Yo Han

On Wednesday, my 10th grade student Yo Han Lim was in a fatal moto crash.  Our high school has about 90 students, all of whom knew him pretty well - in fact, even most elementary students and teachers knew him.  He was just hard to miss: boisterous, outgoing, impulsive, the life of the party. 

He loved leading worship and just jamming on the guitar with friends in the hallway after school.  In French class, he would shout out vocab words when we were reviewing them and often knew them, but never bothered to learn their correct pronunciation.  He was always the first one done with quizzes, even when I made him go back and proofread, and they always had silly mistakes because he had rushed. 

In so many ways, he was an open book.  If he was frustrated with schoolwork, it was obvious.  If he was confused, he would ask me a million questions in a row.  If he was excited, he couldn't contain his enthusiasm.  So his major life transformation in 9th grade was well-known to the whole high school.

Yo Han and a classmate presenting each other in French during the French II fashion show last fall.  They went for "le look de couple."

To get to know him for yourself, here's his story in his own words.  He wrote this as a Facebook note in December 2011.

This is a story of my life from maybe second grade? But just the main events :)  hope this makes u laugh :)

So when i first came in to Logos international school it was 2003 january.  I was put in to kindergarden, and i only knew the alphabets. I studied the some english words and i was able to skip the first grade and go in to second grade. Some of the friends i met in second grade are still in 10th grade. :) kinda cool.

Little Yo Han, far left, playing with his younger brother Daehan (in the red shorts) and some Khmer friends

[...] Fourth grade was the beginning of my 'getting in trouble everyday' year. I started getting behaviour contracts and i had to get a smiley face for every class. if i got enough amount of smiley faces, we would go to pizza company and eat pizza :) We also had the thing called "flipping the cards" and everytime a student was loud or caused some kind of trouble, they had to go flip their card and first it was green then yellow then red and then the final black. black meant going to the office. well, to be exact, every week, i visited the office with a black card under my name. and in second semester of 4th grade, i was in the office more than i was in class. I wrote tons of sorry papers to teachers too. It was kinda of fun year.

Fifth grade came, and it was just a normal year. I was mean. Lots of girls hated me in fifth grade. I also fought a lot. I still went to the office. nothing really special though

Seventh grade. This would be the year i would never forget. After i got back from korea, i wanted to do all this stuff that i though was cool, such as skipping school on the day when we had a bible test. (don't judge me please :) i don't do this anymore :) ) and i was caught of course..haha and man, this was a miserable year for me. I had 3 F 2 D 2 C and 2 B's. NO A's haha. I, would like to thank my parents for being tolerant. I also had to prove my improvements to the teachers so that i don't get kicked out of Logos and at the end of that year, i did improve :)

8th grade was a little better:) it was the year of 'lets enjoy before we get in to highschool'  lots of friends, lots of fun. barelly no visiting the office and writing sorry papers.

Then i went to kenya, for the summer vacation and it brought a great impact on my life.  It changed the way i looked at things and changed my perspective on everything.

I came back for 9th grade, and i have to say that it was my favorite year so far.  OUr class Unity was really strong. Everyone worked hard. Many service trips without service hours brought our class together because we didn't go just to get service hours but out of pure heart to help the people and to show christ's love. I was able to exprience what unity was. It was just a year of everything mixed together; happiness, joy, conflicts, responsibility, unity and lots of other stuff. but it was the best year.

10th grade, started with a 'kind of quiet' and 'lets not do anything' atmosphere. I felt something was missing and so did my friends. I hope that after this break, everything will get better, and all i hope is that everything will go well in 2012.

I don't know how God will use my life to glorify him, but so far, its been great. lots of up and downs but its life. who says life is fair and who says there will be only joy. Actually, from sorrow and pain, we gain, learn, and exprience lots of things. So my last sentence would be... I don't know whats planned for me in 2012 but i trust God and i believe that God will make my 2nd semester of my 10th grade even more awesome than my 9th grade year :)

He couldn't have known how that last sentence would be fulfilled.  Ever since that Kenya trip before 9th grade, Yo Han was markedly more excited about God.  This year, he and a friend started a Friday morning prayer group, mostly praying for the student body and asking God to unite students in Christ and to bring them closer to God.  His passion spread to a number of his classmates and students in other grades.  Mourning him has highlighted the spiritual legacy he leaves us.

Performing with Logos friends during a gig downtown. 
Besides God, music was his #1 priority.

Here are a few of the other sophomores' Facebook comments about him.

From Matthew: A Man of God, A True Follower of Christ, He was and still is my friend. I look up to him and will always remember him till the day I meet him. He's now chilling with Christ and all the rest. He has shown me so much and encouraged me through my problems. He showed me that change in one's life really does happen because it happened to him...
I'm glad I had a friend like you, Yo Han Lim

From Becca:Yo Han, you are amazing.  You taught me how to talk about problems instead of keeping them all inside.  I want to be just like you.  I had such a great time playing music with you.  Whenever something goes wrong while we were playing music, you would look at my face and we would telepathically communicate and fix the problem, letting the song end so perfectly awesome!  As we have grown together and studied in the same class for over 10 years, I have seen many changes in you, GREAT changes.  God really DOES have a plan for you and I hope he has a great plan for me too.  I WILL miss you from time to time but I know that I WILL meet you again.

From Moses: "I have the hope in God that in the end, I will be in a perfect relationship with Him and that I will be in His perfect kingdom praising God...I learned that I should have faith in him and preserve in every hard situation believing the fact that He is working in my life, in areas I cannot see and that He has everything planned for life."
-Part of Yo Han Lim's Bible essay about faith-
Yes, Yohan. I am sure that you are in His perfect Kingdom praising God.
Yes, Yohan. God had everything planned for your life.
Actually, His plan for you is in progress.
Because, God will still carry out wonderful miracles to the world, through your death.
Yohan, see you soon up there.

From Kristi, a teacher: When I walked into school Friday morning the Khmer cleaner on the 4th floor (who only speaks Khmer) was looking at the pictures of Yo Han Lim and asking what happened. I told her that he had died in an accident. She was really upset and said that he used to help her clean when he noticed it was hard for her. She said he also prayed for her when she was going through difficult things. This is the guy who John Roberts had to teach how to sweep in 8th grade. The testimony of Jesus working through his life just doesn't end.

Last but not least, Gabie, a student who moved back to the Philippines, posted his chat with her from a while back.  These are Yo Han's words to encourage her:

Gabie, i Sincerly sincerely hope that God will not only get you fired up for Him but bring you to a point where you realize „This is the amazing God that i am worshiping and this is the God that I am calling on to,“ The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction. – Proverbs 1:7  I hope this verse can be your starting-offf verse.  To fear the Lord, not to be scared but consider him as the almighty one that deserves all the glory from you!  I will pray for you too! Hope you grow stronger in Christ and there will be times of trouble for you and everyone but having patience and faith in the Lord that he will pull you through it.  God will show you things thats beyond your imagination , He will work in your ways that you never imagined and always stick to this verse whenever you question God of what he is doing in your life and circumstances that you are in that God has put you in to be the light. „For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neithe are your ways my ways,“ declares the LORD. And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine –Isaiah 55:8

God loves you GABIE!

Besides Kristi, all these comments are from students in 10th grade.  I get to work with them.  How incredible is that?  I can't wait to see Yo Han's prayers for his classmates continue to be fulfilled through the tragedy surrounding his death. 

In Korean: "Lord, I love you!  :-)"

Jesus wept

I’ve cried a lot since I found out Thursday morning that Yo Han Lim, one of my tenth grade students, had passed away in a moto accident.  Sometimes I was crying for his family, sometimes for Logos students, sometimes for myself.  Sometimes I didn’t even know why I was crying. 

One thing’s for sure.  I wasn’t crying for Yo Han.  Everyone who knows Yo Han knows how much he loved Jesus and how dramatically God has changed his life in the past two years.  We know he’s having the time of his life in heaven.  He was just talking with another teacher, Tim Jones, this weekend about how much he was looking forward to heaven and what an amazing adventure it would be.  I’ve loved reading students’ posts about that.  "Have fun!  See you soon!"  One said when we get there and join Yo Han, he’ll talk faster than ever, so excited to tell us what we’ve been missing out on.  No, Yo Han doesn’t need any tears, because he’s happier now than he’s ever been. 

But I was crying nonetheless.  As I thought about why, I was so thankful to be reminded of a Bible passage I studied earlier this spring.  Some friends and I have been studying the book of John, including chapter 11, where Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead.  A lot of people know one verse from that chapter, just because it’s the shortest verse in the whole English Bible: “Jesus wept.”  But I’d never really looked at that verse till we studied it.

First, let’s set the scene.  Jesus is good friends with three siblings - Mary, Martha, and Lazarus - but he’s in another town when Lazarus becomes deathly ill.  So Lazarus’s sisters send a message telling Jesus, “Lord, the one you love is sick,” but Jesus stays put for two days before he heads to their town.  When he arrives, Lazarus has already been buried for four days. 

Mary goes out to meet Jesus as he arrives, and she collapses in utter grief and says, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”  What were you thinking?  You could have saved him!  Don’t you care?  Aren’t you powerful?

Jesus sees her weeping, surrounded by a crowd of weeping friends, and “he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled.”  And…here it comes…Jesus wept.  He weeps right along with them.

What the heck?!  He knows, far better than any of them, that death is NOT the end of the story – that by leaving earth, Lazarus gets to arrive in his real home, the place where his heart is fully satisfied.  He even knows that in just a minute, He’s going to bring Lazarus back to life on earth.  (Did Lazarus even want to come back?  No one ever talks about that part.  My theology here is quite hazy, but I’m hoping Lazarus didn’t consciously arrive in heaven yet, because earth would be such a huge letdown after a taste of heaven.)  They’ll watch Lazarus walk right out of the tomb.  Mary’s tears will turn to laughter.  Their friends’ mourning will yield to shock and delight.  Just one more minute till the sorrow is over!  Jesus knows that.  He could even forego the crying bit and skip ahead to the “raising from the dead” part.  So why on earth is Jesus weeping?

It’s because He loves us.  Jesus wept because when He became human, loving people started to hurt him just as much as it hurts us.  He wept because it broke his heart to see Mary and Martha so overcome with grief.  He wept for all of us humans, for the burdens we carry because of sin and death.  The broken relationships.  The things left unsaid.  The fear and jealousy and selfishness and bitterness.  The sickness and warfare and heart-wrenching pain.  We were helpless against it all, and He felt its weight firsthand with his dear friends Martha and Mary.  He wept because it’s so hard for us, this “being human” stuff, and His heart goes out to us.  And He wanted us to know that He knows, He really KNOWS what it feels like to lose someone you love dearly. 

A couple verses later, Jesus is at the tomb, asking Martha for an act of faith.  “Take away the stone.” 

“It’s going to stink in there,” she protests. 

But He tells her, “If you believe, you will see the glory of God.” 

They take away the stone from the tomb’s entrance and Jesus prays, “Father, thank you that you always hear me.  Please let them know it and believe that you sent me.”  He calls, “Lazarus, come out!” and Lazarus does, very much alive and well.  But Jesus is thinking bigger than just his friend walking and talking again.  That’s good news indeed, but He wants to spread bigger and better news.  God is good!  God is powerful!  God is about to rescue you, the human race!  Wake up, people, and behold God's glory!

Lazarus’ story is a hint of Jesus’ power against death.  But Lazarus wasn’t immortal after that.  After however long, he had to die all over again.  The dying process probably wasn’t comfortable.  His sisters and friends probably missed him just as much the second time around.  His resurrection in John 11 was a temporary fix to a universal problem: Our bodies don’t last.  They’re like tents, as 1 Corinthians 15 says, that can’t hold our souls forever. 

The bigger and better news comes a few chapters later.  As Jesus is crucified, all those burdens we’ve carried from sin and death weigh heavy upon him.  The broken relationships.  The things left unsaid.  The fear and jealousy and selfishness and bitterness.  The sickness and warfare and heart-wrenching pain.  All the sources of his tears with Mary and Martha, he battles against their full force.  His last words were, “It is finished” – the battle was won. 

Two days later, we meet another Mary outside a different tomb – Jesus’ own.  She too is weeping... until she sees angels where Jesus’ body should be.  Just then, a gardener appears: Jesus in disguise.  This time, instead of joining in, He asks her, “Why are you crying?”  He knows well the ache in her heart, but it’s time to announce that those burdens have lost their ability to paralyze us.  They remain for us while we are on earth, and they may weigh on us for years and years, but they are only a shadow of their former selves. 

So now, we're living between Lazarus' first resurrection and our final one.  Relationships still break, but they can be mended, and our most important relationship is assured.  We've been given peace that can daily replace our fear, our jealousy, our selfishness, our bitterness.  Sickness and warfare still claim lives, but our goodbyes to those we love are only for a while, because in the span of eternity, the longest lifetime is soon over.  When we lament to God, Where are you?  Don't you care?  Aren't you powerful? we know the answers can be found at the cross.  And when we leave earth, God promises to wipe away every tear, because there's no room for death and mourning and crying and pain in our new, joy-filled lives with Him (Revelation 21).

Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?
-1 Corinthians 15:55

Your tears are over, Yo Han.  Mine will be too when I see you soon.