Dear Partners for world mission,

As you can see from our return address below, we are on interpretation assignment (furlough) until August 20, and then we will be back in Seoul. It has been many months since our last letter and a lot has happened, including the routine preaching, teaching, and healing (taking medicine) that has characterized mission work in Korea from the beginning—not to mention administration, which is Art’s work at the mission office. What stands out is that Sue made two more trips to North Korea to see and try to help alleviate the acute needs there. Since March, we have been privileged to deliver our mission report in a number of related churches around the United States.

The Lord in His perfect timing called home Art’s mother Dorothy in March. She was 93 and praying to go to heaven to rejoin her beloved husband Francis. Since retiring from Costa Rica in December, brother Ross has been living five miles from Pasadena where Mother was. On the night Dorothy passed away Art and Sue visited her again, and we prayed together, not knowing it was the end, but Sue had been moved to say that we should visit her again for the second time that day. At the memorial service some 130 retired missionaries and Korean and other friends gathered to greet children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren, and to say goodbye in a service lead by fellow retired missionaries and family.

Dorothy fits the old-time description of a true missionary. She left her widowed mother in New Jersey to travel three weeks, crossing by ship to marry her fiancé Francis in Pyongyang. When we children were a little older she began her career of teaching English to girls in the Presbyterian Chungshin High School and then to future pastors in the Presbyterian College and seminary where Fran was New Testament professor. Assisting her husband and feeding a light meal to groups of 70 two or more times a month in the days after the Korean War, Dorothy helped as "teacher’s spouse" with the work of the Korean Bible Clubs. In those needy times she also distributed relief goods and used clothing from the U.S. to hundreds through orphanages and widows homes. She always felt that the call of mission was for life and taught her sons that. Dr. Han Kyung Chik had said at Dad’s memorial service that more than anyone else Francis (and by extension Dorothy) was the one most responsible for the spread of vital Christian faith among the Presbyterians of Korea, who now number three times as many as there are Presbyterians in the U.S. When we look at American Christians today, we say with the Book of Revelation "Who follows in their train?"

When Sue took food and clothing to Pyongyang, North Korea, on December 15, it was cold and many places had no heat. The noodle factory produced 5,000 bowls of cooked noodles a day from a ton of wheat flour sent by Korean-American Presbyterians, since many had no energy for cooking. When Sue visited the children’s home in the capital city where we are sending powdered milk, the children looked much smaller than their age, but sang and danced well.

On her next visit on May 1, Pyongyang was warm, and Sue and her group of six were glad to see four more noodle factories supported by overseas Christians and the children’s home in Sariwon southwest of Pyongyang with 535 youngsters from 1 to 7 years of age. The medicine, cloth for clothes, and food were eagerly received.

We should all pray for the people of North Korea—it was reported that the crop failures of recent years are climaxed this year by the worst drought in 70 years! It is hard to understand all the reasons for the continued hunger problems and the breakdown of services and production in North Korea, but pride and dependence on human invincibility are part of the reason. Hopefully, concerned people and nations will continue to share their surplus so that North Koreans will survive.

Art and Sue will attend the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)’s General Assembly in Louisville from June 9 to 17 and the sharing conference for mission personnel on furlough at the end of July. Art is busy with preparations for teaching a new subject this autumn: church history.

Thanking you all for your concern and support,

Art and Sue Kinsler

The 2001 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 181