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My father, Rev, In Jae Lee, immigrated to the United States on June 29, 1974 at age 68. At the farewell luncheon in Seoul he declared to his friends and colleagues that he planed to travel the world to preach the Gospel like the way Apostle Paul did. Indeed, after arriving to Chicago, he traveled to Jersey City (NJ), Philadelphia, Erie (PA), Denver, Boston, Greensboro (NC), San Jose, San Francisco, LA, Vancouver (Canada)—more than 10 cities and 8 states in North America—and tirelessly preached the Gospel. He loved studying and preaching the Word; and he gave his earnest and utmost effort to practice what he preached. His attraction and curiosity toward the Bible converted him to Christianity at age 17 in 1923. His faithfulness to the Word enabled him to overcome the Japanese colonial oppression, gave him the courage to oppose the Shinto worship during the World War II at age 32, and helped him to endure the imprisonment as result for 5 years and 4 months. In his early thirties then and until his late years in his early nineties he tried to live by Apostle Paul’s words: To die and to live with Christ everyday (Gal. 2:20; I Cor. 15: 31). *(FN) When he came to the United States in 1974 he and his family settled down in Chicago, where his brother, Rev. Myung Jae Lee's family resided, in an apartment newly built and managed by Chicago Housing Authority. In front of the apartment was a newly built Truman Community College where an ESL class was taught by Mr. Byung Chul Min, who later became a famous and wealthy English teacher and author in Korea. In class my father took up the biblical name, Jacob, and diligently undertook the study of English—mostly on grammar—the subject he had once studied some 30 years ago in the Pyung Yang police prison when the Bible was no longer allowed in the prison cell. My father loved and liked to identify himself with Jacob for being an instrument of God's blessing to Pharoah despite his “few and hard years” he had lived, as Jacob confessed to Pharoah (Gen. 47:9-10). I am sure, my father would have liked to be considered a source of blessings, like Jacob, to many believers he had touched through his life-long ministry in Korean churches in both Korea and America. When he was pastoring a church in Denver in 1988, after returning from a busy preaching engagement in San Francisco, he developed shingles on his left arm and hand due to rigor of travel. His palm was completely dotted with red irritated nerve endings that looked like sand particles but caused him enormous pain. The doctor said that some patients even amputate the limb in order to avoid pain. There is no cure; and the pain lasts for a lifetime. My father took 6 pills of extra strength Tylenold everyday for the rest of his life. My mother confided in me that the times when the flares of the shingles were at the pick were the most difficult times of her life since marriage. When I visited him, he was able to resume his daily routine. During a walk in one of the balmy Colorado winter afternoons, he shared with me a Bible verse, telling me that the thought of Christ's suffering on the cross was the only thing that got him through the period of his suffering: “… always carrying in the body the death of Jesus…” (II Cor. 4:10). It was the first time I ever heard him talk about Christ’s suffering as vicarious. Christ's suffering offered him a healing power to undergo his own suffering. The next year, in May of 1989, he lost his second son, Chung Shin, to a severe depression in Chicago. Arriving at the airport from Boston, as he was met by his younger brother, Rev. Myung Jae Lee, and by a long time friend, Ms. In Soon Park (who had also campaigned with him against the Shinto worship during WWII) he gave out a loud moan of grief with such profusion of tears I had never seen. A few months later, in early 1990 in Boston where he resided, he again wailed out load for several days, I was told, at the passing of Mrs. Young Oak Pek, the wife of the long deceased dear friend of his, Mr. Jai Sun Cha, with whom my father served his home town church together in Mil Yang in the 1930’s. (Mr. Cha served as a pastor there when he was a seminarian).**(FN) Thus, my father had his share of suffering both in his midlife in Korea under the Japanese oppression as well as in his later years in America. Converted to Christianity at age 17 in 1923, he remained a Confucian throughout his life, upholding the ideal of a virtuous man (君子, 군자), cherishing friendship and loyalty, and maintaining the love of learning. In hindsight, in 1960’s my father seemed to have been a strict authoritarian. Influenced by American Fundamentalism, he at one point forbade us, the children, from even listening to the radio. Had we had a TV (not many could afford it at the time), I am sure, he would have forbidden it too. He was also preoccupied with doctrinal issues at the Synod meetings. I remember him vigorously debating with his long time friend, Rev. Young Hee Paik, regarding whether or not the saved soul could sin, the debate which ultimately cost the friendship, which however was restored later after some decades. (He was invited by Rev. Paik to preach at his church, Pusan Seobu Church. Hear the sermon delivered on Sept. 28, 1985.) In his later years my father's theological focus seems to have changed. Rather than discussing the doctrinal issues, he devoted himself to learning and teaching about living with the fullness of the Holy Spirit and about becoming like Christ in one’s character formation and life. For example, he liked to share with me and my mother at lunch what he had meditated on in the morning earlier that day. I remember him talking about the Gospel of John for several weeks and quietly repeating to himself and to us his favorite verse: “... I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you” (John 14:20). One day he confided in me what he had shared with a young pastor he happened to encounter: That the secret to being a good pastor is to know this: “Christ did not please himself…” (Rom. 15:3). Pastoring, for him, meant being a servant of others. Another favorite verse he liked to meditate on was II. Cor. 3: 18 (which he one time asked me, a seminarian, to translate directly from the Greek text): “And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit.” He earnestly tried, as he preached, to be transformed into Christ's likeness. My father did not talk much about his 5 year and 4 month long imprisonment he suffered as result of opposing Shinto worship during the WW II. To our amazement, he did not consider his courage to stand up to the Japanese oppression to be of any extraordinary or heroic feat. For in one of his sermons he states: “We could all courageously give up our life for Christ one day when the opportunity presents itself and as result obtain the glory of martyrdom. But the greater glory lies in dying with Christ everyday” (The Heavenly Visitors, 176). He thought that his decision to sacrifice his life to keep God’s honor and His Commandments (and thus not bow to the Shinto shrine) was something that any Christians would and could do without much qualm or hesitation (although he knew this was not true at all in reality, as history bears out). Thus, he did not think to boast about his remarkable feat of faith when he opposed Shinto worship and actively campaigned against the regiment. Moreover, his humility forbade him to talk about what he did so courageously and decisively. See his biography. For a long time—probably from the time of his imprisonment—he only had a slim peripheral vision on his right eye, the condition he came to know only later in 1980’s. (For unknown reason the right retina in the center had been irreparably damaged for a long time.) On September 11, 1997 he got up from his bed in the morning, called his wife to his bedside, and quietly said: “I have become like Isaac.” At age 91 he had completely lost his sight, as his left eye, the only eye with vision until then, had suffered a mini-stroke. The small veins behind the retina had burst, clouding the inner eyeball. The ophthalmologist pronounced that had become legally blind in both eyes. As result, he could no longer read the Bible and sermons (of other pastors) as he used to, which he enjoyed doing. He had to stop his daily walk, too, and had suddenly become confined to his bed. He felt helpless and distraught. The wait which lasted over three years had begun. In her autobiography, If I Die, Ms. Yi Sook Ahn, who had also been imprisoned with him in Pyung Yang police cells for opposing the Shinto worship, referred to my father as “meek as a lamb.” And just as his self-chosen name suggests (In Jae, 仁宰, 어질인 재상재), my father was a meek and gentle person who readily sympathized with the unfortunate on one hand while not hesitating to show his righteousness indignation toward injustice on the other. The Shinto worship was one of the most unjust and deplorable event which provoke his righteous indignation as a Christian. As much as the Shinto worship was a violation of God’s Commandments, it also went against the Confucius sense of virtue (his first name, In 仁, is one of the key Confucius words meaning goodness, man-to-man-ness, benevolence, love, virtue, or human-heartedness). He could not tolerate God's name being defamed, as many Christians succumbed to the pressures and participated in the Shinto worship. By a simple act of personal decision, he thought (he told me), God’s name and honor be restored by refusing to bow to the Shinto shrine. So he opposed the Shinto worship and actively campaigned against the Japanese edict, which forced all Koreans to observe the Shinto worship rituals at public institutions and meetings during the WWII in Korea. On April 30, 2000, in the early morning on the first Sunday after Easter, at 1:50 AM, as the cherry blossoms fell in droves at the gentle breeze of spring, my father took his last quiet breath and committed himself to God in the presence of his watchful wife. He thus remained gentle and meek both in his life and in his death: "Blessed are the meek..." Chungsoo J. Lee (이정수 李 廷 秀)
Lee |
| A son's memory |
| A Korean art work purchased and owned by Rev. Lee |
| With Chungsoo, the youngest son, a freshman at Wheaton College, 1978 |
Chungsoo Lee's June 2008 interview with Kingdom Resources for Christ Magazine on the legacy of Rev. Lee |