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Into the Glorious Light 

 PART 1 The first dream

 A girl was walking down the street where trees were casting down their long shadows on the ground. She felt exhausted, caught herself up at the point of fainting, and was slowly losing her mind. She could no longer feel anything with her feet and was almost to the point of losing her consciousness. The only things moving in that particular evening were the moon in the sky and the tiny little girl walking on the street. In silence, a note of deep sadness filled the air. Thump! Thump! Thump!From a distance, a small thumping sound started getting closer to her as it beat faster toward her. But the girl could barely manage to stand on her feet as the sound drew near.Then in a blink of an eye, a rider scooped her off her feet and held her in his arms as she nearly fell. The rider, along with the little girl, rode off into the darkness of the night, thumping, and thumping again.She replayed the dream in her mind as she blankly stared at the ceiling above her head. The wedding was in just two days when she had the dream before the dawn of another day. Then without a further warning, the day had come and still at her first night of her marriage, she tried to picture the rider in her dream as she folded herself gently into the strong arms of her bridegroom. She was thinking of God’s providence, also called "destiny" by others. Five long and hard years had passed, then another five years, as she submitted herself to all the inevitable and inescapable duties of life. Those were the years when life chose not to spare her even a single rod of hardship or discipline. She had to fiercely climb and pass through many valleys of life, shedding tears of much sorrow and venting forth sighs one after another. In the midst of her tears and sighs she reminded herself of the rider in her dream long ago.It seemed as though old age caught onto her faster than others. The long years of anxiety and sadness were long forgotten but loneliness lingered and she often shuddered by herself. When her children were late in coming home at night she couldn’t wait for them in an empty house all by herself. So she went out to the little alley in front of the house and waited for them. On those evenings, she wavered with an unsettled mind.Religion was like a shelter and a place of refuge for her. An abandoned ship suffering from a violent and turbulent storm found its haven of rest. But sometimes the waves rolled even in the haven. The anchor seemed to lose its grip of her at times.. From one great disappointment to another she wanted to leave everything behind. But she learned that it was a great sin to kill herself. She recognized that she was a sinner and she regarded herself as dead. But she did not want to commit another sin, and she would once again resolve to live on.CHAPTER 1 1. My Birth and Family Background I was born in a small village in South Korea . My father was a government employee, and used to ride on his bicycle to go to his office in town. My grandfather was a scholar. He was born in a rich and respected family. But his mother died when he was just a little baby and he was raised by his grandfather who was a generous and honest man. When my grandpa was a boy his grandfather died, too. Then his father inherited everything. But he was not like his father. He decided to co-sign for one of his friends. Then somehow in someway he lost everything he had inherited from his father.My grandfather read books everyday and taught his pupils and lived in poverty. I heard that my grandmother was a neat and beautiful woman but she lived a very hard life and she died in her early forties. My father was the eldest son and from his childhood people used to call him a genius. They would say that he would win the first place in a state exam. However, the Japanese raided and invaded our country so he didn’t even get a chance to take the exam. I can only imagine just how disappointed my grandparents would have been! Growing up, I heard that my father used to weep bitterly year after year when it was the day of my grandmother’s death.During my father’s adolescence, the Japanese soldiers would often make their rounds and squander villages. One day, one of the villagers told my father, "the Japs came to your house and carried off your hens and roosters while you were gone". My father quickly ran over to the Japanese soldiers and hollered at them to return everything that they had taken from his house."You, son of a bitch!" The enraged Japanese soldier quickly took a shotgun on his shoulder and pointed at my father. My father, with his quick reflexes, leaped over a barricade and escaped from the danger. When my father was seventeen years old, my grandfather wanted him to teach students but he didn’t want to. He had greater dreams for his future and decided to leave home to study in Seoul . Seoul was quite far from where we were; so on the way to Seoul , he stopped by at a house in Choongchung province where several passengers were staying. The master of the house was a former cabinet minister of the government. In the evening, a certain man asked a very difficult question, and no one could answer except my father. The master of the house was very impressed and asked my father to stay at his home to become the tutor for his grandchildren. They liked my father very much. Master’s wife treated my father like her own grandson and braided my father’s long hair. After a few months, my father realized the long braided hair was inappropriate in the enlightened age and had a short hair cut. Master’s wife was so saddened to see my father’s short hair cut. Then he left for Seoul even though the family urged him to stay there longer.After a while, when he arrived in Seoul, he received a letter from his father and it said that a school where he can learn new learning had been built near his home town so he should come back home to study there. He immediately headed back home. Upon his arrival, he registered to study at the school. It was a long 6 mile-walk to school, so he rented a room near by the school. One time he visited home and was heading back with a bag of rice his parents gave him for food. On the way he thought, ‘It’s spring time when it’s difficult for farmers to survive due to shortage of rice'. He was worried about his family so he went back home and secretly put the bag of rice back in the cabin at the rear of the house and then left. He didn’t have any rice left at his place but he still went back to school.But God miraculously intervened. There was a rich man in town and he asked the school teacher to teach his grandsons. But the teacher said, "I have a student who surpasses me in knowledge and skills and I’d like to recommend him for your grandsons." So my father became the tutor at the rich man’s house and all his financial problems were solved during his school days. He studied hard and also tutored faithfully. He finished the school in 2 years which regularly takes 4 years. Eventually he passed one of the most difficult exams and got himself a job. Among the many that took the exam, he saw a gentleman who was wearing a nice suit with gold-framed glasses holding a luxurious stick. (In those days, rich gentlemen used to hold onto sticks as a sign of luxury.) On the contrary, my father wore a black cotton overcoat (which he borrowed from a relative by walking all the way to in Daegu). Among the wealthy and well-educated gentlemen, my father passed the exam. My father married when he was 20 and his bride was only 17 years old. His father-in-law, (which would be my grandfather on my mother’s side) was truly a self-made, successful man. He became an orphan when he was young and he grew up at his older sister’s house. His brother-in-law was a rich man but he wasn’t kind or generous to my grandfather.. But the boy was eager to learn. He read books while he was making fire in the fireplace to boil fodder for the cattle. When his brother-in-law found out, he didn’t allow him to read because it supposedly slowed him down in making the fodder. He wanted to study at night but again he wasn’t allowed to study because he was burning too much oil for the lamp. Then my grandfather planted a castor-oil plant in an empty lot by the house and harvested its seeds. He asked his sister to make oil with the seed. At last, he was able to study at night with the extra oil from the castor-oil plant. But again his brother-in-law prevented him from studying because he thought his little brother-in-law, who is my grandfather, wouldn’t get up early in the morning. So finally, he completely covered his window(?????? ???????? ?????? ?????????? ???? ???? ?????? ?????? ?????????? ???? ??????.)to hold the light in.My grandfather was a humble and wise gentleman. So he finally earned his brother-in-law’s trust and was sent for an important errand. There was a well-known oriental medical doctor in Youngchun. People said that he opened the eyes of the blind and healed leprosy. He had to run errands frequently from Andong to the clinic in Youngchun because his sister’s family was quite huge. The doctor kept an eye on the boy who ran errands and found him to be a man of integrity. And as it just so happened that he had a single daughter ready for marriage. Before they moved from Kyung Joo, there was a rich man who had passed the primary state examination. He wanted his son to marry the daughter of the oriental medical doctor. But the doctor thought that this young man, who was brought up in a luxurious family, wouldn’t take good care of his daughter. So he refused his proposal and moved to Youngchun with his daughter carried on a sedan chair on the shoulders. Then he laid his eyes on this particular young man who did not even have the luxury of being raised by his own parents. However, the doctor saw an immense potential and a very promising future in him.So my grandpa became the doctor’s son-in-law. The doctor gave him a new house and provided everything. My grandma was an excellent help-mate of my grandpa. She never let him wear anything with patches. That’s because she saw him wearing a patched jacket on their wedding day(?????? ???? ???? ?????????? ????.) My grandpa also dearly loved his wife all throughout his life and deeply cherished her.My mother was the first born among her siblings. Grandpa made his own fortune. He was a hard, diligent worker. He cultivated rice fields and gardens by himself. He also studied hard. He spent the days in the field and the nights with his books. So he won the respect of all the villagers in his town. He was a man who practiced altruistic love. He loved others as himself. He grew up as an orphan so he had great compassion on others. There was a widow with a baby son. She was well-known in her village to be a woman of virtue for she took a real good care of her husband until the moment he passed away due to a serious illness. My grandpa had his servants to take care of her rice fields. So with the crops that her field yielded, she was able to buy more land, enabling her to feed her son and her family. Up until the son grew up to become a man, the widow and her son used to eat meals at my grandpa’s. I think my grandpa showed hospitality to her as a reward for her virtuous endeavors. My grandpa helped the family until they could make a living for themselves. When her son was ready for marriage, my grandpa arranged a marriage for him to be wedded to my grandma’s niece. They lived happily together. After my grandpa died I heard good things from one of my cousins. The married couple took good care of his widowed mother and their children were spoken well by the people. From my vantage point, I think all of this was made possible by my grandfather’s compassion on their family. When I was in elementary school, I used to visit my grandparents with my brothers during the summer vacation and winter vacation. Those were the best days of the year. Usually we visited my father’s parents first then after that we went to my mother’s parents and stayed there most of the time. Our father’s parents lived in the middle of the field where only the barren land could be seen and there were no friends to play with, but my mother’s father’s side, like the name of the village, Golan (meaning within the valley), mountains enfolded the village and we had lots of fun there. We climbed up the mountains and went to the brook and played with the mill we made there. Grandpa had a lookout shed on the field near the brook. We would go there and pick watermelons and melons in the fields and eat them. Streams of water sprang from the mountains and it was very clean and fresh. We enjoyed talking and playing with our cousins there. 2. The Origin of My Name I was born on October 9, 1924. It was in the middle of the night, and as we say in Korean, "at the watch of the rat".  This is between 11 PM and 1 AM. I was the fourth child with three brothers before me. I was born at a village called Sunyuk, a few miles away from where my mother’s parents lived. I was given two names, one by my father and the other by my grandfather on my mother’s side. The name that my father chose was Jong Aeh, a name from the book of Sohak (an ethical book traditionally used for the education of children). My grandfather chose Ok Jong which was from my mother’s dream. Whenever my mother experienced pain during the pregnancy, a messenger sent by the Lord of Heaven (of Taoism) touched my mother’s belly in her dreams and it made her feel better. My grandfather believed that it was by the healing of the messenger from heaven that I could be born. So he named me Ok, and Jong is my generation’s name to identify kin relationship. My name was put in the family register as Jong Aeh, but normally I was called Ok Jong at home. Once I entered elementary school, I was frequently weak and sick.  This made my father think it was because of my name (Jong Aeh means pouring out abundant love) that I was ill so often, so he changed my name to Ok Jong in the family register. I was called Jong Aeh up until first grade.  Starting from second grade, I was called Ok Jong. From then on the name Jong Aeh disappeared in my memory.When I was in my forties, I happened to read a naming book at one of my acquaintances’ house, and it was written that the name Jong Aeh means a flood of love and the person who has that name gets sick often. On the other hand, the name Ok Jong means continuous prosperity according to the book. After reading the book, I realized that I was ill often and maybe my father had read the naming book too. Through the history of my name, I feel the deep love of my father and my grandfather. There was one time when I was very sick again and had to stay in bed all the time.  My condition was extremely bad and precisely at that time my father transferred to another office and we had to move to a province in Kyung Nam . Our new house was near the post office. One day, my grandparents visited us.  And, my grandfather asked me, "Are you interested in getting a higher education?" I couldn’t answer right away because I really hadn’t thought about it.  Then, he said, "Why don’t you start thinking about it?"  I nodded in response."Once you've thought about it, ask your father, and if he can’t afford to send you to high school, I will pay for your studies." Grandfather said that I had to study more even though I was a woman. He was the one who named me and now I could actually see how much he loved me.That night my grandfather found out that I was sick because of an eruption behind my head and my father took me to the hospital. I got better in a few days.I did not tell anybody about my desire to go to high school but I continued to think about what grandfather had told me and I finally made up my mind to go to high school. My father also realized the importance of education so even though I didn’t mention it to him, he sent me to a high school. My father told me; "It would be nice if you could go to Sukmyung Women’s High School (which was founded by the royal family), but since you are a girl, I don’t want to send you too far away from home".  So he wanted me to attend a school near home and I chose to go to Pusan Korean Women’s High School because my friends went there. 3. Childhood of my life I lived in Sunyuk until I became five. I have some memories of those days in the small village. My mother used to take me to the fountain-site of the village. There used to be an aromatic tree where my mother would put a small table under it and prayed for me. I was weak physically so my mother prayed for my health. Once, I went to a neighbor named Kuyedeck (the woman of the house called like that) to look for my mother. There was a goose in the house and as it saw me come in, it made a noisy sound, crying out loud, "quack! quack!" and came to me and bit my skirt. I was frightened and cried "Mommy!"One of the three brothers I had, died when he was only four. I never saw him because he died before I was even born. They say he was very bright because he could understand the letters of certain words before he could even speak. He pointed the letters with his fingers wherever a letter was seen on the wall or any other place. He was born as the second son of my parents and lived a brief life.One day, my two elder brothers were swimming in the lake and I was sitting by the water’s edge watching them. Suddenly, I jumped into the water making a splash. It was a serious accident. My brothers and other boys were in a big trouble and they didn’t know what to do. At the right moment, my mother’s uncle was passing by the lake and saw what had happened and rescued me. I still remember vividly sitting by the lake, watching the boys swimming and enjoying themselves, but nothing after that. I think I lost my consciousness after I drowned. I have had three drowning experiences in my life and I was rescued miraculously each time, which I think as God’s special grace. The second event happened after moving to Samrangjin in Kyungnam.. We moved there during winter. Once, before the day of the Dano Festival (on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month) I followed a sister who worked for my family and other sisters in the neighborhood to pick up sweet flags. I was five at that time. I was wearing a Korean jacket with a waistband.. In those days, women used to wash their hair with special water on the previous day of Dano Festival. We would boil the sweet flag and weeping willow with other ingredients in the water and after taking out the plant, we would wash our hair with the water. We also trimmed the stem of the sweet flag, the part near the root, and decorated our hair with it. We also used a plant called anglica polymorpha to decorate our hair. On the Dano Festival, we would ride on a swing with our braided hair and red ribbon on the end of the braid would flutter in the wind.As a five-year- old girl, I followed the sisters to the edge of small pond and I found a sweet flag which had a stem of a very good color. I tried picking it up, gripping it tightly with both of my hands and as the root came out I fell headlong backward. Unexpectedly, there was a pond behind me with a field thick of growing sweet flags and it was a muddy. To make it worse, it was a remote place far away from houses and a road. Even though the pond was small, it was rather deep and the sisters could not go into it to rescue me and they just had to watch me drown. People say that when one drowns, the person floats up and down three times and then never floats up again. I don’t know how many times I floated up and down but when I floated up for the last time, the sisters caught my waist band and they rescued me. On the way back home, carried on the back of Myung Sun, I recovered my consciousness and I remember passing the bakery and the post office on the way.In fact, a lot of things happened when I was five.. First, we moved from our old house in Seonyeok of Bongjuk Village, Geomho Township , Yungchungoon, Kyunngbook, to a new place in Songjire, Samrangjinmyun, Milyanggoon, Kyungnam. Next, I went through those experiences of drowning and being rescued indebtedness of my mother who put me on the jacket with waistband. Yet, another hardship happened. I entered the elementary school in April and the name of the school was Samrangjin Botong Hackgyo(Samrangjin elementary school. The elementary school of Japanese was called Sohackgyo and the school of Korean ( they were called Chosun in those days) was called Botonghackgyo. And when I entered higher school, it was called Pusan women’s Higher Botonghackgyo at first but when I became second grade it was called Pusanhang Women’s high school. The high school of Japanese was called Pusan women’s high school and my school’s name added one more letter, hang, to it. And I entered the elementary school when I was five (seven in Korean age) which had nothing to do with my will. In those days the schools recruited for students. They visited each house to ask the students to come to school. My parents, touched by their eagerness and sincerity, sent me to school, I think. On the first day of school, my mother took me to the school. My teacher was familiar to me because I often saw her when she appeared at the village well. I also saw her from the south fence of my house. Whenever she saw me play, she smiled at me and talked to me kindly.During the summer vacation, there was a flood in our province. Nackdong river overflowed. We stayed home until we had water in the room. We had to bail the water out of the room and eventually leave home and head for the train station. I still remember that I walked through the deep water by my brother’s hand. We went to my mother’s parent’s house by train and stayed there during summer. I stayed there with my mother and my three siblings. During summer, I enjoyed myself with my brothers and cousins. I attended the first grade twice. I was sick too often and I used to come home carried on the back of someone from school. I missed classes too many times and my father decided that I would have to take first grade for another year. My second teacher was Lee Jung Kyung and her fragrance stayed for a long time in my life. Her hometown was Jinju and I heard that she had studied at Kyungdo college of education in Japan . When she first came to my school her father came with her and in the morning assembly time, when the teacher was introduced, her father also was introduced. The academic dean asked the father to give a speech too and he spoke with a lofty bearing and also looked dignified in his Korean jacket. Teacher Lee made me have many unforgettable good memories. She was a beautiful, pure and sweet maiden and stayed in my school for about five years. She was my teacher for three years; first, third and fourth grade. She was a person of ability and could answer our questions without stopping and she really had a gentle and humble character. I was very much favored by the teachers. In my second year of first grade, I became the president of the class. Once I was seriously ill again and missed classes for several days while I had to go to the hospital. My teacher visited me and brought me a box of western snack. After she left, my brother gave me the snack to eat but I couldn’t eat it. He said "then we will eat them" and I nodded at them. I know my brothers loved me. During summer, I often had malaria and my parents told me not to fall asleep and stay awake. My younger elder brother used to wake me up by saying" I will tell you a story, so wake up!" and he told me the story of "Les Miserable". I liked the stories that my brother told me and even in sleep I could wake up immediately to listen to his stories. That is how I could get through malaria, overcoming sleep with the help of my brother.The elder sister of my teacher lived near my house and she and my mother became close friends. The iron of my house was working well, because it was heavy and she used to come to borrow it. I learned that her husband was a fighter for the Korean national independence and he was in the prison in Seoul . She, with her daughter named Su Jung, was helping her younger sister, my teacher. Her son was my age and he was attending school in his grandparents’ house in Jinju. I heard that he had the highest grade in his class. During the vacation, he came to our village and my teacher gave us an examination to know who was better, but I still don’t know the results.My second grade teacher was a Japanese woman. I still remember her name and her face vividly, but I don’t want to share them at this point. I don’t have any hatred in my heart now, but I am going to tell a story about her which is not honorable at all.In those years, we had graduation and finishing ceremony on the same day. And the person who won the first prize in the class went out to receive the record as a representative of the class. That was the custom. A few days before of the graduation day, the teacher called me and my close friend and asked us to do Scissors, Rock and Paper and my friend Sang Hee won over me. My teacher said that Sang Hee would go out as the representative of my class. Suddenly the class became stirred and buzzed. On the graduation day, we lined up in the play ground. Sang Hee wore a beautiful green silk upper garment. My class was composed of second grade and fourth grade. Fourth grade girls said to Sang Hee "Saucy girl, You know you didn't win the first prize in your class. Why are you wearing silk clothes and going to receive the record as representative?" They pulled her silk clothes and hooted and jeered her.Sang Hee was my best friend and I felt sorry for Sang Hee. "It was not Sang Hee's fault. Sang Hee was just doing what teacher told her to do...."My father never visited school. Sang Hee's father was a head of a county facility, and he came to scool and addressed speech on special occasions. Her family were mordernized. Sang Hee's parent liked me and my parent liked Sang Hee. I got permission to stay at Sang Hee's house over night during winter vacation and I ate Japanese style rice cake soup at Sang Hee's home. Sang Hee's sister was attending Masan women's High School with Japanese girls. Her brother went to Jinjoo high school and my brother went to Daegoo high school.When I was a third grader, I was class representatve. We had to clean the classroom after school. We had to move desks and chairs and sweep the floor and moped floor. My classmates moved desks and chars to the coner, but didn't sweep or mop the floor. They just played while I was swwping and moping the floor. They said "Let the well behaved girl do sweep and mop the floor.." When I finished to sweep and mop the floor, they moved desks and chairs to the right place." While I visit teacher's room to report cleaning was done, they lined up in an orderly manner. I thought that was my duty as the class representative.When I was coming home, Imsool who was two years older than me farted repeatedly in front of my face. I didn't like it and walked fast. Then she walked faster and farted again in front of my face. If I ran, she ran faster than me and farted again in front of my face until we came to our village. After she went to her house, I could walk peacefully to my home. When she didn't come to school, I walked the quiet country path with many mulberry trees and meditated.When I was fifth and sixth grader, there were boys in my class, too. Some of them were older, one student was a married man. I was physically weak and loved to read books rather than sports. My father had many books and ordered books for us, too. I loved to listen stories. I woke up right away if someone was telling a story, and had a clear mind even in the sick bed if someone was telling a story. I was devoted to reading. I remember the monthly children magazine "Godomono Do Owa"{Stories for Children}. There was an impressive story about Blue Bird{Bird of Happiness} in that book. The hero was a boy whose name was "Zirzir" and heroine was a girl whose name was "Mizir". At last they fund the blue bird but they lost the bird at the end. I felt so sorry and miissed it a good deal when the story was over, now I got the conclusion of solving all the problems in God. Abiding in the Truth means having the key to solve all human problems. Therefore the one who abides in the truth is the happy person and victorious person.And there was another book which my father gave me to read when I was a high school girl. The writer's name was Zrmi Yooske. The title of the first volume was "Mother" and the second volume was "Son". I heard the write wrote the book from her life stroy. Mother's name was Gazko and she had a beauyiful character. She was kind, helping others and raised her two children well with self sacrificial love in spite of financial difficulties. The story remained in my brain as a beautiful lingering. I am thankful to my father's love who bought good books with fragrant stories for adolescent daughter to grow the sprout of goodness. CAPTER 2"My purpose is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely Christ." Colossians 2:2 1. The providence of God When I was a first grader in elementary school (I was five at that time), I learned the song" Jesus loves me this I know". My teacher taught us the song without any explanation. I can’t remember any other songs that I learned at that time except this song. And I don’t know whom I followed but once I followed a person to a house and in the ondol (Korean heating system) room where people were standing singing hymnal and from my memory, I can still see it vividly in my eyes. I wanted to go there again but I couldn’t go out at night in those days so I couldn’t attend there any more. Through the grandeur of nature, as I saw the light of day was peeping in the east, and the day dawns mysteriously, and also the western sky of was lit up with the glow of the setting sun, I dreamed that the Royal Court of Heaven might exist somewhere over the sky. And also through the stars in the sky at night and the moon, green grasses and flowers, the changing of four seasons, and all the beautiful pictures spreading in nature, I thought that there would be somebody, who governs all these things. From my childhood, as I was growing up hearing and reading lots of stories, I dreamed and thought and wanted to know the mysterious being but I couldn’t ask my father about that and I couldn’t speak with my mother such things either. I was such a shy girl that I didn’t have courage to say what I really wanted to talk or needed to talk.Once, I heard all my family eating watermelon. I had seen a watermelon cooling in the water during the day and I was tired and happened to fall asleep. I was awaken hearing the noise of eating watermelon, but I couldn’t get up. If the family had been having a conversation, I would have gotten up but they were eating, I couldn’t get up because I was shy. I wanted to eat the watermelon very much but I didn’t get up. I wanted to eat watermelon, but I couldn’t join them because of my shyness. When I needed some money the next day or as I thought to say something to my father, I really couldn’t speak. My father was strict so I was more shy in front of him. As I was attending high school, only one time, I got grade A in music class. I always had B, but once I got A and I was so glad and I still remember it. The reason why I had B was that in the music class, when we were having singing test, I was so shy that I couldn’t sing. Even though my music teacher pressed the keyboard urged me to sing repeatedly, I couldn’t sing at all, and I became dumb. Sometimes I was disgusted by my shy character too. So because of my shyness, I got B in music class and the only time that I got A was when we had a paper test ( we had only one music class paper test during the whole years of the school). Fortunately, in other class, I had courage enough to raise my hand and answered question clearly and I could get good grades without difficulties. The first refuge because of flood happened when I was in first grade and the second time happened when I was in fourth grade. This time we went to the second floor of the building where my father worked. I remember eating the properly salted rice ball with salted cucumber, It was as deliciously as eating honey, maybe because of hunger. We saw watermelon and melon floating on the water and people picked them up and ate them and we also wanted to try to eat them but my father forbade us to do that. He said that we could have a stomach ache if we eat. Therefore we didn’t eat them. We went to Kyungsan for a short time and went back to Milyang and we rented a house and I attended Milyang elementary school from the second semester. I could make many good friends at Milyang. They were Park Soo Jin, the tallest and oldest in the class, Um Kum Soon, Son Suk Moon, Phyo Gye Whan and they were good at their studies and close among themselves. I came from other school but they included me to their group treating me as an old friend and made me feel at ease. I was a very shy girl but they opened themselves to me and welcomed me so that I could not feel difficult to adjust myself. I still can not forget the friends and good atmosphere at Milyang elementary school. Among the friends, Gye Whan was my closest friend and I often visited her house. Her father and mother looked modernized and dandy. And Gye Whan also was the nicest girl among us. She entered Ewha Women’s University later and we kept in touch with each other by letters for a long time but as I was going through hard days, I couldn’t afford to continue to keep in touch with them and now I hear nothing from themI met Gum Soon once when she came to visit her elder sister when her sister was a professor at Hyosung Women’s University. Her sister was a honorable person and she was too. I respected her sister to see her garden which was taken care of very well. I saw her plant flower trees on that day and I learned how to plant flowers and take care of them. I don’t know where Gum Soon is now and I miss her so much.During the winter vacation, on the New Years day by the solar calendar, we visited our teacher and ate rice-cake soup in Japanese style. Our teacher was a Japanese woman and she was a gentle and nice person. Five of us gave New Years greetings to her. Then we visited Gum Soon’s house and ate rice-cake soup there too and visited Soo Jin’s house and played there.. There was a place which looked like a cave and it was so curious and we played there.Finally my house in Samrangjin was repaired and we left the house near Milyang elementary and moved to Samrangjin. But I was going to enter Samrangjin elementary school from the beginning of fifth grade, so I continued to attend Milyang elementary school by train. One day, the class finished eary and I hurried to the train station to catch the train that starts about two o’clock. The school was located in Sammundong and it was quite far from school to the station, almost two kilometers. I walked fast and ran and then rushed into the station and I saw the diesel railcar. But when I was passing through the ticket gate, at that moment, the diesel railcar was leaving with the starting sound of hum.. It was really cold-hearted. A diesel railcar was not a man. If it had been a human, it would have stopped when I called and delay a little time for me. How deeply I was distressed! I had to wait for several hours for another railcar and I didn’t want to wait for hours at the empty rail road station. ‘I would rather walk, just walk along the highway’I decided to walk instead of waiting for the next railcar and started to walk. For a time I walked and I could see village in a distance and paddy fields and gardens near the road. I didn’t meet any one and I walked eagerly then I heard a voice far away. "Hey! You!"I turned around and found a man wearing white Korean overcoat(a traditional outer coat) calling me."Where are you headed for?"" I am going to Songjiri in Samrangjin.""What? Even though you walk till night, you won’t get there. Tigers are coming out at night" he said"I will just walk along the highway" I replayed"Come to this side. If you follow the highway it is much far because it detours." I obeyed the old man and walked with him and we talked together while walking. He asked my father’s name and when I told him my father’s name he said that he knew my father and he became more generous to me.But as we arrived at a tunnel, we had to part. The old man lived in the village which located in the bosom of the mountain and I had to go over the mountain and follow the highway till get to the village where I live. From the mountainside, I walked alone and went over the mountain. It was getting dark as I was walking through the mountain thickly covered with trees The mountain was over the tunnel. Going through the mountain, an old woman with gray hair passed by me and I was so scared and couldn’t say a word. She also didn’t talk to me either.. Finally I came out of the mountain and got to the highway. Still it was a far way from there to my house. Now I ran and ran the way and no one could be seen. As I was passing by the slaughterhouse, I thought of phosphorescence and I felt my hair-raising and ran more eagerly.At last I arrived at home. I washed my face and ate dinner and sat in front of my desk to study, my father asked me"Now I hear the sound of the steam whistle, how could you get home?"I said that I walked home and he scolded me severely. I imagine that my daughter, only age 10, walking a strange road of 12 kilometers, passing through a mountain which has two tunnels, with a thought that just follow the highway, what a stunning and giddying thing it is. What a fortune that I met an old man( about fifty years old) and he walked with me and guided me. When I was little, as my father instructed me, I always realized that I was wrong. There is another memory that I got whipped. Once I was late for school and I didn’t have enough courage to enter the classroom and I came back home. There was a building near the main building of my house. The ground was a storage room and the second floor was a floored room. It was a spring and the room was warm with full of sunshine. I stealthily stepped into the second floor and fell asleep in the room. I went there without telling anyone, even to my mother. My father whipped me for that. How my father knew that I was there? I think that my teacher might sent a notice to my father’s office because I, the president of the class, was absent without reason. It was when I was nine years old, in the fourth grade.Again I got whipped for missing the class. It happened when I was in the second grade, seven years old. My teacher was a Japanese woman. The previous week of March 3, she made us make paper dolls. She told us to bring those dolls for the celebration day of Hinamazuri( a celebration day for little girls and on the third day of March, they put small dolls wearing in Japanese costume on the altar, and arrange rice cake, fermented rice punch and peach flower and so on ). I put the paper dolls in my drawer. When I took out the dolls in the morning on March 3, I found the dolls were ruined. I didn’t have courage to go to school with the ruined dolls. Therefore I didn’t go to school and I got whipped on that day.I had five younger brothers. They were very curious to find something new that I had and wanted to touch and study about it. When I was a high school student, I bought a fountain pen and kept in my drawer and they broke it. I bought one again and put it on the top shelf where my brothers couldn’t reach and I used it as I needed it. But again they ruined the fountain pen before long. One of my brother bent over and the other climb up the back and got the fountain pen down. Their curiosity kept me from preserving any precious things.But I loved my younger brothers who were lively and sportive. Even though they break my precious things, I didn’t scold them and I didn’t think of telling my father about them. I had never seen my parents speaking ill of others. And they didn’t speak in harsh voice nor used bad words. When my mother was scolding me she expressed just this way " you a girl, shouldn’t do that" So if somebody hurt me or do harm, I just kept it and in agony by myself and that was it and I didn’t tell my parents or elder brothers on them, even I didn’t think about telling them on it.With the small pocket money that my parents gave me I used to knit socks and bought pretty caps for my brothers and it was my pleasure. As I put him on the caps that I bought, they looked so cute and I thought that my younger brother was really cuteThe eagerness for study of my younger brothers continued to their middle and high school days. After Japanese ruling was over, we moved to Youngcheon because my husband's workplace moved there. While we were living there, my brother visited me one summer vacation. He brought a package of sewing to make suit for my brothers. From my 12 years old, I had to make my brothers clothing( school uniform, athletic wearing, inner wear and so on). In the latter days of Japanese occupation, we couldn’t buy suit in the market and it was also hard to buy cloth. So we bought home-made cotton cloth and dyed it and gave it to tailor’s shop and let them make suit. In my house I had a grown up elder brother and another brother in high school and other five younger brothers and one cousin. It was impossible to make suit in the tailor’s for them. My mother didn’t know how to use a sewing machine so I had to make the suit.I was not a person who like sewing. My hobby was reading and knitting was just fine and I think I wasn’t so good at sewing. But I had to do it because of necessity. I might be trained according to necessity.On Sundays, I did more sewing than studying. We didn’t have a sewing machine because my mother couldn’t do the sewing( except for sewing socks or those small things). And later we wanted to buy one but it was hard to find because supply of necessities were very bad at that time. To buy a sewing machine was not easier than picking a star in the sky so she gave up to buy a sewing machine.There was a woman called Yangsandack and she became a widow at 25 years old. She was younger than my mother but they were very close. Her husband died of an acute disease and endured firmly raising two children and she managed a bakery. When I had to do sewing, I walked to the house, a long distance, and while she was making pastry with workers, I did sewing in the room. I didn’t have any sample and I made samples by myself copying the clothes and I made bigger and smaller sized suits for my brothers without many difficulties. When my brothers were studying in the middle school and high school, I made school uniform for them. When my second younger brother was working in his occupation, once he said that he didn’t have summer pants and I got money from him and bought cloth in the market and made pants for him in one night. I couldn’t find time to do it during the day. When I got married and lived with my parents-in-law, as a young woman, I had the eagerness to make clothing for my brothers and brothers-in-law, cousins, relatives(my husband side), and even for neighbors. I did sewing as much as I could even without sleeping. I was so diligent at that time and it was my pleasure to help others. Now I feel sorry that I am not as diligent as those days in helping others even I have a title of a Christian. In the year when the Japanese said that they won a great victory in the attack of Pearl Harbor and had a celebration parade in a boisterous atmosphere, my grandfather on mother’s side died. I was 12 years old at that time and attending the first grade in high school. It was the first time in my life to feel the emptiness of life because my close relative passed away. It was a big shock in the heart of an adolescent girl. The previous year, grandfather and grandmother went sightseeing to Kumgangsan {Diamond Mountain} in the memory of his sixtieth birthday for 15 days. They had promised that they would take a trip to Japan in memory of sixty second birth day the next year but he didn’t make it true and died. They say that it was his first disease. He got a cold and sick in bed for one week and passed away. My mother visited him to hear that he was sick but she found that her father was not severely ill and thought he would get well soon and she came back home to take care of big family. But in a few days after that she got a message that her father died. She couldn’t see her father’s last moment in life who loved her especially because she was his first daughter.I could recall all the memories of grandfather. Above all I remember one incident that I saw when we visited him during the winter vacation with my brothers. Early in the morning, a lady came to see my grandfather carrying her little girl on her back. She was badly burned. Her father was a person who gets nasty when drunk and he got home drunk badly in the early morning and threw a fire pot and hot ash fell to his sleeping daughter. Her mother didn’t know what to do and came to my grandfather and asked him in sobbing"Please save my poor little daughter! Please save her!"My grandfather comforted her and put a white plaster on the burnt spot, face, throat, chest, arm and so on. Everyday her mother carried the daughter on her back and came to my grandfather’s house and the injury was getting better. Later I heard that the girl was cured completely without leaving any scar and grew up well and got married and lived a happy life. My grandfather was a man of study and always prepared something needed to help others. When my grand mother had a wound in the back side of the head, she got in bed in the Dongsan hospital in Daegu. There, my grandfather saw that the doctor was using two kinds of plaster and asked them how to make them and he made the plaster by himself and later put the plaster on the girl’s burnt injury and she was healed without any scar.The death of grandfather became a bid sorrow in the village. "If he had lived at least five more years, we could have had been much better off" they said and lamented the whole villagers.My grandfather, who loved his neighbor as himself, even though he didn’t know the God of Christianity, that I believe now, he realized the providence of God and practiced the will of God, I think.He let his two sons to receive higher education, and sent his daughters to school. My aunt had her hair up in western style, and wore a high heel shoes. She was tall and lively. She was good at sewing and she could make any kind of traditional Korean costume. Most of our clothing was made by my aunt. When she got married, the parents of the bridegroom was a family of well-known. The bridegroom was the first son among 8 siblings, like my father. But it was not a wealthy family. The bridegroom was still a student. On the wedding day, the bridegroom and groom’s father came to the wedding place, my grandparents’ house, riding bicycles. The bridegroom was a perfect attendance student and he went to school in the morning and came to wedding in the afternoon. My grandfather didn’t care any other thing and chose his two sons-in-law only considering their character. And after marriage, he provided them houses and households.After the death of grandfather, grandmother visited my house. Grandfather and grandmother came together always and it was the first time that she came alone. We asked grandmother to tell us a story. She told us the following story;There were a mother and son living in a house, the economic circumstances of the family were on the wane. Many servants who belonged to the family all left and only mother and son lived there. One day the mother said, " Son, here I have the documents of the servants and I heard they live at a certain place. Visit them with this and tell them that you set them free and ask them to give you some rewards according to their economic condition and it will be helpful for our economy" The son visited a village where the servants were living.. They greeted the son and when the son burned the document of servants and told the story they were touched and gathered money, summed up three thousand Yang( Yang is the measure of money in the old days) and gave it to the son. But the son spent the money on other things on the way home. When he was going to cross a river, he saw one old man and two women were crying and trying to jump into the deep water. He asked them "What is your problem?" The old man said "My only son is in the prison because he couldn’t pay his debt. If he can not pay three thousands Yang today, he will be executed. Therefore I am going to commit suicide with my wife and my daughter-in-law before my only son’s death. He told to them "Please do not kill yourselves. I will give you three thousands Yang." And he gave all his money to them and came home without any money.The mother was looking forward to seeing the son. And when the son came home and explained everything, the mother said."Son, to save men is so precious thing and you did well. You saw four persons were in peril because of one person and how couldn’t you help them with the money that you had? It was the providence of God that you arrived there at that time. God saved them through you according to His Providence, and He will save us too."What a mother and son they are! Now, living as a Christian, I think that God uses those people who live according to the honest conscience and accomplishes His Providence through them even they do not realize it.  2. Diligence and Frugality Among the memories that I had seen in the house of my mother’s side, there were several scenes that are so vivid like the film of a slide projector running. Those are what had happened before I was ten years old.. I did not try to think of them on purpose but when I remember the lives of grandfather on mother’s side unintentionally, I find that I am following the example of him. The scene that he was picking up the grains of rice scattered on the yard lingers before my eyes. Because of that memory I became that kind of person who can not neglect even one grain or a grain of boiled rice.My grandfather was rich and won the respect in the village. Even though he was rich, when he found those grains that might had been fallen on the yard by mistake in the process of winnowing rice, he didn’t say any words and just picked them up.He was very generous in helping the poor neighbor and relatives and showed hospitality to the family and visitors. Through his diligence and frugality, his family, descendents and the whole villagers could receive the benefits and they owed to him. He rose up early in the morning and had the servant to ring the bell and gathered the children who couldn’t go to school because of poverty and taught them. In one of the rooms of the detached building of the house, he arranged oriental medicine and healed the villagers without charge. He did good to everyone always quietly and without being boisterous.Another person who taught me diligence and frugality is a teacher named Bang Soon Kyung. She graduated from Women’s Education college in Tokyo and she was a real able person. The school that she graduated from was a school that only a woman of intelligence could enter. She was about forty years old but not married. She was diligent in everything. I learned cooking, embroidery, and dying. The thing that I applied in real life most among I learned from her was dying. In those days there was a dyestuff called Miyakojomae, and I learned how to dye silk cloth with it in the household practice room at school and I tried it at home and it worked well without fading, so applied it a lot later. I learned lots of cooking but I couldn’t use them a lot. I married to a person who lived in the country and I didn’t have chances to practice what I learned. For my brother and for my children, I practiced just a few things.. Embroider is not a necessity in daily lives so I didn’t use it so much. When my son’s family were going to America , I gave him a embroidered picture frame and the picture was an ChockseokRu in Jinju and orchid( called Suk Ran ). As my son was moving to Battle Creek after completing internship and psychiatric residency in Kansas City, on the way he dropped by a close friend to sleep over one night and when he was leaving he left the embroider there and couldn’t get it back again. When my daughter got married I made an embroidered folding screen, and she preserved it well during the several moving but lost it when she was moving to Montana. So I realized that although how sincerely I make something, it does not last and only mental and spiritual heritage lasts long. I think the story distracted a little bit. All the things that I learned from teacher Bang, cooking, embroider, dying, those became faded in the chapter of remembrance, but the words that she gave us still left vividly"You must consider preciously even a leaf of radish" The lesson that she taught us was to be frugal and not to waste in everything and it was a living instruction. The lesson that I learned in my teenage remained in me and led my whole life. I still remember the day when I went out to attend the alumni reunion many years after graduation. After my two children left for America, one day I got a message that there would be an alumni meeting of Kyungnam Women’s High School who are living in Seoul. The president of the alumni association was the wife of the man who held the posts of Korean Ambassador to America and a Cabinet minister of Foreign Affairs. Pang Soon Kyung, our former teacher came to the meeting and my heart was full of emotion. She was about seventy years old at that time. After that I came to America and could not have a chance to attend the alumni meeting and see her again but the lesson that I learned from her remains in me as a part of my life guide. The third person who taught me frugality and showed me an example is my mother-in-law. I got married when I was eighteen (about twenty in Korean age), and I went to my husband’s house to live there in the fall of that year. I heard that my mother-in-law hid herself to the backyard when sedan chair on which the bride rides was entering the home, because there was a saying that it is not good to see one’s daughter-in-law at that moment. When the bride sat on the cushion in the main room, my mother-in-law came out and saw the bride for the first time and she said later to me that my neck line from the back looked so clear and delicate. For a while, my mother-in-law used to put fruit in our room and say "You two have a good time and have some fruit"She was not a person who lived without planning. She planned ahead for the day and practiced it and finished what she planned. She was healthy, diligent, and active.. She was very strong and known as a leading person of hardworking in the village. She also ate a lot of food and ate it very quickly. She ate a lot more than what I could eat. She worried and used to say;"You eat so little and how could you make milk for your children?" She was frugal in everything and much different from my mother. My mother didn’t permit me to do much work and I couldn’t learn how to work. So in the evening I often thought that why my mother didn’t teach me how to work.I learned well in everything from my mother-in-law. Aunts of my husband used to say"It is said that the mother-in-law gives birth to a daughter-in-law…"When I was about twenty four years old, I learned a lot of working and became speedy and skilled in working. When my second cousin-in-law was going to get married, I was almost ready to give birth at any time, but I worked and helped so well like a non-pregnant woman, and aunts of my husband told me to serve as a matchmaker if there was any virgin in my family side. I learned and followed the example of the frugality of my mother-in-law and frugality became my second nature. I learned from my mother-in-law the habit of planning for home economy and recycling useless things and making them into useful things. Later when I lost my husband during the Korean war and had to make living by myself with my two children, I could manage to live with small income and this relies much on the lesson that I learned from my mother-in-law. In the biography of Booker T. Washington, there is a description of a hostess of the house where Washington worked as a houseboy. "Viola Ruffiner was a stickler for detail. Her own son was a cadet at West Point, and her Yankee coolness made her appear fearfully exacting. It was like more than appearance, as she had gone through an alarming number of house boys since her arrival in Malden without finding one who could satisfy her demands. When he interviewed for the job and for a while afterward, young Booker shook involuntarily in fear whenever he was in her presence. Nevertheless, he eagerly accepted the job at a salary of five dollars per month which went directly to his stepfather.Booker’s keen intellect and powers of observation allowed him to meet Viola Ruffner’s standards when so many others had failed.. He realized she had notions about behavior, cleanness, manners, and propriety that she saw me reason to change. He began to see there were predictable ways of pleasing her, and that if he was diligent about maintaining her unwavering standards, she would be satisfied. Booker recalled later that he learned first of all that his new employer wanted everything kept clean about her, that she wanted things done promptly and systematically. And at the bottom of everything she wanted absolute honesty and frankness. Nothing must be slovenly or slipshod; every door, every fence must be kept in repair.. From being literally terrified of her, Booker gradually came to admire Mrs. Ruffner and her sense of order. Eventually he became the most satisfactory houseboy she had had since moving to Malden." Indeed Booker T. Washington, while he was working as a houseboy of Viola Ruffner, he learned about keeping the body clean and setting everything in order and it became his habit. In the same way the lesson of frugality that I learned under my mother-in-law and her example became accustomed to me. 3. "Trials in Attending School by Train"When I entered high school, in first grade, the first trial came to me. Students who go to school by train arrived at school earlier than others (after outbreak of the war it was different but at this time it was before the war). So we used to play or study in the classroom before other students came. One day in the morning, as soon as we got to school, my friend, who lived in K town, and I went to the fountain place to drink water after putting our school bags in the classroom. When we turned on the tap, fresh water sprang up. We drank the water and talked to each other. As we were leaving, a tall teacher came out from the night-duty room. "What are you guys talking about here?"He was Gyo Do(Vice Principal) who was sneaky and thick-skinned. He didn’t devote himself in classrooms and instead he liked to make nicknames of the students and just spent time loosely. My heart was flushed and I had to keep silent without saying any word. How was my complexion? Fortunately there was no mirror. My friend Yoon Hee was looking at him blinking her big eyes in perplexion. We couldn’t say anything. We were freshman and we just entered school. But we knew well that we weren’t allowed to speak Korean at school. Yes! We had already learned to use Korean only in absence of a teacher. We were unlucky at that time. Maybe the door of the night-duty room was somewhat opened and he heard us. And accidentally, a Japanese teacher, among all the teachers including Korean teachers, was listening to us and it was the beginning of my unhappiness. "Hey, why do you keep silent? Follow me to the teacher’s room."Morning assembly (it was held at the playground), first class and, second class passed. In front of all the teachers, all the people of coming in and out, we were standing there in the teacher’s room. ‘She is such a quiet student and what problem did she make?’I felt the attention of people’s eyes on me. Although I could read a lot of books in the library by coming to school early by train, I thought the disaster was caused by attending school by train. But I had to continue to attend school by train. I knew that my father would not allow his daughter to leave home and stay in the lodging house or a dorm. I could not even imagine this. In my first grade of high school, the war between China and Japan broke out. Students mobilized themselves to wave flags at young soldiers, who were loaded to the battle field. We could hear and sing only military songs and the stations and streets were filled with waves of war songs and soldiers. The train was often delayed and later the commutation trains were not available and we could only use two kinds of trains, a train headed for south that starts early in the morning and a train headed for north that starts in the evening (about 9PM). Most of the students who used to ride the train to go to school stayed in the lodging house, lived in the dorm or stayed with their relatives. Only a few students remained using the train. Among the students who used the S station, Sung Soon and I were in the same class. Indeed we were lonely. We couldn’t stay at school after the school gate was locked. So we had to go to the station yard and sit on the grass reading and talking until it got dark and we went into the waiting room to sit down on the bench with many other people waiting for the train. I saw a woman almost every night and I heard about her story that she had lost her mind.It was cold and we were hungry and bored so we welcomed to do anything that could make time pass quickly. And then finally the train arrived. It was warm in the train. I usually read books and fell asleep without realizing. So my friend and I tried hard to keep our eyes open during the one and a half hour train ride. One day, she (who was two years older than me) told me"Don’t try to stay awake and why don’t you sleep a while. I am not so sleepy and I will wake you up when we arrive at S station."I felt at ease and fell asleep as time passed. "Ock Chong, wake up, wake up!" From a deep sleep, I woke up surprised. "Are we there yet?" "No, what can I do now?"Seeing her crying face, I turned my face and saw brightly shining electric lights through the window and some pillars passing by. "This is a platform and what station is this?"… The train started from Pusanjin station and my destination was S station and on the way I had never seen this station before. I saw Young Soon with a perplexed look. " ……. ?""We passed S station, and he woke me up after the train started. He thought that the next station was S station.""…. " I could understand what happened.Sung Soon kept alert for a while after I fell asleep and later she became sleepy also and asked the man next to her to wake her up at the S station. We could not do anything but get off at the M station. As we were explaining to a station employee, people were glaring at us. We sat on the bench in the waiting room anxiously. Then I found a friend of my older brother among the passengers. When he came out of the ticket gate, I ran to him."Brother Dalsu, What should we do now?""Oh, you passed by your station."He often visited my house as if it was his own house. When we were living behind the post office, before we moved to the base of the Maebong mountain, he used to come to my house with Sunku whose mother worked at the postmaster as a housekeeper. Maybe his house was near the post office. Later his father transferred to another area and he moved away and I didn’t see him for a long time. But still we were close friends and I talked to him as if I was talking to my own brother."Let’s go to my house. You can sleep at my house and go back tomorrow morning. We can send a telegram to your house. " I turned to Young Soon."Let’s go to my house, there is no more train that goes to S station." Dalsu’s father who came to meet his son also urged. I Looked at Young Soon again but she was just looking down at her feet. "What shall we do, there’s no train anymore. Shall we go to Dalsu’s?"Young Soon shook her head strongly"Then what shall we do?" I almost became tearful. "Let’s stay up all night here and go home tomorrow morning."She looked firm, sitting immovably where she was. ‘Yes, I know well Dalsu and his parents and we are familiar with each other but Young Soon is two years older than me and the same age as Dalsu even though she is a grade under than him … ‘I nodded in my mind and decided to share my fortune with her. The police at the station came to us."You might be hungry, come with me and