wfn.org | South Korean Presbyterians Aid Famine Victims in North

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5-April-1999 
99137 
 
    South Korean Presbyterians 
    Aid Famine Victims in North 
 
    by Evan Silverstein 
 
SEOUL, South Korea - The Presbyterian Church of (South) Korea (PCK) has 
made helping its starving neighbors to the north a  primary concern. 
 
    Desperate North Koreans, facing a seemingly never-ending famine, are 
fleeing the communist country, heading for areas like China's bountiful 
borderlands in search of food. Often alone and on foot, risking capture and 
imprisonment, these refugees have one goal: to keep from joining the army 
of dead created by four years of chronic food shortages. 
 
    The PCK, based in Seoul, has sent food to North Korea and helped with 
flood-relief efforts there, despite South Korea's own problems from 
devastating floods. 
 
    "We have done our best to support them," the Rev. Tae-Sun Lyu, 
executive secretary of the PCK Society Department, recently told a 
delegation from the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). 
 
    The 10-member delegation met with Korean Presbyterian church officials 
on April 1 as part of a tour in which Moderator Douglas Oldenburg 
celebrates the church's involvement in education in Asia and around the 
world to mark PC(USA)'s "Year With Education" celebration. 
 
    Helping the homeless and unemployed in Korea is also a major focus of 
the PCK, which has 6,020 congregations and about 2.2 million members and is 
one of more than 50 Presbyterian denominations in South Korea. The PCK has 
partnerships with more than 30 denominations around the world and with 642 
short- and long-term missionaries serving more than 70 countries worldwide. 
 
    Lyu, speaking through an interpreter, thanked the delegation for a 
$5,000 flood-relief contribution raised by two PC(USA) Korean-American 
presbyteries. 
 
    "We are making every effort to train volunteers and also to organize 
and reorganize our church to meet this need (to help in flood relief,) 
particularly with the service ministry emphasis," Lyu said. 
 
    Oldenburg called PCK's flood-relief efforts a "good example of the 
servant church." 
 
    The United States, other governments and international relief agencies 
have poured in millions of tons of food, medicine, fertilizer and other aid 
since devastating floods and drought in 1995, 1996 and 1997 broke North 
Korea's crumbling economy and collective farming system. 
 
    U.S. officials estimated last fall that 2 million North Koreans had 
died from starvation or hunger-related illnesses. South Korean intelligence 
officials say North Korea's population has fallen from 25 million to 22 
million. 
 
    Refugees and Chinese-Koreans who take food to relatives in North Korea 
describe life there as having ground to a halt, with people begging, 
cheating, stealing and killing for food. Guards dump the bodies of people 
who die on trains at station platforms. People are executed for 
slaughtering cattle. Children pick through cow dung for undigested grain. 
At the same time, the reports say, police, security and local leaders - 
people essential to the North Korean regime - are better fed and clothed. 
Fear keeps ordinary people in line. 
 
    Aid workers say they do not see bodies in streets, although they are 
certain that people are dying. 
 
    North Korea's stability is more than an academic issue. The 
militaristic, often belligerent nation maintains one of the world's largest 
armies. It has missiles capable of reaching Japan and other parts of Asia, 
and is suspected of developing nuclear weapons. 
 
    Meanwhile, a campaign to send clothes to help those trapped in North 
Korea was conducted nationwide in November and December with the support of 
individual presbyteries and the National Organization of Korean 
Presbyterian Women. The effort had collected 1,941 boxes of clothing  from 
58 presbyteries as of late January, when the clothes were delivered to 
North Koreans. 
 
    To further help those in need, the PCK Society Department, along with 
the church's Counseling Center, has been providing counseling for homeless 
people in various parts of Seoul. Through the efforts of more than 60 
volunteers, the program has helped to prevent many homeless people from 
freezing to death during the winter, according to PCK officials. The 
program has prodded many to seek shelter at various homeless facilities 
provided by the government. 
 
    To help jobless families, a program has been under way since late 
November with nationwide support from local churches. Through this program 
7,274 families have so far received a monthly stipend of about $130 to help 
them through the cold winter months. More than 570 local churches from the 
59 PCK presbyteries have participated. 
 
    The delegation also heard that: 
 
    * PCK has set a goal of growing to 10,000 congregations and 4 million 
members by the year 2012, which marks the centennial of the founding of the 
denomination's General Assembly. 
    * Plans are afoot for the General Assembly to mark the year 2000 with a 
celebration that will include 28 other Presbyterian denominations in South 
Korea. 
 
(Information for this story was also gathered by the Associated Press.) 

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