Your Excellency, President Ramons; Mrs. Magsaysay; Ladies, and Gentlemen. It is a very great honor for me to accept this award, and I humbly thank you for this opportunity.

Kkottongnae is a social welfare complex that heartily welcomes Korea’s abandoned people, protecting, curing, and guiding them so that they may go to heaven in peace. These are the people who are starving or freezing to death, who are lying sick beside the road or under bridges, who have no place to live nor strength to beg for food. Kkotongnae was established and is being operated by 720,000 donors; annually 200,000 people volunteer for service; and about 300 members of both the Congregations of Kkottongnae Brothers and Sisters of Jesus also serve. In addition, there are the supportive efforts and love from the Korean government. A special source of great power was the love bestowed upon all of us by the Korean Catholic Church, the diocese of Cheongju, and the Most Reverend Nicholas Jung Jin Seok. In accepting this award, I would like to stress that it should be awarded to the above-mentioned individuals.

What of beggars? Beggars know how to beg but not how to give. The reason why there are beggars is due to lack of love, not lack of material things, knowledge, skill, or health. What Kkottongnae must do is to cure simultaneously the causes of human misery and to warmly welcome, protect, and cure those who live in misery. That is, to tech love to all the people throughout the country. When people love each other, never shall the diseased and the weak be cast into the streets.

God is love. Let us love one another. We must make God’s love known to this world.

For more than twenty years, I have been going around churches, government offices, and companies and have visited students all over the country to teach love by preaching and lecturing. After seeing more than 200,000 people from all walks of life visit Kkottongnae every year—practicing and learning love—I decided to launch the Institute of Love. The institute is the very place where love “of the people, by the people, and for the people” is taught.

The institute is now under construction and will be completed on October 10, 1996. There we will teach the love of God, which can lead to happy individuals, a happy family, a happy nation, and a happy mankind.

For those who need love most, those who have no place to lean on nor energy to beg, those who are abandoned by their families, and those who are treated with contempt, I live as their servant. I would like to thank all who have given immeasurable love and service to Kkottongnae. On all of their behalf, I humbly accept this award. I am convinced that this award will be of great comfort to help those who are abandoned and need love. I thank all of them. God really loves us.