Dear Uncle David,

Hi. My name is Youngmin Martin Kim from Paderborn church last weekend. We talked shortly and I was very happy to meet you. I wanted to share few stories of my own with you with gratitude that it may be an encouragement to others.

I was born in Germany, raised in South Korea and in US. Now, I moved back to Germany for graduate school. I was raised up as an evangelical as the 5th generation. Both my parents are elders in an evangelical church in Korea, and I have several pastors among my relatives who are also evangelical.

When you visited PUC in 2006 I believe, I was going through a spiritual crisis. At that time, I just discovered an unpleasant truth that after 22 years of Christian experience in the church, I had no real faith. The discovery hit me very hard and I desperately sought a solution. I had two possible explanations at that time. Either I had been doing something completely wrong for the past 22years of my Christian life or this whole thing was a lie. I didn’t want to waste anymore time pursuing an illusion but I wanted to make sure that I checked the first possibility before I would quit. Just around that time, you came to PUC and held one vesper I think. I was not an Adventist at that time and I’ve never heard of your name before so I didn’t bother to go. Somehow later, I found your audio recording on that vesper night and I listened to it. During listening, I was weeping so deeply and a very strong conviction came upon me. I found out that I have never risked or invested anything to believe God thus I had no real substance of faith. I knew I was supposed to give my whole heart to Jesus somehow, so I needed to know where my heart was. Quickly a Bible verse came to my mind, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” I discovered that my treasure at that time was going to a graduate school. I was studying physics and mathematics in PUC and without graduate schooling my degree would mean useless. However, it was not easy for an international student let it alone with PUC credentials to get a summer internship position which was almost required for any applicant for graduate school. It was constantly hovering over my interest at that time. After hearing such experiment you have done, I decided to put my faith into test. It was going to be the final one, for there was no greater asset that I could give up. Either God helps me or I sink knowing at least He doesn’t care. I came up with the best way to put all that to test. During the first semester of a senior year, that’s when one needs to take all the exams, writing all the applications, doing all the interviews for graduate school. It was that time which I valued so much. I decided not to enroll that semester at all, doing absolutely nothing academically to prepare myself for graduate school but to spend that time in the mission field.

Cutting long story short, after that school year, I left to Germany with a previous internship opportunity at a company, having decided not to return for the next school semester. When I got to Germany, I was told that my internship at a company was quietly cancelled. But the Lord directed me to Paderborn University by His providence where I was asked to join master program next school year. The project they had was cooperation with Stanford and Tokyo University, a very descent frontline project in physics yet I knew nothing that it existed in Paderborn. During that autumn, without going back to school, I was in a missionary base camp somewhere in Bavaria, Germany. During that time, I met God in such a personal way that I would never ever forget. Week after week, God showed me and conversed with me how much He did care for me. Many things happened afterwards which I can’t all write here, but there I was by the end of 2007, exactly one year later, I met God, and He gave me a call, and I was admitted to a prestige graduate project without filling out a single application or an examination.

In 2008, I was still not keeping the Sabbath and I was fighting against that truth. In the beginning of that year, I was sitting in a prayer meeting on New-year’s eve in a Methodist church. God distinctively gave me this passage in Gen.12:1 “Get out of your country from your family…” Beginning a little bit before and continuing that year, God revealed to me the Sabbath truth right from the Scripture. As soon as I discovered the Sabbath, at that time I was in a German language course which was compulsory for international students to begin their study in Germany, but I was told that it was not necessary for physics students but I was caught by German bureaucracy.  It was a horrible time personally. My visa and money was running out, yet I couldn’t even begin my studies as the Lord previously directed. I have military duty which I postponed due to my studies which if I couldn’t prove that I was studying then I had to quit everything and to join the army for few years. Many months of waiting and pondering went by and right after I discovered the Sabbath truth, the language office changed the testing day on the Sabbath for some reason. I had no past experience to rely on or any strength regarding keeping the Sabbath in the midst of such pressure before. I had many things on my shoulder and I knew I could never sell that to my parents regarding my action if I were to skip the test for Sabbath. Not only that, I was all the sudden placed in a situation where my evangelical brothers and pastors found out about it and I had to defend not only the Sabbath but also all the other doctrines of SDA which I didn’t even know much, including EGW. Because my conviction was strong, I had to read and study so much during that short time to try to defend, but I recognized later that the Lord cared less that I would defend it well, but that I would really learn in a very short time. Because after that, I realized that I knew about the present truth better than many other Adventists. The test date kept coming and I was struggling. I finally made up my mind not to take it on Sabbath. The Lord provided an alternative date to take but it was going to be a different test based on different materials and I still needed to pass it. I took up the opportunity and it was far easier than the real one and during that weekend I had my first sweet Sabbath while others were cramming for an exam. It also was my last language test ever. Afterwards, my professor asked me first if I were interested in doing ph.d instead of master since I was having so much paper problems. I gladly accept it, my visa, status, finance and everything was solved.

Since that time many other things happened and the Lord led me and guided me through storms. I had to give up and lay down different things including career and calling, friends, security, and etc along the ride.
I wanted to be as brief as possible and I hope this finds you well. I am finishing up one of my thesis and then I will really start the Ph.D. project for the next 3 years in Paderborn. This last summer, I joined the mission trip to Philippines with Europe 4 Jesus, mentored by pastor Luis Torres and Dr. Jan Cabungcal where I experienced great things, the power of God and His increase. If you come across any opportunity on your side where a person like me could serve for a short-term rather, due to my current circumstances, I would love to hear that. I know you are working under great pressures and at times criticisms, but we really love you and support for what you are doing for God’s people. Thank you again uncle David for your sweat and blood.

God Bless,

Youngmin Martin Kim