The last couple of weeks have been very difficult and disheartening moments for our family that we had to watch my youngest brother laying in the hospital and his condition progressively deteriorating, and eventually passing away this past Thursday.   When a family member passes on, it is very hard to deal with losing your loved one.  My mother, especially and understandably, was having the most difficult time watching her own baby son slowly getting worse rapidly the last few days.  I’m sure that my mother would feel as if the whole world was falling down around her.   Trying to overcome this heartbreaking experience will be awful and may take quite some time for my mother and our family. 
My brother, Soongchan, was diagnosed with liver cancer about three and a half years ago.  It was already at an advanced stage where even a transplant was not possible.  The only option he had was to be on the clinical trials at the Johns Hopkins Hospital.  We had our happy moment a couple of years ago when he was declared that his cancer cell was dead and his liver was under control.  Many people from our church members and my mother’s church members were praying for him, and we felt as if our God answered our prayers.  However, his cancer came back again.
Soongchan has been the black sheep of our family in terms of our faith in Jesus.  He’s been in our prayers for his salvation for more than 33 years.  He was a very nice and gentle person, and always tried to live righteously, and not hurting anyone.  He was well respected and loved by friends.  But when it came down to accepting Jesus, he continued to be stubborn and refusing.  In the spring of last year, when he agreed to sign up for the Alpha Class, I really thought it was God’s timing that he would come to accept Jesus as his Lord and the Savior this time.  And when it didn’t happen at the end of the class, I was very disheartened and disappointed.
And my worst fear was becoming true of my brother dying without knowing Christ.  As he was lying in the hospital bed and his condition progressively deteriorating, I was in a desperate praying moment of crying out to God that He must save him before he dies.  I was pleading with God, “Didn’t you say that believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved – you and your household (Acts 16:31)?  I want my brother to be saved so that I can see him in heaven.”  I’ve asked P. Mark, chaplains at the hospital and at the hospice, and others to witness to him, but he kept refusing.  Time was running out.
And it was last Saturday evening.  My brother was in and out of consciousness, and he couldn’t carry much meaningful conversation for long.  His college friends came over and were trying to talk with him.  He was only able to respond for a brief moment at a time.  After a while, after all of his friends moved to another room, I was alone with my brother in his hospice room.  And I felt that I had to speak with him before he lost consciousness completely.  I said to him, “I want to thank you for being my good bother and am going to miss you.  You’ve been such a good son to our mom, and you lived well and have done everything you needed to do.  So feel free and go in peace.  Soon you’ll be going home, and I want you to go to the home in heaven because God wants you to be in His house.   But only the child of God can enter into His house.  The truth is you can become God’s child if you accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior, then, you can go to heaven.  Would please accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior for me?  Because I want you to go heaven, and when I get there later, I want you to be the first one to come out and greet me…..”
Lo and behold, he finally said “Yes” twice.  I was thinking, “Is this real?”  So I’ve asked him again, and He said “Yes” twice again.  At last, after 33 years of praying for his salvation, God answered our prayer!!!  My brother looked so peaceful when he passed away early Thursday morning, and I know for certain that he is heaven now.  Though it may take quite some time for us to overcome our grief of losing him, we greatly rejoice for the fact that he finally came to know Jesus and he is at the heavenly place where our God is the King.   So are you still praying for someone for their salvation?  Don’t give up and persevere till the end, and it’s worthwhile!

From Pastor Neil’s Heart
December 15, 2013

I’d like share with you one of my favorite Christmas stories originally told by Paul Harvey.  I hope this story help bring forth a deeper understanding and appreciation for Jesus Christ, God incarnate, as you celebrate Christmas this year.  
A man was invited by his wife and children to go to the Christmas Eve service at their church. He refused to go saying, "I don't understand how a God who is supposed to be loving and kind can let mankind suffer so much. Why would He decide to become a man and be born as a baby in a manger, no less? There is no logic in such an absurd idea, and I just can't accept it." So his wife and children went to church without him.
Shortly after the family left, snow began to fall. He went to the window to watch the flurries getting heavier and heavier and then went back to his fireside chair to enjoy a nice quite evening alone.  Minutes later he was startled by a thudding sound, then another, and then another. At first he thought someone must be throwing snowballs against his window. But when he went to the front door to investigate, he found a flock of birds huddled miserably in the snow. They’d been caught in the storm and, in a desperate search for shelter, were trying to fly through his large window.
Feeling sorry for the birds, he came up with a great idea. He would open the barn doors and let the birds spend the night there. He put on his coat and boots and trudged out to the barn, opened the doors wide, and turned on a light.  But the birds just kept flying against his window, trying to get in. 
He figured food would entice them in. So he hurried back to the house and sprinkled bread crumbs on the snow, making a trail to the lighted wide-open doorway of the barn. But to his dismay, the birds ignored the bread crumbs and continued to flap around helplessly in the snow. He tried catching them. He tried shooing them into the barn by walking around them, waving his arms.  But to no avail, they scattered in every direction, except into the warm, lighted barn.
“What’s wrong with these birds?” he thought. Then he realized that they were afraid of him. To them he was a strange and terrifying creature. “How can I let them know that they can trust me, that I am not trying to hurt them, but to help them?” he felt frustrated and distraught. “Oh, if only I could become a bird like they are and speak their language! Then I could tell them not to be afraid and show them the way to the barn.  I wish I could become one of them so they could hear and understand me!”
At that moment the church bells began to ring. The sound reached his ears above the sounds of the wind. And he stood there listening to the bells pealing the glad tidings of Christmas. And he sank to his knees in the snow.
All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: "The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel," which means, "God with us." (Matthew 1:22-23)

From Pastor Sara’s Heart
December 22, 2013