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Community Corner

Hope Remains Resilient in Korean Congregation

A Baptist church in Seminole Heights has a special connection to events unfolding half a world away.

The prayers for peace that mark the holiday season were particularly poignant for a Seminole Heights congregation this year.

The Korean First Baptist Church, located at Highland and Hanna avenues, has been watching with the world as tensions undulate on the Korean peninsula, a place most members call a second home.

After a decade that largely offered hope for reconciliation, 2010 brought both an uptick in North Korean aggression and a renewed debate over how South Korea should respond to the north's enigmatic leader, Kim Jung-Il

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E-mail and phone calls help members stay in touch with family and friends in South Korea, and they say such contact soothes nerves often left frayed by U.S. and Korean news coverage.

"It's funny. The people living in Korea are calmer about the whole situation," said Jae Lee, a church member who has lived in the U.S. since he was 10. "Korean Americans watching the news actually worry more. In the media, things can kind of balloon up."

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A South Korean infantry colonel temporarily stationed at MacDill Air Force Base recently visited the church and agrees that Koreans are a resilient, battle-tested people.

"For 2000 years, Korea has seen invasions from the outside, so war is nothing new," said Youngsul Seo, who has seen firefights in the demilitarized zone (DMZ) and even lost a soldier. "There is survival in the Korean DNA, something in the blood."

Though they call for longterm peace in the region, in the short-term, many members question how long the South can let Northern attacks go unanswered, at least militarily. Retaliation though could lead to costly all-out war.

"But how long can we let these attacks go on?" Lee said. He and other members say they have hope that Korea's new general will make a stronger military response.

Like most young Korean men, John Shin served in the country's military, which has a mandatory service period of around two years.

He too was stationed on the delicate DMZ, where peace and violence were equally random. It was common to hear insults or even shots fired across the 100-yard no-man's land, but sometimes shouted conversations would erupt too.

Shin, like many members, see a unified Korea not as an "if" but as a "when." They brim with confidence even as they admit their uncertainty as to what the path to reunification will look like: Arbitration? War? Revolution? Northern reform? Some combination of these elements?

No matter. The end result will be the same.

"We'll be together soon," Shin said.

He thinks changes in China and the former USSR and East Germany are good models for how reunification could occur. The church is already helping to raise money in case the North somehow opens up.  

For now though, families must move forward. Lee will visit his family in South Korea in a few months. His children are excited to learn more about their second culture, something that stops, at least for now, at the 38th parallel.

"Ultimately, I want my children to understand not just Korean culture, but a unified Korean culture," Lee said. "That's my hope."

Korean First Baptist Church

6018 N. Highland Ave, Tampa, FL 33604

Phone:  813-239-0213

www.kfbctampa.org



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