The Mission to North Ben Torrey

The article that follows this one is unusual for the depth of insight and direct experience with which its author writes on the religious psychology of . Ben Torrey has put readers of the International Bulletin of Missionary Research in his debt both by editing George Kap-Hun Kim’s translation of Hyun-Sik Kim’s article and by supplying an introduction that situates Kim’s life and work within the wider context of mission to North Korea. Torrey himself grew up in , where he joined with his parents in pioneering Jesus Abbey, a community of prayer high in the Mountains of Kangwon Do. Following graduation from college in the United States, he directed a community service organization for over two years and then, with his wife, Liz, spent a year in Korea at Jesus Abbey. Upon returning to the United States for the second time, the Torreys settled in Connecticut, where Ben served as a self-support- ing pastor with the Evangelical Apostolic Church of North America while working in the fields of computer systems development and knowledge management. Seeing the need for the church and South Korean society to prepare properly for the inevitable opening of North Korea, Torrey, in conjunction with Jesus Abbey, began the Fourth River Project in 2003. He was also given responsibility to direct Jesus Abbey’s Three Seas Training Center. The Torreys returned to Korea in October 2005 in order to pursue this work full time.—Editor

he Democratic People’s Republic of Korea—North owned private businesses operating with permission of the TKorea—presents us with a great missiological challenge. government to those who send Scripture balloons from the south It is perhaps the country most closed to missions today, yet, when the winds are right. Various well-known humanitarian ironically, it shares a relatively small landmass with the nation organizations finance noodle and soy-milk factories, provide that, on a per-capita basis, sends out the most missionaries in medical supplies, and the like. Some, in direct challenge to the the world—the Republic of Korea, or South Korea. North Korea government, are overt in their efforts to evangelize and build controls all access to the country quite stringently and allows up the underground church. Others hope that by providing very few foreign nationals to live within its borders. Those who assistance in the name of Christ, they will soften attitudes in do are under constant surveillance, making it extremely difficult the North and pave the way for change. Still others hope that to share even casually about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. through employing North Koreans in their businesses, they Even so, a large number of organizations are involved in will have opportunities to bless the country, make friends, work for and in North Korea. They run the gamut from Christian- and share the love of Jesus Christ on a person-to-person basis. These organizations are involved in the present. They provide Ben Torrey is Director of the Three Seas Training Center, Taebaek, Kangwon practical assistance now, seeking to convert and to bring about Do, South Korea, and of the Fourth River Project. change in the present.

20 International Bulletin of Missionary Research, Vol. 32, No. 1 Preparing for Change who could come. All we could do was pray. Shortly thereafter, the pastor of a Korean church in Hartford invited me to address Other organizations, both governmental and nongovernmental, the Connecticut Korean Pastors Association, which I did the fol- have an eye on the future, preparing for the inevitable. For many, lowing week. There the pastor of a church in New Haven asked it is a foregone conclusion that the day is coming when North me if I would be interested in meeting a North Korean professor Korea will open to the outside world. While there are contradic- who attended his church, Hyun-Sik Kim, who was then staying tory ideas about when and how, there is wide agreement that it at the Overseas Ministries Study Center and was a visiting fellow will happen within the next few years. A five- to ten-year time at Yale Divinity School. I was surprised and delighted, and the frame is frequently mentioned. pastor gave me the professor’s telephone number. I contacted Preparation takes many forms, from building roads and rail him and his wife, and we arranged to have lunch together. links to developing strategies to prevent economic collapse and As we spoke over lunch (mostly in Korean, to their great humanitarian catastrophe. It also involves building an under- surprise), we all became even more surprised as we began to standing of the North in those who look to take advantage of understand that we had the same urgency to prepare for the the opening to go in and share the Gospel. opening of North Korea and for precisely the same reasons. South and North Korea have been separated and moving Over the past few years, the Kims had felt that they were voices down widely divergent roads for the past sixty years. They crying in the wilderness, “Prepare the way!” but no one was have become very different societies, but many people in the listening. I was a rank novice compelled to call out the same South seem to operate on the underlying assumption that the message, knowing next to nothing about what to say or how. In evangelization of North Korea will be a simple task once people the years since, we have worked together closely and have been are able to move and speak freely—after all, they think, we are encouraged to find a ready ear for this message. Kim spoke at the same people, speak the same language, and have the same our prayer meeting. culture. There is too little understanding that this will be a cross- I have since learned, first from Kim and then through ad- cultural mission fraught with difficulties. While government ditional study and through speaking with researchers and North and business may well solve many of the potential problems of Korean refugees in South Korea, that the gulf between North and political and fiscal unification, the problems of social, cultural, South is truly great. In speaking to South Korean audiences, I and emotional unification loom on the horizon as far more dif- often use as an example of this gulf something that Kim told me, ficult issues. Relatively few are actively engaged in addressing which has since been confirmed by many other North Koreans. It these latter concerns. is often easier for a North Korean to communicate with a native English speaker than with a South Korean, despite stumbling Meeting Hyun-Sik Kim attempts to bridge the language barrier. Many people are aware that the versions of Korean spoken in the North and the South Hyun-Sik Kim is one who is actively engaged. His essay “Reflec- have large vocabulary differences resulting from different ideo- tions on North Korea” is an effort to address this situation. In logical and foreign influences. But almost no one is aware of the it, he shares from his own experience and knowledge of North Korea about aspects of the system that controls North Korean society and people. He describes a society in which all people Kim’s article provides are tightly organized and made to conform to a quasi-religious ideology from infancy to old age. His earnest concern is that important background for those who seek to help North Korea and to evangelize its people those who would carry the understand the nature of this society, whose foundation is laid so deep that it will not change automatically or easily, even if Gospel into North Korea. the governing regime is removed. I met Kim and his lovely, warm-hearted wife in a most unusual way in 2004. At that time I was just getting started sociolinguistic differences in the languages. Language usage with the Fourth River Project, an organization dedicated to pre- both reflects and influences thought patterns, and North Koreans paring for the opening of North Korea.1 Even though I grew up think and use language much more like English speakers than in South Korea as the son of missionaries, I had spent my life like South Koreans. For example, North Koreans are direct in engaged in totally other directions. I spoke conversational Ko- their speech, South Koreans much more indirect. This contrast rean but never thought twice about North Korea until a burden causes a great deal of stress for both in their interactions with and call came that I can only say is from God. In 2003 my wife one another. The stress is aggravated by the fact that neither and I came under conviction that the opening of North Korea recognizes the great linguistic and cultural differences to be ne- was drawing near and that the church was not prepared as it gotiated. Moving blindly forward, they often end up being hurt needed to be. Joining with Jesus Abbey, a Christian community and further isolated from each other, with little understanding in South Korea founded by my parents in 1965, we created the of the true reason why. Hyun-Sik Kim and others, including the Fourth River Project and took responsibility for developing the Fourth River Project, are addressing these types of issues. Three Seas Training Center at Jesus Abbey’s Three Seas ranch as a place of preparation. Personal Knowledge In 2004, still living in Connecticut, I was struggling to move forward and was not sure how to proceed. The step I saw in front These factors provide the context for Kim’s article, which is not so of me was to call for an evening of prayer for North Korea among much a missiological treatise as a provider of some very important the churches of Connecticut. A friend involved in planning it said background needed for those who would carry the Gospel into we should invite a North Korean to come speak. But who could North Korea when the doors to that nation finally open. that be? We had no idea of how to find a North Korean Christian Kim knows whereof he speaks. As a wounded veteran and

January 2008 21 therefore automatically a hero of the Korean War, he received the to send their best to his home to educate his young nephew. Kim finest education North Korea could provide. Graduating at the top was selected and completed the task satisfactorily. Through this of his class in Russian language and literature from the Pyongyang experience, he was influential in developing national elementary University of Education, he became a professor in the Russian education curricula. He served as tutor to the household of Kim department and developed teaching methodologies. When North Il Sung for a total of twenty years. His article comes out of this Korean president Kim Il Sung decided that the country needed to intimate knowledge of all aspects of North Korean education, add another year of compulsory education but was not sure if it ideology, and society. It represents a unique and timely contribu- could start the education a year earlier, he called on the university tion to our understanding of North Korea. Note 1. The name “Fourth River” comes from the location of Jesus Abbey. An one watershed lead to the East Sea, the second to the South Sea, and intentional Christian community, Jesus Abbey is located in Korea’s the third to the West or Yellow Sea. The Fourth River is the River of Taebaek Mountains in an area called the Three Seas because the area Life, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, flowing north from here to North includes the headwaters of Korea’s three watersheds. The rivers of Korea.

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