Jake's Testimony
Many of you may be familiar with the song, "Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me." I love the words to that song because that describes my life. I was just a nobody that God in His amazing grace chose me to be adopted and placed into a situation where I could begin a relationship with Himself. Eph. 2:8-9 says, "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast." Grace is when God gives us that which we don't deserve and God has showered my life with many blessings for which I did nothing to deserve. I was born in 1974 in South Korea. However at an early age, my mother died and I was put into an orphanage. And if not for the grace of God, I would have died there as a young boy unloved and unwanted. But God moved in the hearts of Christian parents in the Minnesota to adopt me when I was around 6 years old. For the first time in years, I knew what it meant for someone to love me. And being able to experience the love from these new parents helped me to understand the love of God for me. I learned that Jesus Christ loved me so much that He even sacrificed His own life on the cross to pay for the penalty of my sins. When I was adopted, I had many problems with my health. I had worms in my stomach, lice in my hair, and boils on my skin. But I praise God that He allowed me to have the correct medical attention required to take care of all those problems. However, I continued to have regular health checkups. It was during one of those health checkups that a doctor said that "by accident" he had found a hole the size of a half-dollar coin in my heart. He said that if they had not discovered it in time, I could have died within that year. I praise God that His grace was evident in my life even in the timing of when I was adopted. If I had not been adopted in time, then I would have died in that orphanage from this heart problem. However, surgery was planned and about two months before the surgery in the spring of 1980, I accepted Christ as my Savior (April, 1980). That was very important to me because I knew without any doubts then that even if I died during the 4 hour heart surgery, I would spend eternity with God in Heaven. I praise God that we as believers do not have to fear death anymore because "to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord." (2 Cor. 5:8) I was able to start a whole new and different type of life in the United States but more importantly I was given a new life in Christ. 2 Cor. 5:17 says that, "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new."
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