I grew up in a family of nine children—six boys and three girls. I was the eighth child.
My father was a shoemaker, and my mother was a homemaker. We lived in a very poor rural village. As a child, I was not particularly interested in studying. I much preferred spending time with my friends. I began attending a small rural church when I was young, following my older sister.
I lived in the countryside through middle school. When I was fifteen, during my second year of middle school, I saw a young girl who had come from Seoul to visit our church. I only saw her for one day, but somehow that encounter remained in my heart. From then on, I decided that I wanted to go to high school in the city.
I failed the entrance examination the first time, but I studied for another year and was eventually admitted.
During my second year of high school, I somehow found out the girl’s address and began corresponding with her by letter. In my heart, I had already decided that I would marry her someday.
From that time on, I began to pray a very simple prayer:
“Lord, if You will allow me to marry this girl, I promise that I will devote the rest of my life to serving You.”
That promise became very important to me.
When I was about twenty years old, I moved to Seoul because I wanted to study theology. There was no seminary in the small city where I lived, so I had to go to Seoul. When I told my family that I wanted to attend seminary, everyone opposed the idea.
So I simply bought a train ticket and went to Seoul.
During the day, I worked in a shoe factory, and at night I attended seminary.
My girlfriend was also living in Seoul. We often met and talked, and sometimes she even came to visit my seminary.
Then one day, I met her again. Two weeks later, I heard that she was going to be married at a church in Seoul. So I attended her wedding.
The following year, I entered the military.
When I came home on my first military leave, I met her younger sister. She told me that her sister was now alone. I remember feeling somewhat surprised, but also strangely thankful and even happy.
I thought, “Perhaps God is finally answering my prayer. Perhaps He is giving me the opportunity to marry her, just as I promised Him.”
After I was discharged from the military, I met her again when I was twenty-four.
She told me what had happened. Her mother had pressured her to marry at a very young age, but her husband had been unfaithful, and she had left the marriage after only three months. They had never officially registered their marriage, and they had no children.
Because we still had feelings and memories from our younger days, I suggested that we begin meeting again, this time simply as friends.
She had majored in piano and was accompanying the choir at a small church. The church asked me to serve as the choir director, so we began seeing each other regularly.
As we spent more time together, our old relationship gradually returned.
Eventually, I asked her, “Why don’t we get married?”
We were both twenty-seven when we married.
At that time, I was a second-year seminary student, and she was a fourth-year university student. For the first year of our marriage, we were both still students—a student couple learning how to build a family while continuing our studies.
The following year, our first son was born.