Kai grew up carrying a secret he didn’t discover until his teenage years—a secret that would shape the shadows of his inner life. His grandfather, Rudolf Höss, had been the commander of Auschwitz concentration camp, responsible for the deaths of millions during the Holocaust. The revelation weighed heavily on him. And though he went on to build a successful career in the luxury hotel industry, the weight of that legacy lingered beneath the surface.
Then everything collapsed. A surgery gone wrong left Kai in a near-death emergency. In the days that followed, weakened and disoriented in a hospital room, he struggled under both physical pain and a growing sense of despair.
Searching for anything to distract his mind, Kai reached toward the small bedside table. Inside the drawer lay a Bible placed there by Gideons. He wasn’t looking for hope; he wasn’t even sure what he believed. But in the quiet of that room, he opened the pages anyway.
What began as a way to pass time became something far more profound. When Kai reached Psalm 51—the cry of a heart seeking mercy—God’s truth cut through years of darkness. The words met him with a clarity he could not explain. In that moment, Scripture became more than ink on a page. It became a voice calling him toward grace.
When Kai recovered, he drifted back into old patterns. Yet the seed planted in that hospital room—through a quietly placed printed Bible—continued to grow. A friend invited him again and again to church. Eventually, Kai went.
There, the truth he first encountered from the book in that drawer unfolded in full. He surrendered his life to Jesus Christ.
“Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions. Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.”
—Psalm 51:1-2
Christ's redeeming grace freed Kari from the generational weight he had carried for so long. Today he serves as a pastor in Germany, with a special call to share biblical hope and reconciliation—including with Jewish communities. What began with a single copy of God's Word became the doorway to redemption and a new calling.
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