Jimmy Rim Sobbed For His Sins—and RESCUED Refugees
JIMMY RIM”S MOM knelt and prayed for his salvation every morning. One day she went to an island off the coast of Korea and told the Lord she wasn’t leaving until he answered her prayer for her son. Two weeks later, the Lord told her she could go home: her prayer had been heard. At home she found a letter from Rim asking for a Bible.
At the time, Rim was in Cambodia, instructing military recruits in Tae Kwan Do, a type of martial art. Hobnobbing with corrupt generals, his own behavior had become drunken and violent.
One night he dreamed he was surrounded by a bright light. A man in white poured hot oil on him. He woke with a fever so violent and painful he thought he was dying. Not wanting to wake his neighbors, he sat and thought about his wicked life and all the evil he had done. He took a swig of liquor but the alcohol burned his throat, esophagus, and stomach so terribly he could only roll on the floor in agony.
With first light, when curfew ended, he walked outside to get fresh air and discovered a Christian chapel he had never noticed before. On this day, 25 June 1973, he knelt for two hours at the altar, weeping, but had no idea how to pray. That is why he asked his mother for a Bible.
Fifteen days later the New Testament arrived. He read it cover to cover several times and asked the Lord to help him understand what he was reading. The Scripture finally began to make sense to him and he confessed his sins.
From that point Rim was a changed man. As a child he had been separated from his family for two years during the Korean War and had been forced to fend for himself. Now an orphan boy came up to him on the street and asked Rim to take him in. Rim remembered his own ordeal and accepted the boy. That was the beginning of his work with orphans. With the Marxist Khmer Rouge closing in on the city of Phnom Penh, orphans abounded. The work was difficult, and his Christian faith met hostility in the Buddhist nation. He learned to live a life of prayer as needs increased. The Lord always provided. Sometimes Rim’s previous connections with high officials proved helpful.
Rim's mother became gravely ill in March 1975 and he hurried home to Korea to see her before she died. By the time he got there, she was fully recovered. When he attempted to return to his orphans in Phnom Penh, he was unable to do so because the communists had surrounded the city.
Rim protested to the Lord, but was shown that the orphans belonged not to him but to Christ. The Lord had another work for Rim and had used his mother’s illness to get him out of Cambodia in the nick of time. Phnom Penh fell to the communists a couple weeks later, in April 1975. Soon Rim was pouring every ounce of his energy and risking his life to rescue and feed Cambodian refugees along the Thai border. Relations between Cambodia and Thailand were tense, making his efforts difficult. Christians in Singapore and organizations such as the Overseas Missionary Fellowship, World Vision, and Samaritan’s Purse supported his efforts.
The Khmer Rouge ruled Cambodia for four years, slaughtering a third of the population, including virtually every doctor and intellectual. Eventually Vietnam invaded, establishing a more moderate government. Rim’s autobiography, With Christ in the Killing Fields, ended with an announcement of a new project: a Cambodian training school for orphans.
Little is recorded about Rim’s later years. He developed severe diabetes and had to have amputations. I have not even been able to learn when or where he died. If any of our readers have knowledge of his final efforts, we would welcome hearing from you.
—Dan Graves
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For more on the Killing Fields, watch 1,000 Years in the Killing Fields at RedeemTV
For more on Christianity in Cambodia, watch Awakening Cambodia
Awakening Cambodia can also be purchased at Vision Video.