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ABOUT JOSHUA KIM
Personal history
On December 1, 1990, Joshua Kim was born. After spending time in Miami and Korea, he moved to Orlando during his formative years. He was accepted into the University of Central Florida where he was fulfilling pre-med requirements with hopes of following in his father's footsteps of becoming a doctor. However, deep in his heart, he could not shake his love for music. After two years at UCF, he applied to and was accepted into the prestigious Berklee College of Music near Boston. He found out in the summer of 2011 that he had been accepted and was set to enroll in classes starting in the fall of 2011. His dream was to write songs that tell about the goodness of God and the hope that He offers.
Involvement in missions
His passion for music was clear at an early age. In 2005, as an eighth-grader, Joshua joined our church's praise team. One of his favorite songs said, "Tell the world that Jesus lives:' He took those words literally and in 2006, he went for the first time on an inner-city outreach trip. It would be the first of four trips to the inner-city. And he didn't stop there. Every year since 2006, he's gone somewhere to tell the world that Jesus lives, going to the Dominican Republic four times and Taiwan once. In 2011, he went to Ecuador for the first time.
August 4, 2011
Though 2011 was the first time Joshua went to Ecuador, it was the third year that our church went. We were introduced to the country in 2009 through a missionary that we supported. An opportunity arose to work with an extremely isolated group of natives in the Amazon region, the Cofan people. Though the location was remote and travel difficult, for two years, we worked among and served these people.
In 2011, we went with the idea that it would be our last year. While ministry was similar, one major difference was that for the first time, we ate meals in the homes of the natives. One Ecuadorian said, "Ecuador is not like other Latin American countries. They don't invite people into their home. To do so is a big deal:' After three years, they were beginning to trust us, to consider us family.
August 4 was to be our last day in the Amazon region before our team of 8 left for Quito and back to the States. That morning, Joshua volunteered to share his testimony of how much God had changed his life during an evening worship service in Cabeno. In the morning, we were in Cabeno doing manual labor, working on the church building. One of the men of Cabeno suggested that after eating lunch, we go to a river to swim and cool off. So we did. It was in that river that Joshua would breathe his final breath. He died on August 4, 2011, in a land that he loved, a land to which he had come to tell the world of the Savior that he loved. Though he never got to share his story in Cabeno that night, his story is still being told.
