Presbyterian in a Packing Case

Curly-haired young Ye Yun Ho, just out of Korea's Presbyterian Theological Seminary, went for a walk last summer beside the great River Han. On the broad flats where U.S. Army trucks dump the city of Seoul's garbage, Ye stopped to watch a swarming tangle of noisy, ragged small fry clawing over the piled-up refuse. The urchins were looking for any scrap of coal or tin or paper that could possibly be sold. For a long time Ye watched them.

He returned to the dump day after day to watch and make friends with the scavengers. They were a poor and filthy rabble, but Ye Yun Ho got along fine with them. While they waited for fresh loads of garbage to arrive, he told them Bible stories and taught them a few hymns.

After a while, Ye Yun Ho, 28, came to live at the dump. Like many members of his new "parish" he found himself a packing case and moved in, sharing his food with those who were worse off. On Sundays he gathered his flock together on the flats for simple services, and when the autumn winds blew cold, he began to build a church.

To raise money for materials Ye painted oil and watercolor portraits of G.I.s. "Some of them gave me their shoes," he says, "which brought in much money." A U.S. Army chaplain .helped him get some secondhand tin for his church roof. When the church tower is finished, Ye plans to put a tablet over the entrance proclaiming that, as the ravens fed Elijah, so "the G.I.s from beyond the Pacific fed God's prophet and helped to build God's church."

Ye Yun Ho became a Christian when he was 16, as the result of a Saturday-evening Bible class at the home of a Methodist missionary. Soon after his graduation from Choon-chun Middle School, the Japanese jailed him for 2 1/2 years for patriotic activities.

Presbyterian Ye calculates that he needs approximately $100 more to finish his dump-heap church. Last week the windows were glazed at last, and Ye and his flock of young Christian scavengers were praying hard for a new improvement--a floor to cover the frozen ground. But Ye Yun Ho was also thinking ahead.

"Now the children attend Sunday School," he said enthusiastically, sitting on the crate that he uses for a chair and warming his slender hands over a tiny charcoal brazier. "In the spring I hope to start a day school. I hope also ... to make plans to improve their condition. It is too difficult to change their occupation at once, for they are too poor."

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