Visit to North Korea

           We had a wide variety in opportunities for service this week. On Wednesday we attended the District Meeting with our junior missionaries. They are so well prepared in their training that it is a joy to meet with them. Afterwards I held a sister missionary who needed to cry. She got an ear infection and subsequently lost hearing in one ear. She is going home early to see if the doctors can restore her hearing. She was very emotional and needed reassurance. She speaks as much English as I speak Korean so we had to use the Spirit to help us communicate. This is her smile as we left. She will be fine. The Lord has a plan for her.

                               

We helped serve hot chocolate at the tree lighting at Camp Red Cloud on Wednesday and then again at Camp Casey on Thursday. Santa is a special friend from our branch group so we made sure to have a photo with him this year.

               

We sat down with the director of the Education Office on Friday and scheduled our first two sets of classes for the soldiers. We will have them for about 40 hours in the classroom over three weeks beginning January 9^th. Then Wayne had a single student he worked with in the evening just before our dinner appointment. We were invited to the house of Korean members for authentic Korean food. If you don’t eat their kimchi it’s like poking them in the eye and telling them they have an ugly mother so we ate kimchi.

                Our BIG event of the week was our visit to North Korea via the DMZ. Wayne and I were like a couple of kids waiting to go to Disneyland we were so excited. First, we served the soldiers at the outpost by decorating their mess hall for the holidays. They fed us a nice lunch and then we were given a VIP tour.

Wayne and I are posed in front of the flags of all the nations participating in enforcing the cease fire between North and South Korea.

                This is a picture into North Korea of the North Korean soldier watching us watch him. They call him Bob because he starts to bob if you take enough pictures of him.

                They next had us enter a building that straddles the line between North and South Korea. They had this door on the north securely locked and this armed Korean soldier there to protect us if needed. While we were standing next to him, we were technically standing in North Korea. The North Koreans give the same tour from their side and lock the door on the south end of the building for their guests.

The bridge beyond the blue guard house is called “The Bridge of No Return” because it is where the prisoners were exchanged after the ceasefire. Anyone who crossed the bridge in either direction was then unable to return. Many families were separated at this time and many from the south have tried to negotiate family reunions to unite these families for a few hours. A few family reunions have been held.

            

       The small village around the flag pole is a facade. It is actually a military outpost built to look as though it were a village. From there the North Koreans blare music and propaganda messages to the South Koreans trying to entice them to defect. The noise is especially loud at night.

There are two authorized villages in the DMZ, this one on the North and one on the south with about 200 citizens. To live in the southern village you must have lived there before the conflict with North Korea or be able to trace your ancestry to that village.

                This picture is of the mountains in North Korea in the distance. They have some very interesting granite peaks. The whole DMZ is a nature preserve since people are not allowed to hunt. They have a type of deer that grow tusks rather than horns so they are called vampire deer and lots of birds. They have wild pigs that can reach a weight of 400 lbs. Wayne and I saw three deer in a rice field, several cranes, and flocks of geese flying south.

           

         We had our second baptism on Sunday. Ellis, in the yellow shirt, was baptized by Elder Carmen, the tall elder beside him. Elder Carmen leaves to return to Michigan on Thursday. This was his first baptism. He is such an obedient and faithful missionary that we know the Lord blessed him to share this milestone with Ellis.

Bro. Oto is the African on the right. He is the brother-in-law of Ellis. They are from Liberia, a country with difficult political and economic circumstances right now. They have come here to find work. Bro. Oto had three fingers crushed in machinery at work last month and has not yet been able to return to work. There is lots of manufacturing in this area and they hire the Africans as cheap labor. They are considered temporary workers and not treated well. We see deep faith in Jesus Christ among these African members as they express gratitude for what they have, work hard, and hold onto hope for a better future.