Pastor Baek Chung Gyeong
I began participating in the development of Wolmyeongdong in April 1991.
After graduating from campus, around the fall of 1992, something happened. One of our members came to Wolmyeongdong to do about a 40-day fast and prayer.
During the fast, his body became very weak, and eventually he collapsed and lost consciousness. No matter how much we tried to massage or wake him, he wouldn’t come to.
So we urgently put him in a vehicle and rushed him to the emergency room at Chungnam National University Hospital, but even there he wasn’t waking up.
The situation was so serious that even the doctors were tense, not knowing why this was happening. At that moment, we called Pastor Jung Myung Seok and explained the situation, asking what we should do.
Pastor Jung said, “Pray in the name of Jesus. You have to pray.”
At that time, there were three of us Wolmyeongdong managers who had gone together.
One young adult among us held the unconscious member’s hand and prayed.
At that very moment, the member opened his eyes. We were all shocked.
When the member who had been ill opened his eyes, he refused to let go of the young adult manager’s hand that had been holding and praying for him.
Even after it was past 9 a.m., when two of the three of us went for breakfast, by the time they returned, he was still holding on and wouldn’t let go.
At that time, on the floor of the emergency room, there happened to be a leaflet from Yoido Full Gospel Church that had been distributed to patients. I picked it up and read it. It was about the importance of prayer: how praying in the name of Jesus works, with Bible verses and various testimonies of prayer. It was full of good testimonies.
So I handed it to our young adult manager and told him to read it.
He read it from start to finish, and after reading it, he said, “I really need to pray.”
Just earlier, when he prayed in the name of Jesus, our member who wouldn’t open his eyes had opened them. And now he had read testimonies about what happens when you pray in the name of Jesus, so he became even more determined.
He resolved, “From now on, I will live by praying more.”
The moment he made that decision in his heart, the member who had been holding onto his hand let go. That surprised him even more.
He thought, “Ah, this must really mean God is telling me to pray!” He said he gained that realization.
So although he didn’t fully understand the value of prayer before, through that experience he came to know it more deeply and gained a faith that confirms through experience.
Through that, God gave us the miraculous, transcendent work of Jesus, and this precious, lesson-filled incident remains deeply in my heart as a testimony while I’ve been running the Providence mission. It has become a source of grace, and from time to time I share it as a testimony, reminding myself just how important prayer is.