Mother of Peace: Episode 14
Mother of Peace: And God Shall Wipe Away All Tears from Their Eyes
A Memoir by Hak Ja Han Moon
Chapter 2: I Came Into This World As The Only Begotten Daughter, pg 56-60
The Han River Bridge was blown up at 3:00 a.m. on June 28, 1950. Even though the South Korean government had announced that it would defend Seoul, it severed the only link to safety, even before the North Korean People’s Army came into the city. Hundreds of people, fleeing the city, were killed. Amid this desperate crisis, through the help of my uncle, my life and the lives of my family were preserved. At that critical moment, God guided me and protected us from danger.
Even today, whenever I cross a bridge over the Han River, I see that blue flash and hear people’s agonized screams echoing as if they still are burning in hell. My heart aches at the sound. At a young age I directly witnessed the horror of war and experienced the wretched life of a refugee. The simple and innocent were killed like flies. Children who had lost their parents were crying and wandering in the streets. I was only seven, but I became so serious that war has to vanish forever from this world. It took place 70 years ago, but my throat still tightens when I recall the night the Han River Bridge fell.
* * *
Left by my uncle, who had to return to military duty, barely able to keep ourselves in one piece, my grandmother, mother, and I walked and walked on unfamiliar paths heading south. Once in a while we got a ride in a passing car. Presenting a document as to my uncle’s position as a medic, we finally gained shelter in a refugee camp for military families. As the tide of the war shifted, on September 28 we returned to Seoul. The South Korean military had driven out the communists and reconstructed a passable bridge across the river. We lodged in an empty house, one that the soldiers from the North had occupied, to which the owners did not return.
Then the tide of war turned again. Half a million communist Chinese troops invaded Korea across the Yalu River. On January 4, 1951, the South Korean army again abandoned Seoul, and we again had to escape. This time we were able to board a train for the families of sol- diers, and we safely arrived in the city of Daegu.
The day-after-day sights and sounds of our year-long wilderness course from the North to the South defy description. I saw countless dead bodies—adults, children, victims of freezing, starvation, disease and battle. My family and I also teetered on the brink of death, but somehow, throughout this journey for survival, I felt God was with us. There was a greater power protecting our family as we escaped the North and found refuge in the South. Heavenly Parent gave me more than a sense of meaning and value. He provided me with a scale by which to measure my purpose in life.
The way of God’s will
By God’s hand, on our way to Daegu we met Jeong Seok-cheon, a member of the Holy Lord Church, to which my family had belonged in Cholsan. He was very pleased to see us, and we all felt as if we were meeting long-lost relatives. The Holy Lord Church was the church in which my parents were married, and Jeong Seok-cheon’s mother, Kim Seong-do, was its founder. She was one of many female church leaders in the northern part of Korea whose devotion to Jesus was unparalleled and who had received revelations of what was to come.
The Holy Lord Church had withered due to Japanese persecution, and the Communist Party’s brutal oppression had put an end to it and all churches in the North. Escaping to the South, Jeong Seok-cheon continued to worship God. With scattered Holy Lord Church members who had found each other, he created a prayer group in Daegu. He maintained his ardor to accomplish God’s will and prepared himself to meet the returning Lord. He also worked diligently and had a good livelihood managing mining, rice, and oil businesses. Mr. Jeong organized our lodging in Daegu.
My mother made a simple request of him. “When we were in North Korea,” she said, “we received much grace through Mrs. Heo Ho-bin, and there were great works.” Mr. Jeong knew of Rev. Heo, whose congregation had prepared food and clothes for Jesus, as well as for the Second Coming Lord. “As the Lord will return to Korea soon,” my mother said to Mr. Jeong, “please, let us pray very hard to welcome him.”
* * *
One morning, during the Daegu group’s intense prayer, my mother received a revelation from Heaven. God told her that she had to live a life of greater devotion if she wanted to meet the Lord at the Second Advent. “Prayer alone is not enough,” she was told. “You have to eat your food uncooked.” My mother began to subsist on pine needles, which would have been digestible had they been steamed, but she ate them raw, even though they badly damaged her teeth.
My mother had come from a relatively well-to-do family. Her father had owned a large farm, and Grandmother Jo had a sewing-machine shop, so they were able to pay for my mother and her brother to attend high school. My maternal grandfather always taught my mother, “No matter how hard things may be, you must never be indebted to others.” Abiding by his words, there in Daegu my mother opened a small shop, thinking that it would provide enough money to enable her to re-enroll her only daughter in elementary school.
Daily subsistence of two meals of kimchi broth, raw pine needle tips and peanuts, plus taking care of her shop, exhausted my mother’s physical frame. A normal person would have eased off that discipline, but for my mother, her mind only became clearer. When I saw her serene countenance, while feeling sympathy for her, I could not help but be amazed.
“How can she run a business while consuming so little?” I asked myself. “It is nothing less than a miracle.” My mother maintained a near-starvation diet, and her shop did not bring a profit for three months. Most people would have given up, but her faith was deep and, with supreme confidence that she was upholding God’s dream, she persevered unconditionally. She did not compromise with reality. With the Holy Spirit, she created her own reality.
* * *
No matter her plight, my mother surrendered her mind to her search for Jesus at his return. Now, as I began to mature, she added to that the task of providing her daughter a spiritually safe environment. She wanted me to reach maturity in an environment of internal and external purity, and she considered how to separate me as much as possible from the influence of the secular world.
I was attending Daegu Elementary School in a neighborhood called Bongsan-dong. As time passed, not only my face but also my bearing became attractive. I was good at my studies, so I soon became popular among my friends, and I was well-liked by many adults as well. One afternoon, I was playing alone on the narrow street in front of the shop, with my mother inside. A Buddhist monk walked by and I caught his eye, and he stopped. I returned his gaze, and I remember his piercing eyes. My mother came out and bowed politely to him. Pointing to me, he asked, “Is she your daughter?” Hearing her affirmative answer, his eyes turned warm and deep. As I turned to look at my mother, the holy man spoke.
“You live with only one daughter, but don’t envy someone who has ten sons. Please raise her well. This daughter of yours is going to be married at a young age. Her future husband may be older than she is, but he’ll be a great man with outstanding ability that transcends the sea, the land, and the skies.”
My mother took the ascetic’s words seriously. Acting on her intention to rear her only daughter in the most serene and secure surroundings, in 1954 my mother moved us to Jeju Island off the southern coast of the Korean Peninsula, to the town of Seogwipo. She wanted to leave the crowded city streets and allow me to mature in the pristine countryside. We spent our first nine months on Jeju with the family of Jeong Seok-jin, the younger brother of our Holy Lord Church friend, Jeong Seok-cheon.
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