Tears and Joy: The Healing Concert

You is kind, you is smart, you is important...
What word can describe our Trampoline participants?
As they prepared for and went through the lawsuit against the pastor in Incheon, they opened up what could have been the biggest wound and the most painful past in their lives. The world's response was not what they necessarily signed up for, nor fully expected. Aside from few unreasonable and unapologetic criticisms, they had to go through the stigmatization as "victims" or "survivors". Even the people who were interested in supporting them often made fallacies of pity, as if that painful experience was everything that described them.
However, these Trampoline women are so much more than that one incident. Life went on after that, and these women successfully operated their time with passion, love, and valuable people. These women refuse to be confined under a label called "victim", but rather claim to be called "pioneers". Through the lawsuit, they and pastor Hyemin Jung fought for the establishment of a special law to protect minors from discreet sexual offenses. And this made success, impacting the world positively. Not in just a court case, but also as individuals they are invincible. Life gave them lemons, but their lives are sweet, chilling lemonade.
Our Healing Concert was designed to celebrate, thank for their courage, and heal them. First with a scrumptious feast prepared by the Give Chances headquarters, our night became more beautiful with the performances by the world-class cellist and also the host of the event, Shinhwa Choi, and pianist Yuni Kim. Pastor Dowan Kim of New Jersey Presbyterian Church then gave a precious sermon about the comfort and help from the above, with the anecdote of Hagar's well. In the representation of churches and pastors, he also bowed down to give a deep apology to the Trampoline team.
Then the special performance of the Give Chances team followed; Hansol Kim, one of the Trampoline team, had written and composed an amazingly beautiful song called Reconfess. This song was released through the Korean christian music band, WELOVE. Upon listening to this song and meditating on the lyrics, us Give Chances team could not contain tears. With thanks for overcoming her difficulty and instead consoling so many souls at rock bottoms, we decided to sing this song for the Trampoline team. This was a surprise event for the Trampoline girls, and as soon as we started singing on the stage and made eye contacts with them, everyone got into tears and thanked for this incredible time.
More performances by the cellist Shinhwa Choi and the pianist Yuni Kim, and the wrap up speech by pastor Jung seemed to close the night. But to our surprise, the Trampoline team had also prepared a surprise event and sang a beautiful song for us as a group! The song was called Happiness, confessing that giving thanks, sharing with others, and living as a child of Christ is the true happiness. We distributed DIY dry flower lamps, made by one of our staffs, to the Trampoline girls and ended the concert with long hugs, tearful eyes, and sweet laughs.
For us Give Chances team, the time we had was incredible, because we thought that we received more than we gave. More incredibly, the Trampoline thought the same and had an unforgettable night. Apart from the standards of success and the power game of the world, we believe that the true values come from people, experiences of love, and the sense of community. Together, we can make great things happen, and that includes an incredible healing of the future generation.
Thank you to everyone who supported us to make this opportunity possible for our Team Trampoline!
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