36. The last word!

[말레이]

36. The last word!

After the last greeting and the message, I was returning in a car driven by my son-in-law, Pastor Kim. I had already finished organizing the house and was going to stay at my son-in-law’s house for a month, so I was heading to my son-in-law’s house. I was grateful to my children for coming with my grandchildren to say their final greetings. Pastor Kim said while driving, “Father! You’ve worked so hard so far. If today’s final greeting message was so good, I would like to spend about a month in Korea organizing the house and while my eldest daughter, Ye-eun (Jesus’ Grace), was at home, my grandson, Ha-jung (God’s Center), who is a senior in college, and my granddaughter, Ha-seon (God’s Gift), who is a sophomore in college, are already grown and busy attending college, so it would be difficult to see them at other times, but since it was winter vacation, I was at home except for the days when I went out to meet my friends, so I thought it was good that I might not be able to see them again after I left Korea. So I asked her to go on a trip together, but my son-in-law, Kim, who is a pastor, said that since it was the end of the year, I couldn’t feel bad about having to settle accounts, plan for next year, and have a winter retreat, so I decided to go to Jeju Island with my daughter and children.

I had a lot to talk about while traveling to Jeju Island with my daughter and granddaughter for the first time in a long time. It was hard to support my husband’s ministry, but I wanted to understand my parents’ feelings a little bit, so when my son Ye-hoon graduated from high school in ‘Coti’ and came to Korea for college, I made him major in business administration, saying that it would be good if he studied missionary studies and my daughter Ye-eun did business to support Ye-hoon’s ministry. When she was in college, she studied hard while staying in the dormitory, and when my son Ye-hoon was in the military, she often visited him in place of his parents and gave him money when he was on vacation. She played a big role for us. In the end, she failed to do business and became a pastor’s wife, but thanks to that, the church supported the mission, so she was able to do her part. As we drove by, talking about various things, I saw the tropical plants that had been used as street trees, and it felt like I was in ‘Coke’.

We spent Christmas with the children at our daughter’s house in Korea and finally returned to ‘Molisha’ on December 26, 2040. Of course, I had visited here many times in the meantime, but this was the first time I had visited ‘Molisha’ in 10 years since I officially finished my mission and returned to Korea. I had made a promise to myself that I would be buried here when I first came here, and now that I was back here, I decided to do all the mission work I couldn’t do before.

I don’t know exactly how many times I had flown back and forth on this trip, but when I arrived at ‘Coke’ Airport in a much shorter time than before, my son’s family was there to greet me. My son was already 46 years old, so my son and his wife were already middle-aged. My eldest granddaughter, who came out to greet me, was 18 years old and a sophomore in high school, my second grandson, Hajun, was 16 years old and a third-year middle school student, and my youngest granddaughter, Hayoung, was 14 years old and a first-year middle school student. They were all so tall that I thought they had all grown up. Since it was vacation, I didn’t have to go to school the next morning, so I spent a lot of time chatting with the kids, not realizing how late it was, and I finally went to bed after 3 o’clock.

The next morning, I woke up slowly and woke up the kids first.

“Na, Jun, Young!

Get up and go for a walk!”

The kids got up and came out at the sound of that. Then my eldest child asked.

“Who is Junyoung? Grandpa?”

“Ah! Na, Jun for Hajun, Young for Hayoung,

So if you call them all at once, it becomes Na Junyoung!”

“Father! Isn’t that a good idea?

Now, when you call the children all at once,

you should call them like that,

and the children’s mother liked it.

When I went for a morning walk with the children like that, the air here was clear and clean, and I felt refreshed. Then, while eating breakfast with the children chatting around the breakfast table, one of the older children said,

“Grandpa and Grandma!

You’ve worked hard all this time,

but now you’ll be able to rest comfortably here, right?”

When I said that, the second child, Ha-jun,

said,

“They say that doing things slowly is better for your health!”

So I agreed with that,

“Yes, Ha-jun is right!

When school starts, you guys will go to school too,

and Grandpa started the ‘Numbak Hope School,’

so you should go there and clean up!”

When I said that, the youngest child said,

“As expected!

Our grandfather is unstoppable!”

Let's say

"No!

The youngest was just going to dry it out in the sun when Grandfather came?“

When he said,

"Oh!

Our Grandfather is cold again!“

Everyone laughed. Then the son said,

"You did a good job organizing the ministry here and doing foundation work in Korea.

Many missionaries received help from you,

and when you traveled around the world,

everyone was grateful for the many things you did.

But now, you're right, take a break!“

When he said that, the daughter-in-law agreed,

"Go ahead, Father!"

and sided with her husband. Then the wife said in a slightly complaining voice,

"Hey! How can your father rest?“

So I said,

"If we just stay home and rest,

Mom will have a hard time,

And we should move around as much as we can slowly,

Hajun is right, and stay healthy.“

Then the youngest, Hayoung,

"Grandpa, Grandma!

We'll start school in January soon,

so go to the island and the mountain with us until then!

And Teddy oppa, you'll go too.“

"Yeah! That's right!

It's been a while since we've played together, Hajun, and Hayoung, so we should!

Abba, teacher, are you still okay?“

"Yes!

We've been doing well without any major problems,

and everyone is giving us good reviews.

There are about two years left in the term.“

"Let's see when we have time,

and have some quality time together as a family for the first time in a long time.“

Then Ha-young said,

“When I used to ride in a helicopter,

it was scary and fun,

but I want to ride again this time, Grandpa!”

When he said that, the second son, Ha-jun, said,

“You’re talking as if the helicopter is my own car!”

“Yeah!

If Grandpa asks me to ride, I’ll send a helicopter.

But now Grandpa and Grandma are dizzy,

so it’ll be hard for them to ride a helicopter?

Don’t do that, Grandpa, I’ll just ride you in a bigger plane!”

“Grandpa!

Anyone can ride a plane if they have money.

I want to ride a helicopter?”

“Then why don’t you go to the President

and ask him to ride you in a special way?”

“Hey, I don’t like that!

You’re being too conscious!”

So the mother said,

“Why is Ha-young so conscious?”

“Mom! I’m conscious, too.”

He said that and laughed again. Since it was still vacation anyway, we decided to go and meet the teacher's family and give the kids some time to spend in the capital, 'Krum'. So we all packed our luggage and headed to 'Krum'. First, when we arrived at the airport, a guide was there to pick us up with a nice car. So we took the car and went to the presidential palace and served kimchi that my wife had made. The teacher and Nana were so happy. But since we couldn't see the kids, we asked them and they said that they had both grown up and gone abroad to study. Then he called us right away and let us say hello over the phone. We said hello over the phone and decided to meet later, telling us to study hard and ended the call. Maybe that's why the presidential palace felt a little deserted, like any house without children. So when the teacher said that he thought he should get the kids married off quickly, he smiled bitterly and said that it still felt like a distant story when he heard the kids' stories. After having dinner with the teacher and Nana, we decided to meet again later and went to the hotel we had made a reservation for and unpacked our bags. And from the next day, We went around the famous places in the city, holding the kids’ hands. Thankfully, since we had the medals, all admission fees were waived, so we could go sightseeing with a much lighter heart and buy more delicious food instead. It was the end of the year, so the city was lively and there were fun events going on here and there, so I thought it was a good idea. In particular, while traveling with the kids, I realized that these days, there are many people who have two, so there are cases where one person doesn’t have children, but now that we have three grandchildren, we can’t even imagine how grateful we were for the time we had with the kids and how enjoyable the trip was.

So we finished our trip with the kids and returned to ‘Cokee.’ And when school started, the kids were busy every day, so my wife and I prepared a small car and went to ‘Numbak Wish School’ in the morning to help the kids with the little things they needed to study, and whenever we had time, we cleaned and swept various places in the school. That became our main job. While doing that, sometimes I would go into the village and visit the homes of my former students who had graduated and gotten married and were now parents, to see how they were living and to quietly talk to them about the Bible and Jesus. I was thankful that they didn’t seem to have much resistance to me, perhaps because I thought of them as old teachers who had helped them study. Every time that happened, I would think, “Oh, that’s right! Maybe missionary work is just beginning.”

While I was spending my days taking care of the school and the village, I received a call from Korea, and a business owner who had heard the last lecture at the 10th anniversary missionary conference of the Barnabas Foundation said he would rebuild the Numbak Hope School. I was so grateful. Before, an automobile company had rebuilt the 12-year-old wooden school building because it was too old, and it had been in that state until about 10 years ago, when the school building got old and they urgently did major renovations. As time passed, the school building got too old, but now that it has been rebuilt as a proper concrete building, I thought that the children would not have to worry about studying for a while. Then, I suddenly remembered that I had once drawn up a floor plan of the school building, considering the effective traffic flow and purpose of use, before I had to rebuild the building. So I asked my son if he had thrown away the architectural plan of the Numbak Somang School that I had drawn before, and he said that he had left it in the office, and when I went to the office, he was just like me, and he was also meticulous in keeping the documents. Although it had gotten a little moldy after time had passed, looking at the plan that he had drawn, I could recall the contents of the plan that I had made before.

First, since the school site was not large, the plan was to make classrooms on the first and second floors, and make the third floor a rooftop, thicken the floor, connect the pillars at the four corners, and build a roof on top to block out rain and sunlight. Then, the space between the pillars was covered with wire mesh to allow for good ventilation and prevent balls and other things from escaping. My son listened to the explanation and said that it was effective and good, so I organized the plan again, drew up a new plan, and sent a budget based on the current price to the headquarters, and the company decided to build it as is.

The construction of the school, which started like that, was nearing completion after about 8 months of construction. One difficult thing was that the school had very little space, so the children had to continue their studies while also doing the construction work, so we discussed this with the construction company and proceeded with the construction so that both could be done simultaneously, but we emphasized that we had to pay special attention to the children’s safety. We started the construction and were able to complete it without any problems. That day, I went to the school site in the morning to check things out, and in the past and now, there were cases where children were curious and playful and did dangerous things, and today, something like that happened. I found a couple of children approaching the construction site where the construction was being finished and playing around. So I tried to stop them by telling them that it was dangerous and that they should come out quickly, but while I was going to stop them, the child fell and touched one of the pillars that was supporting the pillar, causing the pillar to collapse and part of the beam frame that was supporting it to fall down. It really happened in an instant. I quickly covered the child's body with my body, thinking that the child should not get hurt.

In the meantime, several things fell down with a loud noise, and among them, one of the pillars that supported the ceiling fell and hit my head without mercy, and I lost consciousness for a moment due to the shock. After a while, when I regained consciousness, I saw several construction workers along with my son removing the pillar and taking me and the child out of the place. I felt a lot of pain in my head. When I asked if my son was okay, he said in a small voice that he could bear it. Then, I heard the sound of an ambulance coming, as if they had called a hospital. When I asked if my child was okay, he said that fortunately, the child was not hurt, and that other than his father's injury, there seemed to be no other major problems, so I was relieved for the time being. However, I could feel blood continuously flowing from my head.

When my son was in middle and high school, he received a lot of training while working in a paramedic club, so he calmly administered emergency treatment, and as soon as the ambulance arrived, he was put on a stretcher and moved into the ambulance, and the ambulance left for the hospital right away. Then, in the meantime, the villagers came rushing to save the child, and were worried that Mr. Simon Lee was seriously injured, but as the ambulance started, the sounds of it gradually faded away.

While running toward the hospital, my son kept shouting,

“Father!

Wake up!”

Memories of the past came flooding back to me one by one, and they passed through the air. Memories of my childhood in the countryside! And my school days with my friends at church, and my life in Seoul when I didn’t know what to do, and then my memories of studying theology, serving in the military, marrying my wife, and raising my children, and countless other things that intersected in the ministry, and countless other things I experienced while being sent as a missionary and doing missionary work, and then when I met the teacher and tried to spread the Korean language,

“Yes! That’s right!

Language was also given by God,

and it flowed down to me with love!

And so it has been flowing down through all of humanity until that day!”

He said, but his son kept urging him, saying,

“What?

What?”

It seems that he can’t hear him. After meeting the teacher, something big happened with ‘Molicia’, and because of that, he left this place and worked in Korea for the ‘Barnabas Foundation’, and then he came back here the other day… I said I would bury my bones in this land. Yes! I would bury my bones in this land… As I was thinking that, my memory suddenly faded and an incredibly bright and radiant light appeared before my eyes.