As I grew older and more mature, I became preoccupied with the question, “What will I be when I grow up?” I enjoyed observing and studying nature, so I gave some thought to becoming a scientist. However, I changed my mind after I saw the tragedy of how people were plundered by the Japanese colonial authorities. They suffered so much that they could not even feed themselves. It didn’t seem that becoming a scientist, even if it led to my winning a Nobel Prize, would be a way for me to wipe away the tears of suffering people.

       I wanted to become a person who could take away the tears that flowed from people’s eyes and the sorrow that was in their hearts. When I was lying in the forest listening to the songs of the birds, I would think, “The world needs to be made as warm and tender as those songs. I should become someone who makes people’s lives as fragrant as flowers.” I didn’t know what career I should pursue to accomplish that, but I became convinced that I should be a person who could give happiness to people.

       When I was ten our family converted to Christianity by the grace of Great-Uncle Yun Guk Moon, who was a minister and led a fervent life of faith. From then on, I attended church faithfully, without ever missing a week. If I arrived at service even a little late, I would be so ashamed that I could not even raise my face. I don’t know what I could have understood at such a young age to inspire me to be this way, but God was already a huge presence in my life. I was spending more and more time wrestling with questions dealing with life and death, and the suffering and sorrows of human existence.