Christmas in Korea

 By Jim Lee

I had an experience while serving in the United States Army. We had been married three years, and I was stationed in the East, and orders came down for me and others to be transferred to Korea, and my wife couldn't go. We owned a mobile home, and had to take it to Weiser, Idaho where my wife's parents lived, and we parked it there, and then we traveled to Washington for me to catch a plane to Korea. We both felt lost and lonely, as that was our first Christmas apart from each other.

That first Christmas day they brought a group of orphans out to our compound, and they got to eat Christmas dinner with us, and we helped them dish up their food. Thinking they must be starved, we dished up a lot on their army trays, and sat with them during the meal. Then after the meal the company put on a cartoon movie for them to watch, and we sat with them as we were instructed to do. 

A little girl sat next to me, and I noticed that she was shivering because she had no coat, and her shoes so to speak, were slip-ons, and so I picked her up and sat her on my lap so she could see the movie better, and I opened up my Army field jacket and wrapped it around her, holding her close to me, and soon she stopped shivering, and when the cartoons were over, she was sound asleep on my lap.  This was in December of 1956, and it was winter outside with snow on the ground. 

That night, I sat in the library and wrote a letter to my mother telling her of my experience and wishing I could do something to help. She had raised 11 of us children, and literally wore her life out serving others. 

A couple of weeks later, I received a letter from her, with tear stains on it, and she told me she was going to start a clothing drive to provide warm clothes for those little orphans, which she wanted to do for them. I was delighted. 

When the clothes started arriving at our company, they came in burlap sacks, and were delivered to our company. Soon more bags started coming, and I started taking them to the orphanages for the children. Needless to say, my mother continued to send, not only clothes, but school supplies for the children, and food and other things which they needed, too. And whenever we had enough to take out to the orphanages in the area, I would get permission from the Company Commander to use an army truck to deliver them to the various orphanages. 

That fall, I received a letter from my mother telling me she was going to start collecting coats and dolls as well as other things to send for Christmas 1957, and wondered if I could get the tailors there to make the coats over for the orphans, and so I went to the Korean tailors on base and talked to them about the idea mom presented, and they agreed to tailor them for the kids in the local orphanage for free, and had Pastor Kim, the director of the orphanage, bring the children out for measurements so they could have a coat of their own which fitted them on Christmas day. And when the coats came, we took them to the tailors, and they started remaking the coats so that each child could have their very own coat. 

Mom also collected 200 dolls to send to me to share with the orphans, along with three boxes of things for her little orphan, Lee Eun Og, whom she was sponsoring through an orphan aid program to the tune of $15.00 a month, from money she earned by selling greeting cards in a booth set out in front of our home and wanted me to deliver her presents to her on Christmas day. 

So on Christmas day, 1957, we left the compound with a 2 ½ ton truck loaded with bags of clothes, dolls, food, shoes, etc., to make deliveries to the orphanages along the road to Seoul, and made stops along the way to share some of the bags of clothes, etc., with the orphanages we saw, and when we arrived in Seoul, we started trying to find the orphanage where Lee Eun Ok was, and we finally located it, and pulled into their compound, and started unloading what we had left, along with the presents for Lee Eun Ok. They brought her out, along with all the other orphans, and brought out a table to set the three boxes of things for her on, and when she opened the boxes, there was a great big doll, almost as big as she was, and all the little orphans said "Ah, or Oh, and so the director of the orphanage strapped the doll on Lee's back and she paraded around in front of all the orphans there as they clapped and cheered. And I cried, even as I am doing now, as I share this wonderful experience I had in far off Korea, some 54 years ago, which left a memory which time cannot destroy, and was the best Christmas I ever had. 

I didn't get to be at our Christmas dinner that year, to get to see all those little orphans open their present of a new coat made just for them, nor did I get to eat Christmas dinner that year, but I didn't care. I was out doing what my wonderful mother had been helping me to do.

When I returned home in March of 1958, I had the privilege of helping my mother prepare the last shipment to be sent to Korea, to the LDS Mission President to distribute to the needy there. And that was the last shipment she sent, making the total of 40,000 pounds of food, clothes, dolls, school supplies, and so forth, which she had collected, and in the process, had worn out a sewing machine and washing machine, which she used to prepare those things for me to give away. 

And years later, my youngest brother, Rex, who helped mom with her Korean Orphan Aid project in his youth, received a mission call to Korea, and was so excited to get to go on a mission to Korea, and while there, he experienced along with the Korean people, what is called the Monsoon season, where many of their poorly constructed homes had been washed away or destroyed, and he wrote to mom saying, "Mom, we need to do it again." 

And so, another Korean Orphan Aid Project was started by my dear mother, and we all helped with it this time, and in the process, another 15,000 pounds of food, clothes, etc., were shipped to Korea to be distributed to the needy through the LDS Relief Society there. And mom's history books are filled with many clippings which were published in the local newspapers about her Korean Orphan Aid Project, which I have in my possession this day, along with letters of commendation from various Army officials and others, because of her Orphan aid project. 

She passed away at the age of 95, several years ago, leaving behind over 200 descendants whom she dearly loved. And her posterity has grown with leaps and bounds since then, and we all owe her a debt of gratitude for all she did to show us the way to serve our fellow man, and to strive to make a difference in this old world of ours, just as Jesus said to do, when He said, "As I have loved you, love one another." And that is exactly what my mother, Jennie May Woodbury Lee, did.