Our oldest Underground University graduate and missionary, Mrs. Lee is now 92-years old. Despite her age, she still maintains the same amount of fervor for the Lord and for ministry.

Mrs. Lee still makes frequent trips abroad for ministry. But, when she is back home, she helps us to visit NK newcomers who have started their life in South Korea. Mrs. Lee always calls and says, “Take me with you! This is my mission.”

On a recent visit to several North Korean defectors, the route was such that we would not be able to bring Mrs. Lee back to her house. We let her know that, if she wants to join the trip, she would have to arrange for her own transportation. She said, “I don’t care if I have to pay one hundred thousand won (around $100) for a taxi. This is my mission”.

So, she joined the trip.

We visited Mrs. Y, an NK defector in her 30s. She had a loving husband in China, but she suffered from depression, and her husband didn’t know what to do about it. She said that she learned about evolution in NK, but that she didn’t believe it. She said that, when she looked at the stars and the sky, she thought that there was something beyond the visible universe and had some thoughts about God. Mrs. Lee exchanged phone numbers with her and is continuing to call her to maintain the relationship.

The last person we visited was Miss E, a young NK woman in her 20s and a student at an alternative school for NK defectors and children of NK defectors. Having lived in China for so long, Miss E did not speak Korean very well, so it was good to have Mrs. Lee on the trip because Mrs. Lee also speaks Chinese. Miss E’s mom is in China and cannot defect because she has an illness. Mrs. Lee encouraged her in the faith and also encouraged her to pray for her mother’s health. Miss E said to Mrs. Lee, “You sound like my mother and my aunt”.

When it comes to ministering to North Koreans, Mrs. Lee’s ministerial contribution is indispensable. Mrs. Lee’s ministry reminds us to remember who the best ministers of the gospel are.

“For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God” (1 Corinthians 1:26-29)