KSH made her way to South Korea from North Korea nine years ago. She first heard about the gospel while she lived in China and became a Christian at that time. She is a student at our Underground University missionary training school, and she takes her training very seriously.

It has been ten years since her oldest son was sent back to the North while he was searching for an easy way for her to come to South Korea from China. She recently received the news he had been sent to a political prisoner camp. She said that at first she did not go to church after she learned that her son had been dragged back to the North. But now she puts her every worry in God’s hands, knowing that God is watching over her son.

Her family was a Christian family during the Japanese colonial era, especially her mother who was an evangelist. (This is a formal designation in the Korean church.) Her family went to live in China because her father participated in the independence movement against Japan.

Later, her parents moved to North Korea but they left KSH’s two older sisters in China for a time. But when her sisters entered North Korea, they had to declare everything about their lives in China. Her sisters did indeed declare everything, including their faith in Jesus Christ. As a result, they were denied permission to enter North Korea.

After that, her evangelist mother taught KSH not to speak out about Christ or the family’s Christian faith at all.

Gradually she even came to forget that her family was Christian.

Then when KSH visited relatives in China as an adult, her uncle reminded her of the family’s heritage of faith. She accepted Jesus Christ and became a Christian while she stayed in her sister’s house in China.

Except her oldest son, she, her daughter, and her younger son have settled down well in South Korea. KSH’s faith in God, entrusted to her parents but rekindled by her uncle, is continuing to grow, along with her sense of calling, vocation, and mission.

God remembers–and rekindles–the faith of our fathers in the most interesting ways.

I am reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice and, I am persuaded, now lives in you also.

For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands. For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline. So do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord or of me his prisoner. Rather, join with me in suffering for the gospel, by the power of God. (1 Timothy 1:5-8, NIV)