Chosen

FAMILY

FAMILY

“Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child; children will rebel against their parents and have them put to death.” Matthew 10:21

“Little Chung-Cha,” said the Old Woman one day. The weather was getting warmer and we no longer needed the extra blankets the guards gave us at the Old Woman’s request. I was regaining my strength after years of starvation and suffering. Now more than anything, I longed to breathe the fresh spring air.

The Old Woman sat with her back leaning against the cement wall of our cell. When she called my name, I stopped my anxious pacing and sat down by her side. “Have I ever told you about my family?” the Old Woman asked. It was difficult for me to hide my surprise. In the several months I had spent in the Old Woman’s cell, she remained silent about her family. I didn’t know what made her finally decide to talk about her past that spring day, but I was eager to listen.

“Only two of my grandparents were Korean,” the Old Woman began. “When foreign missionaries first traveled to the Korean Empire, my maternal grandfather as well as my paternal grandmother both sailed over from Britain. But unlike many other missionaries, they did not just live in Korea for a few years, do good works, and then return to their lives back home. They both learned the Korean language, took Korean spouses, and died on Korean soil.

“My father was born in what is now South Korea. My mother, like you, little daughter, grew up in the mountains of North Hamyong Province. Until they found one another, Mother and Father were quite alone. It was not easy for them to be the children of Westerners, half-breeds that were never accepted by their Korean peers. They both moved to Pyongyang as young adults, my father to attend seminary and my mother to help oversee a small Christian orphanage. During the Pyongyang revival of 1906, my parents met at church and fell in love.

“At that time, marriages were still arranged by parents with the help of a matchmaker. My father and mother wanted to marry each other, so they both wrote to their parents, asking them to come to Pyongyang for a season to help them arrange the match.

“Mother and Father loved each other deeply, but for many years after marrying they had difficulty bearing children. When I was born, Father was already in his late fifties, and Mother was not much younger. By that time, the entire Korean Peninsula was annexed by Japan. Korean children were offered very limited opportunities to receive an education, so it was Mother who taught me to read and write.

“We were all still living in Pyongyang when Japan lost the Great War and the Korean Empire was divided. My parents and I tried on three separate occasions to flee to the south, but finally my parents agreed that it must be God’s will for us to remain in North Korea. At that time there was still a significant Christian community in Pyongyang.”

The Old Woman paused and looked at the cement ceiling above her. “Little daughter,” she questioned, “do you know how many Christians live in our nation’s capital today?”

At first I was sure the Old Woman was joking. Christians in Pyongyang? The thought was absurd. “None.”

The Old Woman smiled. “Dear child, you are too quick to believe what your school instructors taught you. There are Christians in Pyongyang just as surely as there are birds outside this detainment center. These believers may be few and scattered, with very little strength or courage, but I have seen them.” Perplexed, I watched the Old Woman as she continued staring up toward the ceiling. Her blue eyes sparkled, as if she were catching a glimpse of something beautiful and glorious taking place where I saw only cracked cement and spider webs.

“I have seen them.” The Old Woman sighed. “My parents and I suffered much during the Peninsula War of the 1950s. We witnessed many crimes. I was twenty years old when the armistice was finally signed between North and South, and by then I was in love with an officer of the North Korea People’s Army.”

The Old Woman smiled, lifting her masses of wrinkles when she saw my surprise. “Like your friend Mee-Kyong,” the Old Woman confessed, her craggy voice lifting with an air of youthful gaiety, “I also was once blinded by love and imagined it was enough to overcome any of our religious or ideological differences.

“My parents were heart-broken. My beloved officer was as whole heartedly atheist as they were devoutly God-fearers. They begged me not to marry him, but at this point the matchmakers were obsolete; it was the children who chose their spouses. This decorated, atheistic officer and I were married in Pyongyang, and by the time I was twenty-two, I had borne my husband two healthy boys.”

I pictured my cellmate as a young mother. Traces of maternal beauty still radiated from the Old Woman’s wrinkled face. I imagined her voice as it must have been decades ago, light and airy as she sang lullabies to her children at night, or doting and rich as she soothed away their scrapes and bruises with sweet words of comfort.

The Old Woman tucked a strand of my hair behind my ear and went on, “My eldest son was named Chul-Moo, a weapon of iron. My husband desired for him achieve a high rank in the People’s Army, and from Chul-Moo’s birth my husband worked in Pyongyang toward that end. When Chul-Moo’s baby brother was born eleven months later, I named him Chung-Ho, as I secretly hoped that in spite of his atheistic upbringing, my son would grow up to be righteous and godly. I never lost my faith in Christ, you see; I just followed my heart when it came to romantic notions. Because of my parents’ religious background, my husband demanded that I break all ties with them. Then, in order to protect his own military career, he bribed a comrade to change my birth certificate. If you search Pyongyang’s records, you will discover that I was born to a politically auspicious family, and I have no Western blood in me.”

“But your eyes!” I exclaimed, wondering how anyone could overlook those striking blue irises.

“Little daughter,” the Old Woman chuckled, “if Pyongyang calls a tiger a kitten, then every single Party member will line up to pat its back and scratch that tiger’s ears. In my case, Pyongyang called a half-breed, blue-eyed granddaughter of Christian missionaries a respectable Party girl. And that’s exactly what I became. In spite of my husband’s atheism and devotion to the Party, you see,” the Old Woman continued, “I loved him, and he loved me. It was a strange three decades. I adored my husband and raised our children to be model citizens, but my secret faith made us political enemies.

“I was happier than I deserved to be. I did not have any contact with my parents, I did not know any other Christians, and I did not have a Bible. Still, my husband cherished me, my sons honored me, and I felt blessed. My only sorrow was that I could not explain the good news of Jesus to my children. And so I prayed for hours at night after my boys were asleep, pleading with the Almighty for my children’s salvation. Then during the day, I played the role of an upstanding officer’s wife, loving my husband and our boys zealously but never breathing a single word to anyone about my faith.”

The Old Woman sighed. I was afraid she might be too tired to continue. I was glad when, after giving way to a large and noisy yawn, the Old Woman went on with her story.

“Our eldest son, Chul-Moo, entered the People’s Army like my husband. He quickly advanced and even grew to outrank his father. Chung-Ho, my second-born, became a successful businessman, his work taking him into China and even the Soviet Union at times.” The Old Woman smiled. “It was on a business trip to China that my youngest son Chung-Ho first heard the gospel. He immediately accepted Christ. He was afraid to tell his father, but he could not keep his secret from me. ‘Mother!’ he exclaimed to me the first day back from his travels. ‘Let me tell you what happened to me on my trip. I learned something wonderful in China. There is a man, a perfectly righteous man named Jesus Christ. He is the Son of God. He was killed, but then he was brought back to life. He’s the true and living God, Mother. And I’ve met him!’

“I cannot explain to you, little daughter, how my heart rejoiced at my son’s confession of faith.” The Old Woman beamed with the memory. “It was then, nearly three decades after his birth, that I was able to tell Chung-Ho about his true family lineage. We knew we must keep Chung-Ho’s conversion from my husband, and so in many respects our lives went on as before. Nevertheless, Chung-Ho was a changed man, full of joy and the power of the Holy Spirit. When we were alone, Chung-Ho would beg me to teach him about the Bible.

“Although I praised God for Chung-Ho’s salvation, I nevertheless fretted over my eldest son, Chul-Moo. He was prone to depression; he did not care for anything or anyone other than the Party and the People’s Army. I suspected he was drinking heavily, although I had no proof. Rumors of an illegitimate child were threatening his career advancement. Emboldened by Chung-Ho’s conversion, I finally decided that the time had come to share the gospel with my eldest son Chul-Moo as well.

“I fasted and prayed for several days and begged my youngest son, the only other Christian I knew, to do the same. One Sunday afternoon, I went over to Chul-Moo’s house as usual. ‘Chul-Moo,’ I told him, ‘I am your mother and I love you deeply, and now you are going to sit down and listen to what I have to tell you.’ And so I explained to Chul-Moo the gospel of salvation. Since I did not know how he would react to my words, I did not tell Chul-Moo that his grandparents were born of Western missionaries or that his younger brother was also a Christian.

“But Chul-Moo did not accept what I had to say. He told me that I was a Christian pig, and that even though I was his mother he was duty-bound to report me to the National Security Agency.”

“Your own son turned you in?” I gasped.

The Old Woman nodded and folded her hands in her lap. “Of course, Chul-Moo knew that he himself would also be arrested if he was found to be the son of a Christian. So before he betrayed me, he spoke to a superior officer, who at that time was preparing my son for a position in the Great Leader’s inner circle. Before my arrest, Chul-Moo was transferred to a detainment center along the Tumen River with new papers, a new job, and a new identity. It was a demotion, but he had done his duty to his nation while keeping himself out of prison camp.”

“But how could he have done something like that to you? To his own mother?”

“Things are not always what they seem, little daughter,” the Old Woman remarked. She stretched her arms and rubbed her shoulders and neck. “For years I mourned Chul-Moo’s betrayal, but I wept even more for his hardness toward the good news of Christ. Still, old as I may be, I am not the Lord God Almighty; I do not pretend to know his plans for Chul-Moo, which may yet be for good.”

“Were your husband and younger son arrested with you too?” I asked.

The Old Woman nodded. “After two months at Camp 22, my husband was offered release due to his impeccable record of service to the Party. The National Security Agency told him that he had to sign a statement of ideological conformity, which he did without second thought, but they also demanded that he divorce me.” The Old Woman raised her chin. “Even finding out that I was his enemy did not quench my husband’s love for me. He would not agree to the Agency’s terms. He worked another two months in the Chongbung mine, then the National Security Agency simply announced that our marriage was annulled and resettled him in another province.”

The Old Woman looked away from me. I had tried to find a way to ask the Old Woman about herself for months but always lacked the courage. Now her account did more to pique my curiosity than satiate it. Afraid that the Old Woman might grow too tired if I hesitated any longer, I cleared my throat.

“Honored Grandmother,” I began, trying to choose my words carefully, “you’ve explained to me how you ended up as a prisoner, but you still haven’t told me why they treat you so well here. Why do the guards fear you like they do? And what could you have possibly done to deserve solitary confinement for twenty-three years?”

The Old Woman sighed. “So many questions, little daughter.” With a quiet grunt, the Old Woman closed her eyes and leaned her back against the cell wall. I watched her silently, waiting for her to explain more of her history. But soon the Old Woman’s lips began moving in silent prayer. I finally realized with disappointment that I would have to wait even longer to find the answers to all of my questions.