Hyeon Soo Lim has a lot of numbers he remembers.
He traveled more than 100 times to North Korea to help with humanitarian aid before being arrested there in January 2015.
He spent two years, six months and nine days in isolation. He ate 2,757 meals alone. He spent eight hours a day digging holes that were one meter wide and one meter deep. In the winter, the ground was frozen, and he fought against frostbite. In the summer, the sun was scorching.
“It was difficult to see when and how the entire ordeal would end,” Lim told The Guardian.
But he never lost hope.
Lim, pastor of the Light Korean Presbyterian Church in Mississauga, Ontario, returned to Canada on Aug. 9 after a sudden and unexpected release from his North Korean labor camp, according to The Guardian.
The longest-held Western prisoner in decades, Lim was convicted of crimes against the state and was serving a life sentence of hard labor, according to CNN.
He was “released on sick bail” after a plane carrying senior Canadian officials, a medical doctor and a letter to North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un was dispatched to Pyongyang “at the last minute,” according to family spokeswoman Lisa Pak.
The 62-year-old pastor lost more than 50 pounds in his first two months in captivity and was hospitalized several times in serious condition, according to the Toronto Sun.
‘Continually praying’
Lim’s faith is what got him through, he said. “One of the core strengths for me was my relationship with God,” he said, according to The Christian Post. “So even while I was in hard labor, just consistently continually praying. And also the Bible that was provided to me, just having that nearby was a real strength.”
He read the Bible in both English and Korean five times while in prison, along with memorizing more than 700 verses, according to The Guardian.
“There were moments of discouragement, resentment and grumbling that soon changed [into] courage, joy and thanksgiving,” he said.
At Lim’s church, a congregation of about 3,000 members, the crowd was standing room only to welcome him back to the pulpit Aug. 13. “It’s a miracle for me to be here today,” he told them.
Between 50,000 and 70,000 Christians currently are held in North Korean labor camps, according to Open Doors, which serves persecuted Christians worldwide. (TAB)
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