Happy New Year & Cru Winter Conference
- heegikim
- Dec 31, 2025
- 3 min read
Happy New Year!
As we conclude 2025 by God’s grace and step into 2026, we would like to express our heartfelt gratitude to everyone who has partnered with us and supported us through prayer. We bless you in the name of the Lord, praying that the coming year, 2026, will be filled with His grace and love.
Gyeongseon and I will be attending the Cru Winter Conference (cruwinterconference.com) held in Washington, DC, from January 1–6, 2026. During this time, we will be serving more than 1,000 college students and helping them dream and embrace God’s vision for their lives. We kindly ask for your prayers for all the staff members and speakers who are serving in various programs, as well as for every student, that the conference may be completed safely and fruitfully under the Lord’s protection.
As we wrap up 2025, we would like to share a testimony sent on the morning of December 31 by Kangyu, a student currently attending NJIT, as a way of sending our New Year’s greetings.
For the first 18+ years of my life, I did not know that spending eternity in hell was even a possibility. When I eventually found out, it still took me almost a year to finally give my life to Jesus. As 2025 comes to an end and 2026 begins, this walk continues—and I want it to continue.
Satan loves to remind me of how great my past seemed and how much “fun” it was to walk with atheists toward destruction. While it may have felt fun at the time, actually experiencing that destruction would not have been fun by any means.
Thankfully, after two months of being saved, I can confidently say that this was the right decision, and I am not going back to my old life. I hope to leave the old behind for good and never return to it. Since becoming a Christian, I have experienced my first meaningful sense of peace, happiness, and optimism in almost five years. Not every day on this walk has felt this way; however, after the slow and quiet “death” I lived through for five years, even a single day of peace would have felt like a luxury.
God has shown me that I matter, that I am valued, and that I am loved. While I never wanted or needed validation from the world, I struggled deeply to accept myself as a flawed and imperfect person. I still struggle with this today. I am only beginning to learn that God created me in His image, with every flaw carefully and intentionally crafted. I have placed my faith in God’s plan, and I have chosen not to rely on works of my own, but only on the works that flow from faith. I am weak and helpless, just like all of us, and I need Jesus.
At times, God can feel distant and nonexistent. But after what He has done in my life, I can confidently say that He came to me and He worked on me. Satan continues to remind me that I am still hurting and that I should figure everything out on my own. He reminds me that I didn’t grow up Christian, that I was a lifelong atheist until two months ago, and that I spent the first 18+ years of my life unaware of the reality of eternity—all in an attempt to discourage me from continuing this walk. He also reminds me of how much “fun” it was to hate Christians.
As someone who once hated Christians, becoming a Christian myself is the most unlikely thing that could have ever happened to me. These are real challenges. However, I have faith that God will not allow my past to dictate my future.
I had no financial incentive to become a Christian. If you know me well, you know how much I once loved money. When I was an atheist, I was in the minority. Now that I am a Christian, I am still in the minority. The biggest difference is that now I belong to the minority that the world hates.
from Kangyu
Hallelujah!
On the last day of 2025, we give thanks to God for allowing us to share the greatest and most joyful news in the world with our ministry partners and to offer it up to the Lord. As we enter 2026, we will continue to move forward wholeheartedly toward God’s Kingdom, so that the good news of Jesus Christ may spread throughout the entire world.
Happy New Year!
Sincerely,
Gyeongseon and Heegi Kim
