and Kyungju to Busan. We arrived finally on January 27, 1951.
Busan was filled with refugees from the north. It felt like
the whole country had gathered there. Any accommodation fit to live
in was filled already. Our tiny place had barely enough room to sit. Our
only option was to go into the woods at night, keeping warm as best we
could, and then return to the city by day to look for food.
My hair, which was kept short during my prison time, had now
grown back. My trousers, mended from the inside with cotton from
a sleeping quilt, had become threadbare. My clothes were saturated so
fully with an oily grime that raindrops in heavy rain were not absorbed
into the cloth but rather simply rolled off.
Almost nothing was left of the soles of my shoes, although the upper
part was mostly still there. I might as well have been walking barefoot. The
fact was simply that I was the lowest of the low, a beggar among beggars.
There was no work to be had, and we had no money in our pockets. The
only way we could eat was to beg.
Yet even while begging for food, I maintained my dignity. If someone
refused to help, I would say in a clear and confident voice, “Listen.
If you do not help people like us who are in need, you will have great
difficulties if you hope to receive blessings in the future!” People would
give when faced with such thoughts. We took the food we gathered this
way to a flat area where we all could sit together. Dozens of people like
us ate in such places. We had nothing, and even had to beg for food, but
a warm friendship always flowed among us.
Once in the middle of a day like this, suddenly I heard someone
shout, “Look here! How long has it been?”
I turned to see standing before me Dok Mun Eom, a friend from my
days in Japan. Dok Mun Eom had befriended me for life back then from
having been so moved by a song I sang. Today he is one of Korea’s most
prominent architects, having designed the Sejong Cultural Center and
the Lotte Hotel.
“Let’s go,” he said, as he embraced me in my wretched clothes. “Let’s
go to my home.”
By that time, Dok Mun Eom had married. He lived together with his
family in a single room. To make room for me, he hung a quilt down the
middle of that room, dividing it, with one side for me. On the other he
slept with his wife and two young children.
“Now,” he said, “tell me about your life lately. I always wondered
where you were and what you might be doing. We were close friends,”
he said, “but you have always been more than a friend to me. Did you
know that I always held you in great respect?”
Up to that point, I had never shared my heart candidly with any of
my friends. In Japan, I went so far as to hide the fact that I often read
the Bible. If someone came into my room when I was reading, I would
quickly put the Bible away. But in the home of Duk Mun Eom, I shared
my story for the first time.
I spoke throughout the night. I told him of my encounter with God,
crossing the 38th parallel, starting a church, and surviving Heungnam
Prison. My story took a full three days to tell. When I finished, Duk Mun
Eom stood and folded himself before me in a full ceremonial bow.
“What are you doing?” I asked in shock and surprise. I grabbed his
hand and tried to stop him, but it was no use. I could not.
“From this moment on,” said Duk Mun Eom, “you are my great
spiritual teacher. This bow is my greeting to you as my teacher, so please
accept it.”
He has been with me ever since, both as my friend and as my disciple.
Soon after this, I found a job on Pier 4 in Busan harbor. I worked only
at night. With my pay, I bought bean porridge at Cho-ryang Station.
The hot porridge was sold with a rag wrapped around the container
to keep it hot. I always held the porridge container against my body
for more than an hour before eating it. This helped to warm my body,
which froze from working throughout the long, cold night.
I found lodging in a shelter for laborers located in the Cho-ryang
neighborhood. My room was so small that I could not lie down,
even diagonally, without my feet pressing against the wall. But this
was the room where I sharpened a pencil and solemnly wrote the
first draft of Wolli Wonbon (the original text of The Principle). I was
financially destitute, but this was of no importance to me. Even living
in a garbage heap, there is nothing a determined soul cannot do. All we
need is the will.
Won Pil Kim had just turned twenty. He did all sorts of jobs. He
worked in a restaurant and brought home the scorched rice that
couldn’t be served to customers. We ate this together. Because of his gift
for drawing, he soon got a job with the U.S. military as a painter.
Eventually, he and I climbed up to Beom-net-gol in Beom-il Dong
and built a house. Because this area was near a cemetery, there was
nothing nearby except a rocky ravine. We had no land we could call our
own, so we leveled a section of the steep slope and built a home there.
We didn’t even have a shovel! We took a small shovel from someone’s
kitchen and returned it before the owner realized it was missing. Won
Pil Kim and I broke rocks, dug the earth, and carried up gravel. We
mixed mud and straw to make bricks, then stacked them up to make
the walls. We got some empty ration boxes from an American base,
flattened them out, and used them as the roof. We laid down a sheet of
black plastic for the floor.
Even simple huts are built better than this. Ours was built against
a boulder, so a big piece of rock stuck up in the middle of the room.
Our only possessions were the small desk that sat behind that rock
and Won Pil Kim’s easel. When it rained, a spring would bubble up
inside our room. How romantic to hear the sound of the water flowing
beneath us where we sat! In the morning, after sleeping in this
unheated room with a leaking roof and water still flowing below,
we would arise with runny noses. Even so, we still were happy for
our small space where we could lie down and put our minds at ease.
The surroundings were miserable, but we were filled with hope from
living on the path of God’s will.
Each morning, when Won Pil Kim went to work at the American
base, I accompanied him to the bottom of the hill. When he came home
in the evening, I went out to greet him and welcome him. The remainder
of my time I spent writing the Wolli Wonbon. Our room always had
plenty of sharpened pencils. Even when there was no rice in the rice jar,
we had pencils.
Won Pil Kim helped in many ways, both materially and spiritually.
Through this I could concentrate on my writing. Even when exhausted
from a full day’s work, he followed me around, looking for ways to help.
I was getting so little sleep those days that I could fall asleep anywhere.
Sometimes I even fell asleep on the toilet. Won Pil Kim followed me to
the toilet to make sure I was all right.
But that was not all. He wanted so much to contribute even a little
to the book I was writing. He began to draw portraits for American
soldiers, and in this way he earned money to keep me supplied with
pencils. At the time, it was popular among American soldiers to have a
portrait drawn of their wife or girlfriend before returning to America.
Won Pil Kim glued sheets of silk on wooden frames, painted the portraits,
and sold them for four dollars each.
I felt grateful for his dedication. I sat beside him when he painted
and did all I could to help him. While he was away at his job on the
American base, I would put the glue on the silk, cut the wood for frames,
and put them together. Before he came home, I washed his brushes and
bought the paints he needed. After coming home, he would take a 4B
pencil and draw the portrait. At first, he was drawing only one or two,
but soon word of his work spread. He became so well known among the
soldiers that he was drawing twenty and thirty at a time. It got to where
our home was filled with portraits, and we had trouble finding room to
sleep at night.
As the workload increased, I started to do more than just help on the
sidelines. Won Pil drew outlines of the faces, and I colored the lips and clothing.
From the money we earned together, we bought pencils and drawing
materials and spent the rest for witnessing. It is important to record God’s
words in writing, but even more important is to tell people about His will.
