On Thursday, Vice President Mike Pence, a devout Christian himself, shared a moving moment that occurred when he met the three American detainees returning from North Korea: one of the men handed him a note on which was written the 126th Psalm.
It is not clear who wrote the note; one of the men is an ordained evangelical pastor and another is reportedly a Christian missionary.
The three men who were released were Kim Hak Soon, Kim Dong Chul, and Kim Sang Duk. Hak-Soon and Sang Duk, who taught at the Pyongyang University of Science & Technology (PUST), were detained in April & May 2017; Kim Dong Chul was arrested in October 2015.
Kim Hak-song was ordained as an evangelical Christian pastor affiliated with the Oriental Mission Church in Los Angeles. His wife told CNN that he is an agricultural expert who’d been teaching rice-growing at the university.
Kim Dong Chul has said he is a Christian missionary. A North Korean defector, Ma Young-ae, told Reuters on Tuesday that she had met Kim in the United States in January 2016. She stated, “He told the churches that he was a missionary working on North Korea and sending stuff from China into the North to help poor North Koreans.”
Kim Sang Dok’s son, Sol, stated that his father had been teaching accounting and business at PUST.
