Inside Story: South Korea

My Mother’s Heritage

By Park Yeon-sook

My mother turned to me as she was dying from gallbladder cancer.

“You must go to church,” she said.

Mother had taken me to church every Sabbath since I was a young girl, but I had stopped attending as I got busy with my shop in Hanam, a suburb of South Korea’s capital, Seoul.

Image © Pacific Press

Mother’s words troubled me as I struggled to both work and raise my son, daughter, and three nephews. I realized that I could not succeed on my own, and I returned to Jesus.

As my love grew for Jesus, He gave me a heart to care for needy neighbors. A relative introduced me to Hong Soon-mi. A year after we met, Soon-mi’s husband was diagnosed with bone-marrow cancer. When I learned that he couldn’t afford surgery, I set up a donation box on the street outside my shop. Many people ridiculed me, saying, “Why are you raising money for someone who isn’t a relative?” But I kept the donation box in place.

On Soon-mi’s birthday, I presented her while a 45-pound (20-kilogram) bag of rice. “Take this gift from my shop,” I said. She later told me that her whole family cried when they saw the gift.

Soon-mi didn’t come to church right away. But she read the Adventist magazines that I gave her and learned that Seventh-day Adventists love Jesus and people. I put Soon-mi in charge of my shop and provided her with a salary and daily necessities such as fruit and rice for about two years. After that, I made her the manager of a small restaurant that I ran. A year after managing the restaurant, she asked, “Why don’t you invite me to church?”

“Why?” I said. “You know that you are welcome.”

“Then I’ll go,” she said.

After six years of friendship, Soon-mi visited West Hanam Seventh-day Adventist Church for the first time. Three years later, she became a deaconess, and later her husband and son were baptized.

When I first opened my shop, I was the only Adventist in the neighborhood. Now seven merchants are Adventist. The church has a good reputation in the area. I thank my mother for giving me a heritage of faith, and I give all glory to God for using Adventist merchants like me for His good.