Alan Perera

A PLACE ON THIS EARTH

The ground is covered in gold as the sun sets – shimmering, sparkling and seemingly endless.  Thin blades of grass rustle from a slight breeze like delicate strands of amber tinsel on a Christmas tree.  Somewhere in the distance, people are moving.  They’re selling things, buying things, driving trucks, getting from there to there.  But here, the land is still - not a sound can be heard.  This is the land that God gave Jong Lee three years ago.

It’s late right now, and Lee sits relaxed in his “office” – a small space crammed with wooden beams, tools, cans of donated food and an assortment of other objects.  At the age of 56, his face carries a soft, disarming grin and eyes that contain a healthy portion of delight (picture the eyes of Santa Claus).  He is a well-tanned Korean who might very well pass for a Mexican.  He’s earned it.  The land that he was granted is a few hundred acres in an area of Baja, Mexico known as San Jacinto.  Located south of Ensenada, San Jacinto does not appear on most maps - even Google’s.  But it’s there.  And for quite a few individuals, it is the most blessed place on the earth.  With this land, Lee has built a church, a set of dormitories, a classroom and a few other spaces.  There is more to be done, and he will be the first to tell you that.  But with what he has built and what he has done, the impact has already been felt. 

The most prominent part of Lee’s ministry is a school to train and disciple pastors, missionaries and teachers.  Of the thirty-eight students that he has had in a short amount of time, eight have graduated and three are now pastors leading their own congregations.  The students pay nothing for this, but are expected to serve wholeheartedly.  Together, they do outreach in the local community – especially the areas of extreme poverty - and train young adults in skills that can open the doors to better jobs and opportunities to escape their harsh economic and social conditions.  On top of all of these activities, Lee and his students continue to build.  But perhaps for all of them the building started well before the land was acquired.

THE CONVERSION OF A LUKEWARM CHRISTIAN

Before coming to San Jacinto, Jong Lee led a comfortable life as a contractor in his home country of South Korea and later in Southern California.  For most of his life, he considered himself a lukewarm Christian at best.  Speaking through a translator, Lee says, “My mother was a strong Christian, so I guess I was a Christian inside of her womb.”  However, what that meant to him was the idea of going to church, reading the Bible and praying all out of a sense of obligation.

It was not until he was forty-three when he finally made a commitment to Christ at a heart level.  Not too long after that, in 2003, he found himself signing up for a medical mission trip to San Quintín, Mexico.  What he experienced there changed his life.  He saw migrant farm workers toiling the land each day for about $1 an hour and coming home to a campo – rows of small sheet metal boxes where a family of sometimes six or seven share a space about eight feet squared.  While the parents are in the fields, the children would be left to themselves all day, playing and looking after each other.  At the age of twelve, these kids - having no formal education - can pretty much expect to join their parents in the fields, and their own children later on can expect the same thing.

But the worst thing that Lee saw was that these children and their families were living without the Gospel in their lives.  The compassion that he had for them prompted him to start making regular trips to San Quintín.  He would drive for hours from his home in Orange County to deep beyond the Mexican border.  Carting along boxes and boxes of individually packaged pastries, he would deliver one for every child that he encountered.  Each wrapped treat contained a tract with a Bible verse on it.  It was a small gesture, but it had lasting effects.  Today, the majority of his students are teenagers who – at one point in their lives – received one of these gifts from Missionary Lee when they were younger.

Over the years, Lee continued to make these trips to San Quintín, and it was getting to a point where he was doing it every week - preaching from the Bible and dropping off donated food and clothes.  He was a familiar face, and every time that he arrived, he received a warm welcome – especially from the children.  They loved him – not just for his gifts – but for the joy that he found in being with them.

Yet, as he continued to do this in his late forties and into his fifties, it started to wear him down.  All of the driving was especially exhausting, and quite often he found himself knocking on the door of a church late at night – whatever church he came across – and asking if he could sleep in the sanctuary.  This eventually led to a prayer that God would grant him land to do his ministry full-time.

Then came 2010.  There was a severe flood a few miles from San Quintín that mainly affected the city of Camalú and its residents.  After hearing about it, Lee drove down with donations to help the flood victims.  He responded very quickly and spent three days there.  At this point, there were quite a few individuals who took notice of him – including one of the city officials.  He was so grateful for Missionary Lee’s efforts that he asked him if there was anything he could do for him.  Lee, of course, was already prepared with an answer: land. 

Three months later, his request was granted, and Lee found himself staring at the empty acres of San Jacinto.  It was hard for him to take in the fact that God had answered his prayer - God provided.  He had a clear idea of what he wanted to build there: a church, a clinic, some classrooms… but for the first eight months, he stared – stared and prayed.  The joy in his eyes returns as he recounts this part of the story: “I was so happy that I could not sleep.”  With no money and no help from anyone else, this once lukewarm Christian set up a small tent on the ground and prayed – prayed with a thankful heart and prayed that God would finish the job.

BUILDING ON FOUNDATIONS

It was a church from Buena Park, California that first made a trip to San Jacinto to help Missionary Lee.  The members of the team picked up small rocks to mix into concrete since he could not afford it.  For three days they did this.  It was a tedious process, but finally there was enough to lay the church’s foundation.  Over time, more churches and individuals heard about Lee’s ministry and offered to help – either by donating or by paying a visit to do some manual labor.  The foundation for the dormitory was established next followed by his living quarters as well as a storage area for food – to keep the coyotes away – and another storage area for tools.  Soon after, the kitchen was built along with a separate space to house a baking furnace.  At first, everything was covered by large tarps.  But in the second year, the walls and the roofs started to go up for the church and the other structures.

Coming from a background in construction, Missionary Lee is quite familiar with how to build a foundation and set up the framework on top of it, adding drywall and plaster in the process.  He does not claim to be an expert, but he does have a strong grasp on the cheapest and most efficient way to build a structure.  This year, work on a computer classroom was completed, the framework for more classrooms went up, and the foundation has been laid for a small health clinic where he intends to offer free medical assistance for anyone who needs it.  He has high hopes to have all of these finished by next year but understands that it is all up to God.  “Construction, fending off coyotes… all of these challenges are secondary,” Lee admits.  “The most challenging thing is doing missions God’s way.  Missions work is very difficult.  You have to give up your life.  So, I surrender again and again, and ask God to provide.”

Since acquiring the land in San Jacinto, Missionary Lee has not requested help from anyone.  Yet, an abundance of help has come from churches in Southern California and South Korea. This past summer, for example, groups – ranging between five and sixty people - from twelve churches in total came to help with construction efforts and childrens’ ministry.  This number does not include the churches and individuals that send donations.  How it works is that someone finds out about the ministry that he is doing in San Jacinto, they tell others, and in turn those people tell others.  Lee merely responds to their offers to help him.

He says, “It has come to a point where a lot of missionaries carry a bad reputation because of their constant demand for donations.  So, I don’t go to churches and ask for help.  If you ask a person to come, then it becomes that person’s burden and responsibility to help.  But if you don’t ask people and ask God instead, then it becomes God’s burden and responsibility.  I just want to trust God one-hundred percent.  I don’t do anything.  God does everything.”

THE ROAD TO DAMASCUS

The English translation for “Jong” is “Paul” – or “Pablo”, as his students call him.  This seems appropriate considering how much Jong Lee looks up to Paul from the Bible.  Like the influential apostle of the early church, Lee experienced a radical conversion that caused him to abandon his previous life in favor of one that wholeheartedly seeks to advance God’s kingdom and care for the needs of others.  And also like Paul, Missionary Lee knows that in order to do this, he must raise up Christians that share the vision God gave him and can carry on his work long after he’s gone.   

In one of his letters from the New Testament, Paul – knowing full well that his ministry was coming to a close – encouraged his most trusted disciple Timothy to continue the work that he has started well into the next generation and beyond: “You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus, and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.” (2 Timothy 2: 1-2 ESV)

There are long term plans for Missionary Lee’s land that have yet to be realized: a borehole water well, a ranch for livestock, fields to grow fruits and vegetables – goals that would allow him and his students to be more self-sustaining.  But beyond all of this, Lee looks past his own life just as Paul did.  “Eventually, my top students are going to take over and continue the work that has been started here,” he explains as he shifts his eyes past what’s in front of him and smiles.  “That’s at the heart of God’s mission in this world: that it keeps going.  God lives forever, and He’s going to work here for a long time.”

Special thanks to Love Community Church and to Yong Sun Kim for translating.

All work © Alan Perera. Website © 2012 Alan Perera, all rights reserved.