Editor's note: Rev. In-Kwon and Jeong-Seok Kim have led the Mango Tree Center ministry in the Kingdom of Tonga since 2007. The Center provides rehabilitative therapy, vocational and social training, spiritual formation and other support to people with disabilities and their families. Rev. Kim describes the journey in which he has followed God's call on his life to serve the disabled.

I was born in Korea in 1958. When I was a young boy, my family was happy. But when I was a primary school student, my father became a diabetic and lost his job. He had been suffering from the illness for 10 years, so my family began to suffer severe financial hardship. After all, he died and my mother became a hawker to sell goods like salt or bar soaps for survival.

Jesus Christ, my Savior and Lord
When I was 17 years old I began to attend a church. I think at that time I was a Sunday Christian. But when I was 20, I met Jesus Christ personally. One Wednesday night, while a senior pastor was reading Isaiah 53, all of sudden the Holy Spirit touched me and I realized that I was a sinner and Jesus died for me. At last, I received Jesus Christ as my Savior and the Lord.

Ministry for the disabled
At that time, the love of God touched my heart and called me to live for the poor, the sick and the disabled. The Holy Spirit gave me hope and vision for my future. And He also provided me a chance to study in Korea University in Seoul, Korea.

When I was second year in the university, I began to volunteer for children with intellectual impairment every Sunday. I formed and conducted a choir with them to worship God on Sunday. I taught them Gospel songs and preached the word of God every evening service too.

After the university, I started teaching vocational skills to youth with intellectual impairment and training social skills too. The final goal of those trainings is to enable them participate in main stream of the society.

By God’s grace, I could teach them rehabilitative skills during weekdays and also preach the Word of God every Sunday without any break for 10 years. Through the vocational training, several youth could get a job and earn money, so that they were very happy. During that time, God blessed me with an opportunity to study social work as a master's degree in Chung-Ang University in Seoul, Korea.

Marriage
In 1989, I married Jeong-Seok who was working faithfully as a secretary for the senior pastor of a church. She accepted my proposal of marriage even though I was poor as I was working for the disabled.

In 1995, God guided me to work for a Christian compassionate organization based in Korea, whose name is Good Neighbors. The organization supported many orphanages, single parents with children, poor farmers in rural areas, and patients with incurable tuberculosis disease in Korea. In 1996, I organized a nationwide campaign to protect the abused children. It was a good start, so that, later on, the Korean Government adopted this prevention system and legalized it.

Ministry for the poor in Africa
In January 1997, God sent me to serve poor people in a slum of Nairobi, the capital city of Kenya, East Africa, through the organization. Also, I was the one who was in charge of Rwandan project because there were lots of orphans produced by the notorious genocide in 1994.

There were lots of street children in Nairobi. They begged money or snatched something like necklace or camera from tourists. They were always sniffing glue in order to overcome hunger and chilly weather during the night. They didn’t have any proper places to sleep at night so they slept on the stairs of a building. 

My two main projects for the urban poor were to operate a non-formal school for street children and a medical clinic for the slum patients. The slum which we were working for is called Korogocho, which was located outskirts of Nairobi city center, twenty minutes by car. The slum population was estimated more than 100,000 in a small crowded area.

Most children in the slum couldn’t go to school or dropped out of school at an early age because their parents couldn’t pay their school fees. Many children in school age were found in the streets doing nothing or collecting wastes like bottles, papers, etc. for survival. They used to eat only once in a day, sometimes they had to eat the decomposed meat in the garbage-dumping site.

In the slum, there were very few latrines and shower rooms. About 200 slum dwellers use a latrine. No electricity, very few and expensive water taps, so they had to get water from rainfall storage buckets and the river water, which was extremely polluted.

Many slum dwellers were suffering from the AIDS/HIV, tuberculosis, malaria, skin disease and worms. There were several commercial clinics in the slum, but slum dwellers couldn’t use them as they were so poor. Most slum dwellers were unstable employees like casual workers, housemaids, hawkers and watchmen, even prostitutes, gangs and robbers.

In 1997, with the support from the Korean organization, I started a non-formal primary school for children in Korogocho slum and garbage dumping site. By employing Kenyan teachers, I taught and fed about 150 children. Also, I provided them vocational training skills, like tailoring, carpentry, arc welding and car mechanics. Another 120 children were sent to formal primary schools by a sponsorship program. The school name is Jirani School, which is now very famous with its children’s choir formed in 2005.

I established a medical clinic in the heart of slum and employed a nurse and community health workers to provide qualified medical care service for about 1,000 slum patients every month.

In June 1998, we realized that nobody could be changed without God’s Word and the Holy Spirit. So, by the guidance of God, we established a church with a Kenyan pastor in the slum. Every Saturday, Jeong-Seok led the Bible study for the cell group leaders. The church was growing very fast and every church member was passionate to live a godly life.

Back to Korea
In 2000, the organization asked me to work for the Headquarters in Seoul, so I had to leave Kenya and returned to Korea. By the end of 2001, I was working as a director of the organization. I started attending the Young-Chun Nazarene Church in Seoul, Korea. I became a Nazarene.

Calling to mission field again
In 2001, one day, the Holy Spirit touched and called me as a missionary again for the poor and the disabled in the two-third world and soon I resigned. In January 2002, finally, God led me to study theology in New Zealand.

I studied theology at the Bible College of New Zealand (BCNZ) in Auckland, New Zealand. During that time, I also served as an associate pastor of the All Nations Church of the Nazarene in Auckland. In 2003, I applied to be a missionary in the Church of the Nazarene.

In December 2004, the Asia-Pacific Regional Office in Manila, Philippines, proposed me to have a survey trip to Tonga. Jeong-Seok and I went to Tonga for the first time. And there I could meet Dr. Patch, Dr. Im, Rev. Johnson, who was a field strategy coordinator, Rev. Hane and Rev. Song, who was a senior pastor of our sending church. We visited several families with disabilities. On the last day of the trip, Jeong-Seok and I got to interview with Rev. Johnson and Rev. Hane. Later, they suggested us to be missionaries to Tonga. Without any hesitancy, we said, “Yes.”

Ordination, David and Tonga
In January 2006, I was ordained as a pastor by the New Zealand District. Jeong-Seok finished her counseling course. In July, our son David was born and we went to Tonga in February 2007, a year later than it was scheduled. In July of this year, my last son, David, will be four years old.

Jeong-Seok and I believe that God has trained us in Korea and in Kenya, and now He uses us for His hidden treasures, children with disabilities, and His Kingdom glory in Tonga.