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For a very meaningful experience of Holy Thursday and Friday, the NCCK, along with the local Councils in Busan, Gwangju, Daegu and Daejeon, and the Korea YMCA and YWCA organizations, organized a pilgrimage to the small community on Jindo Island where the families of Sewol Ferry drowning victims gathered, where day by day remains were brought to land by rescue operations and which has become one of the locations which is a focus of the issues of grief and anger and compassion that go with this tragedy.
On the early afternoon of Holy Thursday, about 120 people set out from Seokyo Junction on Jindo Island, walking the 10 kilometres to the Harbour of Paengmok. It was a wet and windy afternoon as we walked, a worthy setting for the sombre and reflective mood of participants. The spring blossoms were out on the trees along the road, reminding us that many families were grieving for children who would not experience the spring again.
Arriving at the harbour we gathered before the group memorial altar for the drowning victims, and in small groups entered the room lined with the photos of those lost to the sea, paying respects and our individual sorrow for those people whose lives were forfeited.
Getting on the buses again, we returned because of the weather to Seokyo to meet for worship in the school auditorium. Rev. You Si Kyung was worship leader and Rev. Kim Chul Hwan, Korea Lutheran Church Bishop preached an emotional sermon entitled, “We Saw God’s Grace”. At the end of the sermon, Lee Kim Hee, the mother of a lost daughter, Cho Eun Hwa family, offered a testimony. She had the experience of speaking to her daughter that fateful morning of April 16, when her daughter phoned to tell her something was happening to the ship. Lee Kim Hee had told her daughter to do what her teachers told her to do. A half hour later, she told us, she tried to phone her daughter again, and was not able to connect with her. She wept as she talked of her daughter and the despair stemming from that day, and continued to talk about situations the families have faced since that time – the President refusing to take seriously the families’ demand to make sure a thorough investigation is carried out so that such grief will not come again, one segment of society calling the families rabble rousers who were out to destabilize the Korean society, and the broad segment of society who have been forgetting the tragedy, willing to let things go back to the way they were before.
As she finished her story, in a very meaningful ceremony, the 10 family members who were guests of the service were brought forward to have their feet washed by the leaders of the NCCK as a sign of pastoral solidarity with their sorrows and commitment to walk with them on the road ahead.
After the foot washing, the congregation participated in the service of the Lord’s Supper, and after the service, the majority of people went for dinner and to spend the night in tourist homes in Paengmok Harbour.
On Friday morning, we gathered at the Harbour at 8:30, were served breakfast and then one group departed to boats to be taken to the position in the sea where the Sewol had sunk on April 16. Now the coordinates 126E34N is marked by a buoy. There the boats stopped, and although the waves were rough, they spent time in meditation and honour for those lost in this place. They threw flowers into the waves for the victims of the disaster, and in commemoration they shouted the names of the 9 still missing ones.
The other group stayed at the Harbour, and joined with others, church members from Mokpo and other nearby churches, worshipped on the Paengmok breakwater. Worship leader was Rev. Kim Dong Jin of the Korean Salvation Army. We sang the familiar Good Friday hymns with a new emotion, like ‘O Sacred Head, sore wounded, with grief and pain bowed down’, and experienced the Passion of crucifixion, as one of the fathers of the victims spoke to us. He spoke of the despair of living in Korea, feeling so deeply betrayed by his government that refuses to raise the Sewol and carry out a full investigation into this terrible tragedy. He talked about his beautiful son, who had been such a joy to raise, and how he felt as a father at not even being able to say goodbye to him. He asked why these beautiful children were lost – and why is the government not even willing to ask why? The government has just insulted the families by offering them financial compensation for their losses, thinking that will cover their needs. The families have angrily rejected the government’s plan, and again have tried to address their concerns to the President, only to be blocked again on the street by hoards of police. In frustration and deep grief the parents have shaved their heads as a sign of their rejection.
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