Somehow
We heard that there was a nation without a Bible in its own language. And we responded to that news.
At first with sorrow, and then with gratitude for what felt like an incredible invitation.
After that, God’s plans began unfolding one by one. Things we had only dreamed about started becoming reality. A Bible translated into Kriol, the language of Guinea-Bissau, was produced in Korea, and around 12,000 copies were printed and distributed. Not only that, we also created and illustrated 100,000 evangelistic booklets that explained Jesus through pictures, with support from various churches helping make the printing possible.
When we transported the first 1,600 copies, we carried them ourselves alongside others. But moving 10,000 Bibles and 100,000 booklets was on a completely different scale. We needed a shipping container. And so began something that had never been done before: sending a container from Korea to Guinea-Bissau filled with Bibles.
The Bibles and booklets, which had been scattered across different locations, were gathered together in one place. At the Moroview workshop alone, there were more than 3,000 Bibles stored. Young adults and mission organizations helped carry those heavy boxes together.
Even planning the shipping route was difficult, and the transportation costs alone came to about 14 million won. But looking back now, the project that once seemed like it would cost hundreds of millions of won when we first imagined it — the Lord had already provided for it all along. Once again, I want to express my gratitude to everyone who responded together with us to this dream.
In November 2024, less than 100 days after our daughter Roa was born, we loaded the books into the container at the port in Incheon. Then on December 5, the container safely departed.
After that, even while continuing various mission trips and ministry schedules, we never stopped tracking the shipment. We kept checking to see whether it was making its way safely. When we confirmed that it had arrived near Guinea-Bissau, we expected it would finally reach the country sometime around March.
Dan, who had helped with the packing work back in November, gradually began filming the entire process. He recorded an interview with missionary Mijung Kwak sharing her gratitude, as well as an interview with me for those who had supported the project. Somewhere along the way, he began dreaming about turning this Bible project into a documentary. Even if he had to go alone, he wanted to travel to Guinea-Bissau, capture the moment the Bibles were unloaded, and document the stories of Muslim young people whose lives had been changed through the Scriptures. But he seemed deeply conflicted about it.
Honestly, so was I.
Dan was one of the first people who had gone to Guinea-Bissau with me. He had gone again once after that, but during the season when the Bible project truly began moving forward, he had not been there alongside me. I was the one who traveled across the country introducing the project, securing copyright licenses, and carrying the weight of the process step by step. The relationships with the Muslim young people who had received the gospel through the Bibles were also relationships connected to me. I had witnessed God’s astonishing plans unfolding with my own eyes and rejoiced in them. So could I really be absent from the film documenting all of this? Honestly, it didn’t feel possible.
Still, I couldn’t bring myself to say it easily.
Roa was not even 150 days old yet, and I was already wrestling with whether I should go again in July. The memory of being robbed in Guinea-Bissau while Roa was still in the womb crossed my mind. We also had no financial means to make this happen, and I wondered what I was even thinking. And yet, I kept seeing myself there in my mind.
Eventually, I finally said it.
“Somehow… I think I need to go. I have to.”
The moment the words left my mouth, a smile spread across Dan’s face. He had wanted to ask me to come with him first, but because he understood all the circumstances, he couldn’t bring himself to say it.