ago. It seemed that the blue sky of the capital city Kigali tells us the story to us quietly. We also visited the memorial center of that incident. In this month of January, shepherd Moses will be sent out to Rwanda as a pioneering missionary. We pray that God may use him to spread the good news of Jesus to campus students through one to one Bible studies. Dr. John Jun presented an inspired prayer topic at the African missionary conference that God may pioneer 54 African nations through African UBF chapters.

Dr. Luke Lim assigned me to see patients at Bethesda clinic two times a week. He has given me one more shift in this year. I am grateful to God and to him for this privilege. I also attend to a pediatric floor of Mulago hospital to make round three times a week with residents. I learned about tropical medicine. Though medical facility is inferior to other developed countries, medical students and doctors are good and sincere. I read medical text book daily so that I may be up to date for better patient care and to teach young doctors..

Missionary Esther brought two kinds of flower seeds from back yard of my house in Chicago; the one is Cosmos and the other is Bongsunwha. She planted them at the corner of the clinic. They grew tall and have blossomed many beautiful flowers. In the morning and evening they greet to us by nodding their heads saying “ We are ok here. How are you? “ Later we found that they bore many many seeds for future prosperity.

(II) My New Year key verse.

My new year key verse is from 1 Samuel 12:23 which reads: “ As for me far be it from me that I should sin against the Lord by failing to pray for you. And I will teach you the way that is good and right.” God used Samuel as the last judge of Israel. He had suffered a lot during his active duty as a judge because people turned their hearts from God quickly and followed other gods. He anointed Saul as the first king of Israel. But he became quickly proud and useless. He had to anoint David to be a king after Saul. After that it seemed that his duty for the nation was over and no more. But in his farewell address, he entitled himself as a prayer servant and a Bible teacher. This one word of God is clear and powerful enough for me and teaches me what my duty should be in this new year. Time to time I feel weak and weary from my aging. But I believe in God Almighty who will be with me and strengthen me to carry out my priestly duty as a prayer servant and a faithful one to one Bible teacher in this New Year 2011. It has come to my attention that we will elect a new director of UBF after Dr. John Jun. We must pray that God may call a servant whose heart after God’s own so that God’s ministry may prosper under his leadership. Today I repent my sin of neglecting my duty as a prayer servant and ask God for his grace so that I may carry out my priestly duty as a prayer servant and a Bible teacher in this year.