Boo-Sam Kim & Sang-Mi Lee

"We had been in torment, without child for 6 years, but we give all thanks and glory to God for blessing us with a child!"

The birth of a baby girl born to Deacon Boo-Sam Kim (1-6 Parish), Managing Editor and a 14-year veteran National Assembly Correspondent at Sisa News, and his wife, has been causing sensation. By God's grace, they celebrated the birth of their first child after 6 years of marriage. Manmin News recently interviewed Deacon Kim.

Q: Congratulations on becoming a father! How did you meet your wife?
A: I met my wife Deaconess Sang-Mi Lee in January 2000.

Q: When did you collapse from diaphragmatic hernia?
A: At around 7 o'clock in the evening on March 13, 2003, about six months after the wedding, I collapsed from an acute abdominal pain and was carried to a hospital on an ambulance. In the emergency room and in an unbearable pain, I cried out to God, "Please, save me!" for a long time and lost consciousness. Then in a vision I saw my wife, standing in rain with one rubber shoe on and the other on her foot, repeatedly and tearfully calling out my name. I felt so terrible for my wife and, vowing to live, I prayed to God again. After being diagnosed with diaphragmatic hernia and undergoing an operation, and while recuperating in the recovery room, I saw a circular rainbow after rain stopped and the mural in the Main Sanctuary of Manmin Central Church. I was at peace.

Q: How did you join Manmin? Have you noticed any differences within you before and after joining the church?
A: I met with Senior Pastor Dr. Jaerock Lee for the first time in May 2000 for an interview. At the time my family had for generations worshipped idols, so the moment I sat down with the Senior Pastor, I began trembling in tremendous fear and that interview did not go well. Also at the time, I was in love with such worldly things as drinking and smoking. Led by Deacon Moon-Hak Ma shortly afterwards, my wife and I joined Manmin Central Church.

I obeyed the Senior Pastor's messages, some of which stressed believers to "Avoid every kind of evil," "Never befriend the world," "Keep the Sabbath holy," and the like. It's been a long while since I quit drinking and smoking altogether, and I am making every effort to obey every bit of God's Word and to enter whole spirit.

Q: How did you end up carrying the Senior Pastor's columns on Sisa News?
A: The Senior Pastor, who leads all souls around the world to New Jerusalem with messages of life and the power given to him by God Himself, always stresses that he is merely a servant of God, that all power belongs to God, and that God alone is to receive all glory. Moreover, just as we find in the Bible, the Senior Pastor manifests extraordinary miracles and wonders. I was disheartened, however, to see a church, a true servant of the Lord, and the works of God being judged and condemned by some people so I began publishing his columns on Sisa News and emailed it to my closest friends and fellow churchgoers. I first began emailing some 50 people; 3 years later, I send the Senior Pastor's columns via email to more than 1,500 people.

Q: What did you and your wife try to have a baby during the first 6 years of marriage?
A: I've always loved children and my wife also hoped in earnest to have children. She tried very hard to have a baby. She had all types of dishes that would supposedly help her become pregnant, herbal medicine, and even artificial fertilization while going to a specialized hospital for women for a year.

Q: When you bound yourselves to God in prayer for a child, in what way did you and your wife pray to Him?
A: When I was stricken with urethral stone, I was not cured completely at the hospital. I repented thoroughly, received the Senior Pastor's prayer by faith, and was healed completely of that. Thinking God to be the only One who could provide for us everything and anything, my wife and I set "the blessing of pregnancy" as a prayer topic of Year 2007, and clung to Him in prayer. On Sunday, January 28, 2008, we received the Senior Pastor's prayer for "the blessing of pregnancy" and afterwards, we prayed from the heart and kept the Lord's Day holy. After that, God sent us a baby!

Q: How did you feel when you learned of your wife's pregnancy?
A: I'm sure it is the case with every father in the world, but I instantly became speechless and I cannot adequately describe with words to this day the joy and gladness I felt that day. The news of my wife's pregnancy was a tremendous deal for all of us.

Q: And even after you heard that the baby could be born with birth defects, you still said, "The child's been given to us by God. We'll go ahead with the labor"?
A: At the 12 weeks of the pregnancy, a test was run on zona pellucida to see if the child would be deformed in any way and it was found that the baby's neck measured 2.5 millimeters thick. The doctor told us that if a baby's neck was 2.5 millimeters or thicker, there was a chance that the child could be born with Down syndrome or heart defects. He said that if the results of amnioscopy were normal, that would be good; if not, we would have to try having a baby again. So my wife and I received the Senior Pastor's prayer with peace in our hearts for the child conceived by God's grace. On November 21, 2007, my wife gave birth to a healthy baby girl, weighing 3.5 kilograms (about 7.7 pounds), and 49 centimeters (about 19.2 inches) in height.

Q: Do you remember the first time you saw your daughter in the nursery?
A: I felt like I was dreaming when I first saw Yoo-Seon. On that day, 18 babies were born but our Yoo-Seon was the prettiest! I was all the more grateful as she joined the Manmin family. I give all thanks and glory to the Lord Jesus Christ and God for blessing our family with a beautiful child! Hallelujah!

Reported by Jennifer Im; Photographs by David Kim