Many of us remember that the word crisis in Chinese is made from two characters, one meaning "danger" and the other "opportunity." And every crisis seems to present both. This fact was impressed on me during my recent itinerary, especially in Korea.
There was plenty of danger. Traveling in the GI car of a Korean train from Taejon to Kwangju, I was made aware of it, for around my feet were machine guns loaded and ready for action. Moreover, the soldiers on board carried rifles and sawed-off tommy guns. There were quite a few Korean sol diers on board. "Is this precaution necessary?" I asked. "Yes," was the reply; "we are going through dangerous territory, and need to be armed. This very train was wrecked recently, and eighty-three people were killed. We must be prepared for any eventuality."
We had not traveled far when, looking out of the window, we noticed Korean soldiers standing close to the railroad at in tervals of every seventy-five yards or so, with guns loaded. Our train got through without any shooting incident, however. But we saw many other pathetic sights. Catch the scene of a mother desperately holding on to her two boys, who, with two other lads, had been tied together and were being taken into the army. They had evidently been trying to escape from army service, but now were being loaded onto the train. Frantic in her grief, this mother tried to hold on to her lads. But all to no avail, for they were pushed into the baggage car, and the train pulled away. Yet, with a strength born of mother love, that woman was running alongside the train; great tears streamed down her cheeks as she called out her messages of farewell. That broken-hearted mother may never see her boys again. The train was going faster, and we were going around the curve; she was lost to view. How terrible war is! Such sights are common in this land.
Yet despite the tragedy the opportunities for evangelism are legion. We have today 4,500 baptized members, but actually there are more than 10,000 keeping the Sabbath, more than 5,000 of whom are yet to be baptized.
Only a few days ago 106 cadets of the Korean air force were graduated from the Voice of Prophecy Bible Correspondence Course. More important still is the fact that each has expressed his desire to be come a member of the church. Think of this: a minister of another faith, who himself took the course a few months ago, is now studying the Bible course with seventy-four of his members, and he, with this group of seventy-four, is eager to join the remnant church. All this in the Pusan area, where until very recently we had not more than ten members. Today there are five hundred.
Lay Evangelism
The way the work began there is a story in itself. One of our Korean laymen heard of the need of evangelism in the city of Pusan, and he inspired some twenty young people in his home church to join him in a mission project. They found passage on a rice ship, went down to this southern city, and began their meetings in the open air, later hiring a school building in which to proclaim the message. It was a laymen's movement, and there was a fruitful harvest. Then the war came, and this good man and his congregation were scattered. Like many others, he fled to the mountains, and later found himself in another area. Last July, when George Munson, the union evangelist, called on him in Kinchon, he was living in what was once our church, but now just a heap of rubble, completely demolished. With a few rice sacks he had built a little shelter for his family. About ten were meeting together on Sabbaths, three of whom were members. The situation was not too promising. But Brother Munson encouraged him, and what do we find today? When V. T. Armstrong, the division president, visited there with Elder Munson, they found 107 enthusiastic church members and the leader himself holding a ten days' revival effort in a neighboring town!
