The late Pastor Myung-soon Kang (middle of the front row) visited the Sinwol-dong Children’s Center in Seoul as the Chairman of the World Poverty Eradication Association in 2013 and is having a good time with the children. Providing a love sharing society for crumbs
From the time of honeymoon in Shandong in Sadang-dong in 1975
46 years until the day before his death
1986 Scraps Mission So far
1990 connection through study room volunteer work
23 years of missionary activities and learning together
“For the poor even on the last call”
Pastor Myung-soon Kang married her husband, Pastor Jung Myung-gi, who had been working with the Korean Federation of Christian Students since college (KSCF) in 1975, and immediately set up a honeymoon in Sandang-dong and started living with the poor. It was a shantytown with no doors in the public toilet. In 1986, in order to grow up healthy children who are neglected, neglected or starved due to poverty, the ‘Creaves Mission’ (Creaves Love Sharing) was established, and on March 26, 2021, when he descended for children and women in urban poverty, industrial complexes and rural areas I ran for 46 years without stopping. How can I write about Pastor Kang’s 46 years of life with poor children and poor women? The first time I met the pastor was when I went to the study room in Siheung 2-dong, Shandongne, in 1990. Because of that relationship, I started working as a teacher and a permanent activist at the Scrap Mission Church in 1992, and I have been with you for 23 years at the nearest location.
At the 2006’Children’s Night’, while working together as the chairman and secretary general of the Scrap Mission, Pastor Kang Myung-soon (second right) and writer Kyung-rim Lee (far right). Provided by Seongnam Regional Children’s Center
The story I heard the most from Pastor Kang while working at the Crumb Mission was’Keep your mind on the field.’ He said that in order to know their needs and urgency, we must know their lives with our whole body. When I was in charge of the missionary church in 1997, the words the pastor gave me are still my compass. “Put the request from the field ahead of anything else! That’s what we need to do.” Most of all, Pastor Kang hated the word’support’. He said that it is not because we give children in need, but because we must respect and believe in their inherent possibilities, the power to overcome adversity, and the dignity of being as a being.
On March 28, at the funeral of the late Chairman Kang Myung-soon, women activists of the Love Sharing Association took on the role of luck with the intention of continuing the maintenance of the deceased. Bereaved family
In the midst of the IMF financial crisis, at a large gathering, I invited underprivileged children to have a wonderful dinner and a concert. However, at the place that hosted the event, our children explicitly expressed the expression’poor children because their parents are poor and unable to eat’. Not only the children, but I was also uncomfortable, and at that moment, Pastor Kang walked in front of the platform and shouted out loud. “Our children are not poor children. These children are very precious children.” At that time, it still remains vividly in my eyes and in my heart, and it seems that I can hear that screaming voice. I did! The pastor did not show our children who were suffering from’bullying’ in school because their parents were poor, so they could not be properly cared for, eat, and wash well. With that kind of heart, the changes in our society that he left behind are so great and many. In the past years, like a wasteland without laws and systems, the foundation of the Food Bank was created through the’Food Sharing Movement’ for undernourished children, and a system called food service support through the Ministry of Health and Welfare and the Ministry of Education was created for undernourished children. In order for children to grow up healthy, parents need to be self-reliant, so Korea’s first unsecured micro-loan (microcredit) business was also started. Study rooms for children exposed to risk after school in poor areas and children who cannot study are legalized as community children’s centers, leading to a big shift in after-school care. Group homes and shelter projects for children abused by domestic violence, etc. Rather than just crying over the pain of one child, Pastor Kang changed our social structure in the macroscopic aspect and created laws and institutions. When I was a member of the National Assembly, I took the lead in enacting the’Child Poverty Act’ for the second time in the world. He advocated’the movement to create a country where there are no underprivileged children,’ and continued until the day before he fell.
The late Chairman Kang Myung-soon was devoted to the campaign ‘Creating a Poverty-Free Country until 2020’ from the time of the 18th lawmaker, but suddenly fell down in March and was injured and could not wake up. Provided by Binna 2020
As I watched the children who grew up with the pastor’s love during the funeral come as adults and give condolences, I could feel that the seeds sown by the pastor did not mix and saved one life. The word I heard the most from Pastor Kang over the past time was the word’poor child’, and in the last call, he gave his homework’I have to work hard for poor children’. The pastor reminded me of the pastor again as he saw the yellow dandelion flowers that bloomed through the hard asphalt during the last few spring rains, who have lived unchanged for 46 years in a life that can never be survived without a heart for low places. He liked dandelion flowers more than anyone and took more pictures of dandelion. Dandelion flowers blooming from the trunk of a cut down tree, dandelion flowers between the asphalt, I think it was the desire for children to break through this barrenness and grow. The dandelion flowers planted and sown by Pastor Kang will become spores and take root again in dark and low places in our society.
Kyunglim Lee/CEO of Child Welfare Practice Association