Ahn Kim Found Herself in God’s ADVANCED College of Faith: Prison
During the Japanese occupation of Korea, the conquerors demanded everyone worship their Shinto gods. Ahn Kim (nee Ahn Ei Sook), a frail, young Korean woman made up her mind not to comply and managed to evade the requirement for a time. The headmistress of the Christian school where she worked complied as did most Christians.
Finally a day came when Kim was forced to appear at the Shinto shrine. Although fearing arrest and torture, she stood when everyone else knelt to the idol. She was taken to a fierce interrogator. In his office she prayed silently and remembered a promise from Exodus 14:13,14, “Do not fear, the Lord will fight for you.”
The phone rang. Her interrogator answered, began trembling, and turned to rummage through a cabinet of papers. He found a file and rushed from the room as if Kim were not there. Kim walked out past the office staff and went into hiding.
One night while sleeping, she was kicked in the side. She started up but no one was near her. Recognizing this as God’s warning to flee, she immediately left for another hiding place. Carrying a bundle as if she were a woman peddler, she walked until nightfall and slept in a school’s playground. During the night she heard Christ tell her to go to Pyongyang, the leading city of the nation. Obediently she boarded a bus for Shinijoo, from where she could catch a train to the capital.
At Shinijoo she saw hundreds of expressionless Japanese youth marching to war. Her heart cried out that someone needed to stop the madness that was sending these boys to death and to hell. In frustration she stamped her feet. Then she heard a voice saying, “You are the one!”
With an elderly man she went to Japan to testify against the war. Through a retired Japanese statesman, the two gained access to the Japanese parliament and warned the legislators that persistence in their course would result in punishment of fire from the sky.
Back in Korea, Kim was arrested. On this day, 20 September 1940, she was taken to Pyongyang prison.
I now realized that the more dangerous my situation became, the closer God would be to me. Up to this moment I had believed in the Lord with all my heart. Now the time had come for me to experience the work of faith. I was now to see the promises of the Lord become mine. He would care for me.
“Now I’m going to enter the advanced college of faith,” she told her mom. “Christ is the principal, so I am sure he will teach me about true faith. Isn’t that wonderful?” Her mom replied that she must lose her life to Jesus every day and hour and minute.
Those years in prison would test Kim to the max, but also prove God faithful. Here are just a few of the faith-building events from Kim’s long years of suffering. Her courage made her so famous that a rich woman, the wife of a notable leader, came to work in the prison just so she could be near Kim and provide her a little support.
Once Kim was chained in a position designed to create intense torment. Restrained like a pretzel in terrible pain for more than a day, she pleaded with Jesus, reminding him that his agony on the cross lasted only six hours. Soon afterward a prison doctor inspected her and ordered her released.
Another time, she implored the guards to allow a demon-possessed murderess into her cell. There she nursed and warmed the crazed and filthy woman for days. Cell mates remarked that they had no idea Christ expected so much of his followers. Under Kim’s love and counseling the woman became a believer and went to her execution with joy.
Malnourished and suffering, Kim begged the Lord for a single apple. God sent many bruised apples, so rotten that they dissolved in her mouth and provided the nutrients she needed. Her loose teeth could not have handled firm fruit.
Told that all prisoners would be forced to worship the Shinto idol to commemorate an anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack, she fasted and prayed for three days. The anniversary came but no guards took them from their cells. Soon they learned the governor’s plane had been shot down.
Near the end of the war, Kim was offered an early release. Her mother (who had prayed constantly for her, even standing outside on a wall in the cold so as to keep awake) rejected the idea as unworthy of Kim. Kim had no right to abandon fellow Christians, said her mom. Furthermore, early release might make it seem she had cut a deal with her captors. Kim was finally released 17 August 1945, a couple days after Japan signed its surrender. Read more about Ahn Kim in her testimony, If I Perish.
—Dan Graves
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Learn how the gospel came to Korea in Servant of Christ: Robert Jermain Thomas & Korean Revivals. Watch at RedeemTV.
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