• Korea
    1988 Yearbook of Jehovah’s Witnesses

    • The Ok family are an outstanding example. They were all Seventh-Day Adventists, well educated, and economically well off and they had an outstanding reputation in the community. Ok Ji-joon’s father was an elder in the church and the principal of an Adventist school, and his wife Kim Bong-nyob was the local school’s auditor.

      “One day in 1937,” Ok Ji-joon tells us, “I happened to find a magazine, The Golden Age, in the trash can. Since I was very religious, I was interested in the religious articles in it and read them thoroughly. Some days later two men visited me and offered me more literature from the ‘Lighthouse.’ [This was the term for “Watch Tower” mistakenly translated and used by the Japanese branch overseer and hence used also in Korea.] They had me read what I later learned was a testimony card. I gladly received all the books they had. Later, on reading them I found many points that contradicted my Adventist faith. I wrote to the Tokyo address appearing on the back pages of the book and for some months kept up this doctrinal discussion by mail. The Tokyo branch would answer my questions, enclosing certain Watchtower magazines underlined in red at particular places.

      “The Sariwon Adventist Church in Hwanghae Province, now in North Korea, made trouble for me because I kept on asking questions about this newfound truth. The minister tried to evade answering and haughtily said that asking such questions of the minister, especially one who was an intimate friend of my father, was disrespectful. But I thought personal relations should not interfere with Bible discussions and that he owed me an answer. My younger brother also recognized the truth and came along with me, as did my older brother. Finally we stopped attending church.

      “My father opposed us. When my older brother and I closed down our prosperous farming-tool factory in order to have time for the preaching work, he was furious and put us out of the house. However, we did not give up but kept trying to persuade him with the information in The Watchtower.”