Inside Story for Friday 28th of November 2025

Kim Sun is associate director of the 1000 Missionary Movement, whose headquarters in Silang, Philippines, were constructed with the help of a 1996 Thirteenth Sabbath Offering. Read more next week.

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Image © Pacific Press

Kim Sun, a South Korean teen studying at the Adventist University of the Philippines, wondered if he could make a career out of going door-to-door after a man whom he had invited to evangelistic meetings got baptized. He wasn’t Adventist, and it had been his first time going door-to-door.

“What’s this that we were doing?” he asked a pastor who had accompanied the students going door-to-door. “Is it called community service?”

The pastor smiled. “No,” he said. “It’s called mission.”

“Is there a full-time job like this?” Sun said.

“Yes,” the pastor said. “It’s called being a missionary.”

“Can I have this job, too?”

“Yes. The income isn’t so much, but you can do it.”

“How can I do it?”

“You’ll have to change your studies from nursing to theology.”

“Oh. I’ll need to ask my mom.”

Sun was studying in the Philippines because his parents had wanted him to make something of his life. Before, he had been living for himself.

When Sun spoke to his mother, he asked if he could change his major.

Mother was confused. “What is theology?” she said.

“Theology is serving the church,” he said, adding that the pay may be low.

Mother said he could take theology if he also finished his nursing studies.

“But nursing isn’t meaningful to me,” Sun said.

Then Mother had an idea. Her goal wasn’t for him to be rich but to be a good person. “If you take theology, can you drink or smoke?” she said.

When he said no, she exclaimed, “Then please change your studies!”

Sun loved theology. He learned the biblical basis for the seventh-day Sabbath. He read the prophecies of Daniel and Revelation. He got baptized.

When he returned home for vacations, he tried to persuade his parents to accept his new beliefs. “Mom and Dad, sit down and let me talk to you,” he said. “Sunday is not the Sabbath day. Saturday is the Sabbath. Do you know Daniel’s interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream?”

He couldn’t understand why his parents weren’t open-minded. He was dismayed when Mother finally asked him to stop, saying, “You take your God, and I’ll take my God,” she said.

“But they’re the same God!” he said. “We have to follow God’s Word.”

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