“He does justice, and he loves the sojourner.”
[Mar.05.2022] In Eswatini, a small country in South Africa, Korean Chairman Kim Han-ki and a local Korean church pastor couple have been busy cooking meals for the poor during the pandemic.
Chairman Kim said to a reporter who visited the site on the 26th (local time), “Every Thursday, we are busy serving chicken rice and snacks to about 300 children.”
Light Hands in Korea and Manna Mission in the United States are sponsoring the meal services.
Chairman Kim, who is originally a missionary related to international health and medical care, explained that as it became difficult for overseas doctors to come due to COVID-19, he is more focused on the ‘Help Yourself’ project for undernourished children.
Ho-young Jeong, the principal of Eswatini Hangeul School, the wife of Chairman Kim, said, “It is rewarding to hear from people around that the children who have been served meals through us have grown in height.”
To help poor farmers become self-reliant, Chairman Kim is also involved in a project where they can raise their own calves and become self-reliant. He is also building a local hospital to commemorate his elder sister who donated organs at the time of her sudden death by an unexpected accident.
Pastor Young-jun Jang (68) and his wife, Seong-hye Kim (62), from a local Korean church also said that they have been delivering food packages, including rice, cornflour, and sugar, to about 5,000 families, including orphans, out of their private fund for the past two years.
Pastor Jang and his wife came in a pickup truck to the chapel of a newly built Korean church on the premises of Eswatini Theological Seminary on Sunday, the 27th.
They explained, “When we went to remote areas, people were eating even dirt like in Korea in the old days as there was nothing to eat. A pickup truck is a necessity as we visit remote areas where there is no road in some areas and sometimes it takes half a day just to get there.”
At the end of last year, he visited a felony prison in Masapa and distributed personal hygiene items such as towels and facial soap to about 1,000 inmates including heinous criminals.
Pastor Jang said, “I am a retired pastor after serving at Wooi Central Church in Korea. I came to Eswatini after I retired relatively early at the age of 62 and came to Africa in 2015 to realize that there is a lot of work to do.”
“As long as I am healthy and strong enough, I will continue to serve” he added.
Eswatini, the only monarchy in Africa, has a population of about 1.1 million, and about a third of them live in absolute poverty. There are about 90 Koreans in Eswatini. (source: Yonhap News).
He does justice for the orphan and the widow, and he loves the stranger and gives him bread and clothes, love the stranger, for you were also strangers in the land of Egypt (Deuteronomy 10:18-19).
God, thank You for sharing the news of the church serving and caring for the poor in Eswatini, where a third of the population lives in absolute poverty. May the grace of unity be added to their service and the gospel of the Lord who does justice and loves strangers may be preached. So, let everyone who receives food for the body also long for Jesus Christ who is the food for the spirit, so that the souls of this land may be saved and give praise and glory to God.
Prayer 24·365
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