On The Shore
11/19/14 
Rebekah Keumha Kim
Founding Pastor and Pastor emeritus of Antioch Baptist Church(formerly Berkland Baptist Church),
wife of Rev. Dr. Paul Kim
Seoul National University, Liberal Arts and Science College(B.S. in Botany)
University of California, Santa Cruz(B.A. in Art History and Criticism)
Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary (M.Div.)
“Welcome to Harvard, class of 2015, in the name of our Lord! And congratulations on your achievements thus far. It seems like your sleepless nights and all your other efforts have been paid off. What do you guys expect from the upcoming four years you will spend here? What kind of dreams, plans, and goals do you want to fulfill while you are studying here at Harvard? What’s next?
On the afternoon of Wednesday, September 2, 1998, I was sorting out mail in my living room. My son, Philip, who is here in this room right now, was only an eleven-year-old boy at that time. As he was coming up from my husband’s study, he yelled. “Mom, pick up the phone! It’s for you. I think somebody just died!” I yelled back at him, ‘ 그런 소리 하면 못써 ‘, which means ‘you are not supposed to say that kind of things.’ Then I went on to rebuke. ‘Don’t even joke like that!’ Yet he didn’t give up and said, ‘But I overheard the talk!’ So I picked up the phone with a little bit of nervousness and even fear because my son was so serious. ‘Hello’, I said. For a while, death-like silence was there on the other side of the phone. ‘Hello, hello.’ I was getting more and more scared and wondering who it was for I already heard someone had just died. ‘It’s me. Hojoung is dead.’ ‘What? 살려야지 !’ which means, ‘you should make her come alive.’ I knew it didn’t make any sense. But those nonsense words slipped from my mouth since I was out of my mind. I couldn’t believe what I just heard. I was not prepared to hear that kind of news at all. I broke down, not to mention my sister. Yes, it was my sister who was there on the other side of the line. And Connie, her English name, was the only child of her and my brother-in-law. I had no words. Actually, human words are many times completely useless, merely meaningless and helpless, noisy gongs, especially when we face this kind of situation in life.
When I went down to Virginia, my sister showed me her daughter’s journal. I flipped through to read some of it, but my eyes were glued to one word there on the back of the front cover. There were several lines filled with words such as her hobbies, favorite colors, and so on. When it came to the purpose of her life… you’ll never guess… until that time I never knew that kind of purpose of life could possibly exist or be mentioned. To my surprise, to my shock, my heart aching, hers was health. Yes, HEALTH! What could I say? Instead of turning to my sister to say something, I asked myself, ‘Becky, what should you say now? How should you feel now?’ Speechless, utterly speechless… I felt as if a sharp-edged razor was cutting my heart to the deep. My heart and eyes were welling up to tears, no more than me, my sister’s, endlessly. How could it be someone’s purpose of life? I don’t think I’ll ever forget those moments for the rest of my life. The purpose of Connie’s life not only rebuked me but was also etched in my heart forever.
Today is September 3, and yesterday was the 13 th memorial of her passing. As I do every year, I visited her tomb with my nephews and nieces. At the tomb site, I spoke the same words which I’ve done every year for the past 13 years. ‘How old are you guys this year? As you know, I’m already sixty years old, 환갑 , this year. It means I’ve outlived Hojong more than three times. As you guys remember, when she went to be with the Lord, she was one and half months short of turning nineteen. Philip, even you, the youngest cousin here, have outlived her by 5 years. What can we say? Why do you guys think God still gives us breath even today? Why are we still alive? There must be a purpose in our life from God. Let’s live it out more concretely every day, being sold out for God completely until we will be reunited with Hojung and 할머니 and 할아버지 when Jesus comes back.
‘Folks, I want to say it again. As freshmen at Harvard, you must have all kinds of dreams, plans, and goals you want to accomplish before you graduate from this institute. Whatever yours are, what should be the foremost important purpose in life? My niece, Connie, was born as a ‘blue baby’ with a heart problem and died of a heart attack. All of us here are already given good health, which was the purpose of Connie’s life. If not health, what is the purpose of our life? Or what should the purpose of our life be? If not God, our Creator and Sustainer, who should be the purpose of our life? He never constructed any other road to Him except His Only Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. And as you well know, He said in the gospel of John 14:6, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.’ Yes, jesus is the only way that God acknowledged for anyone to come to know Him. I hope and pray that each one of you might find God who is and should be the sole purpose of your life. God bless you! Thank you.”
This was the welcoming speech that I gave to the freshmen who came to the introductory dinner of ABSK (Asian Baptist Student Koinonia, a college ministry which I found at Harvard twenty years ago). Every year, about 1500 to 1600 freshmen roam around the campus to find the most meaningful activities to fulfill the goals that they had before coming to Harvard. Especially, every fall when we have tabling(the introduction time of every student group on campus), freshmen hop around from table to table to sign up for the groups they want to join, from hobbies to academic and religious interests.
Around this time, there is a song which always comes to my mind: “Here I stand watching the tide go out —– the stranger on the shore.” That is all I remember. According to my childhood memory, it might be “The Stranger on the Shore” sung by Andy Williams. Why this random song? Because I feel like a stranger here watching the ebbs of the world and its enormous power to sweep away freshmen and others one by one. If not with God, who can go against it? Thanks be to God, for He give us victory in His Son, Jesus Chris, our Lord! Only when we live our life in Him, through Him, and for Him, does it have meaning and purpose, because He is the sole purpose of our life!