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From a street man to a shepherd

Mark 10:45 “But even the son of man does not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many”

I. God trained me through M. Samuel Lee to be a shepherd.

I was born as the fourth son of seven sons and two daughters on a remote island in South Korea on September 8^th, 1944. My grandfather used to make fire by rubbing dry pieces of wood together. When I was 6 years old, the Korean War broke out and our family became extremely poor. I lived like an orphanand Later on I started my career as a professional soldier in Korea.

In 1972, M. Okkee Park who was my sister introduced me to Chong Ro UBF during my vacation from my military duty.  There I began to study the book of Genesis with shepherd Paul Rhee. It was like food for my soul. Later in the Spring of 1973, during a Romans Bible study, I accepted 5:8 and began to have personal love relationship with Jesus. “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Ro 5:8) God forgave all my sins through Jesus Christ and gave me a mission for world campus ministry.  In the summer of 1973, when I visited Dr. Lee and told him that I wanted to go out as a missionary, he told me, “Jesus fasted and prayed for 40 days.Even though you cannot be like Jesus, make a decision after at least 3 days of fasting.” It was because he himself was living as a prayer servant, sometimes fasting a few days, sometimes praying overnight. So I fasted and prayed for 3 days. I honorably retired from the military on June 30^th 1973 and began to receive internship training at Pusan UBF.

Later I came to Seoul.From February 1^st 1974, I began to work as a chauffer for shepherd Samuel Lee. I was a rebellious and deceptive person who lived before the eyes of man. I needed a lot of training so that I might learn how to live before God.

Missionary Samuel Lee trained me, telling me to wear a bow-tie and a beret in order to change my gangster image, so that I might grow as a shepherd for students. Through missionary Samuel Lee’s absolute love and absolute training, I began to grow as a man and as a Christian and as a shepherd.

First, I can summarize missionary Samuel Lee’s shepherd philosophy with two words; absolute love and absolute training. He loved God and God’s people absolutely. He also trained disciples. absolutely.

There was no exception in his training. I also was not an exception. Among many great servants of God, I always felt small and insignificant; even my speech was very soft. He told me, “Your voice is like the whisper of Satan” and trained me speak with a loud voice as if I were speaking to a person 30 feet away. Daily bread training was one of the best. We received various kinds of training through daily bread training. Sometimes people received daily bread sharing training early in the morning, or one to one with each other. What impressed me most in UBF was that through these trainings, we were growing as shepherds and becoming mature.Behind this absolute training, there was also absolute love. Dr. Lee to my recollection was never stingy in giving love. Some students went to missionary Samuel at the beginning of school semester and he helped them with school registration fees. In addition, he always invited guests to his home at lunchtime. When he had no one to invite, I was asked to come and he served me with love and care. His love became five loaves and two fish that fed Korea, USA, Russia and the whole world. He once said that he wanted to take all the suffering Russian women to the U.S. to help them marry. His love was great and beautiful, beyond race and nationality. Because of his love, many disciples grew to be big trees.

Second, missionary Samuel Lee was watchingand praying.

He was always at work like the long arm of a clock moving second by second. He also had an insight into how God was working. He once confessed that even though he was in the U.S., he could see what was going in my life in Korea. He once said that God’s gift for him was watching and praying. I used to see him praying constantly; he even prayed during a conversation and while walking in the air port. He trained many, but more than that he prayed for those he trained.

I could see him praying over night quite frequently. He sometimes wrote prayers and prayed based on what he wrote.He did not pray with babbling but with clear prayers. When God answered his prayers, he would jump for joy saying, “God answered my prayers!” His faith was as pure of the faith of young children. (Mark 18:3) His prayer was tearful like that of Jesus (John 11:35, Luke 19:41). Sometimes he used to pray with loud crying. I witnessed that he prayed crying stretched out on the floor.

His eyes were always wet because of these prayers. I believe his prayer in tears, his watching and praying were absolutely necessary for us to mature in faith, and were the source of the creative pioneering work of God. He used to say that Paul was his one to one Bible teacher and that he practiced his theology. He also trained us to do the same.

During the early years of UBF ministry, missionary Samuel Lee delivered the message almost exclusively. He served the word of God nearly every day. He delivered the message every Sunday and served the summer conference messages all by himself.

Even during the time when Korea was under the military regime, when it was difficult to have meetings, he delivered the message wearing traditional Korean clothes and a hat. Before delivering the message he always fasted. During those days, he edited messages with paper and glue.Sometimes the message paper became very thick like box paper because he glued correction paper on it again and again as he revised and rewrote the message. When he became tired, he would fall down and pray and then get up and write again. He emphasized that we need to write messages with much prayer instead of consulting commentaries.

However, after writing message, he would read commentaries in order not to deviate from the right teachings of the Bible.  Every year Dr lee bought a new Bible and read through it four times until its pages became ragged. He also encouraged us to read the Bible 4 times a year. He would say that Saint Paul was his shepherd and that he loved to read the Pauline letters.Since he read the Bible from cover to cover many times he took pride in knowing the Bible as a whole.There are many who are proficient in certain books of the Bible. But there are not many who know the Bible as a whole. In each message, he wrote based on the flow and theme of the Bible.His message had power as a result.

Someone said, “His message is like the essence of the whole Bible.” Once he gave me his Bible and told me to buy the exact the same Bible and underline the Bible exactly the same way he had done using the same color of pen in 4 days. This led me to have interest in reading the Bible. I would bring the Bible even to the bathroom to read.  Another thing he did was redo the outside of his bible with a leather cover. Not only did he read the Korean Bible but also the English Bible in the same way.  Once he gave me an English Bible with a key verse 1 Peter 2:2, “Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation.”  

After my conversion, what I regretted the most was the time that I wasted in sinning instead of watching and reading the word of God.  On October 11, 1974, I had a herniated disc surgery. I was beaten to the point of death several times when I was in the orphanage and when I was a soldier because of my rebellious mind and stubbornness.

My whole body was in pain. Missionary Samuel Lee and Grace Lee served me during my hospitalization as though I was one of their own children. Especially missionary Grace Lee invested in other needy people sacrificially even though she did not even have money to buy the new clothes for her children.  She even saved money secretly for my wedding and gave me the money to help with all my wedding expenses. She still worries about me a man close to seventy asking, “How will you feed yourself?” In spring 1976, I got the first prize in the 1 Corinthians 15 memorization recital competitions. The prize was a new suit and I was recognized as a lay shepherd. God then established my house church with shepherdess Maria Park on December 1, 1976. God gave me Mark 10:45as my life key verse: “For even the son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.” Based on this key verse, I have lived a most beautiful and happy shepherd life with mission and meaning of life. Someone said I only succeeded in marriage. But my life has been a success in every aspect. I am happy when I walk in Christ together in faith. This marriage was the foundation of my life in Christ. I learned the sacrificial serving of Jesus when I was serving as the UBF publication director and selling UBF daily bread and bible study materials at local bookstores in Seoul. It was my job to clean the bathrooms at the UBF center. There were times that I would get sick and could not clean them. Dr. Lee would say, “Clean the bathroom first and then go back and lie down.” During the pioneering years, missionary Samuel Lee worked without pay and also cleaned the bathroom himself first. In this way he emphasized that the work of cleaning bathroom and the work of the Korean president are equally important, though the position is different. He encouraged me to do my work with pride and joy. In 1983, missionary Samuel Lee gave me new name “Moody” and encouraged me to live like the great shepherd like “D.L. Moody”.

II. Campus Discipleship Ministry

In 1984, I began to train students believing that for campus ministry and world mission discipleship ministry is necessary.From 1986, I began to pioneer a fellowship with young students. It was not easy for me to serve this ministry because I was weak and sinful. But I began by going to the campus at dawn every day and praying earnestly that God might have mercy on 15,000 Sung Kung Kwan University students. Every morning we went to UBF club room at the campus and prayed facing toward the wall after daily bread.

We used to gather at brothers’ lodging place and eat daily bread and pray. Also I trained students to have campus meeting every day. I declared, “We will continue the campus prayer meeting until the campus disappears.” Through these meetings, students began to grow as shepherds and began to take stewardship. In 1986, shepherds Mark Yoon and In Hee Yon pioneered new fellowships. Shepherd Abraham Parkin 1988, Shepherd Kaleb Kim in 1989 and later Shepherds James Park and Luke Yang pioneered their fellowships. These shepherds are all  now faithful missionaries and pioneering shepherds: Mark Yoon in Kenya, Abe Yoon in UC Davis, Deborah Park in Uzbekistan, Joanna Woo in Greece, James Park in LA, Luke Yang in St. Louis and Maria Kang in the Czech republic.

In Hee Won is a pioneering shepherd in An Yang Center in Seoul, as well as Abraham Park in Kyung Won Center and Caleb Kim in Chong Ro 1. God also granted us many descendents of faith, like stars in the sky and sand on seashore, just as he promised to Abraham.In the background of this work of God, there were one to one Bible studies. My wife Maria Park is served one to one Bible studiesmost in our ministry.Most of missionaries and shepherds are her one to one Bible students. Without this beautiful co-working, disciple making is impossible. When I went to the U.S. in 1989 shepherd Mark VC in Chicago introduced me as “a champion of one to one bible studies”: a shepherd who has 20 one to one Bible studies a week.

Really that was the climax of our one to one Bible studies.They came in groups. We were crazy. about one to one, and crazy for Jesus.

When I talk about one to one bible studies I do not mean only Bible studies at a table or desk. We can serve one to one when we are with his sheep in many different ways. One of the best one to one bible studies may be life together with the students. We did Morning Prayer meeting together, played sports like ping pong together and of course shared meals together. For some time we had sweet and sour pork and other Chinese food parties.

From September 22^nd 1991, I began to pioneer An Sung campus of Joong Ang University with my family members: my wife, my son Mark and daughter Maria. In 2009, I retired from the active ministry and missionary Abraham and Sarah Lim took over the ministry. Our daughter Maria married Jacob Lim from An Yang UBF. Our son Mark married shepherdess Jee Eun from Chong Ro UBF. He recently finished MBA program in Tokyo. Our children are proud of their parents who served campus ministry and they are following the same path. One is influenced by many different people in life. But in my life, the most influential person was late missionary Samuel Lee. The disciples of Jesus were fishermen in Galilee. But after meeting with Jesus, they became teachers of the human race. Likewise, our lives have different directions depending on who we meet and who we live with. My life was also changed from a man of the street to a campus shepherd.God called missionary Samuel Lee to heaven at 11:50 am January 8^th 2002. I had a secret hope to provide a small church at An Sung and help him to write books in his later life. But God called him. His last word for us was “Go back to the Bible.” 

I am planning to serve God during my second stage of my life after retirement. May God grant me his grace to serve Him wholeheartedly to the end.

One Word: Mark 10:45 “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”