Aim to learn about Father’s attitude towards his difficult situation
Aim
* To learn about Father’s attitude towards his difficult situation
* For children to think about their own attitude towards difficulties
Materials
* The Ordeal at Hung Nam Prison, by Sandra Lowen
* Sun Myung Moon: the Early Years, by Mike Breen. (Ch. 7. Death Camp)
* Map of Korea
*Visual aids
– Map of Korea
– Heungnam Prison Camp sketch
– Heungnam fertilizer factory photos
– Prisoners working at prison camp
– Two Prisoners
– Song – Garden of Restoration
*5kg bags of rice or some similar weighted bag
*rice balls, water, cups
* Children’s worksheet
Lesson Outline
1. Review the previous story
2. Give background information about the story
3. Tell the Story
4. Discussion
5. Activities – worksheet, relay race, eat rice balls
6. Review the lesson
7. Prayer
1) Review the previous story
Show Trial – When Father recovered from torture in prison, he started teaching again, and once again many people came. Church ministers became jealous, because they were losing members.
They reported Father to the communist police, accusing him of breaking up churches and families and of being a spy. He was arrested, taken to court and sentenced to 5 years in a labour camp.
Review the key points of the previous lesson
1. To understand that a person of faith is not stupid and weak, but smart and strong
– Father was trained as an electrical engineer, and could explain electricity in detail
– His knowledge of the Bible was very good
– He had courage to ask the judge to drop the charges against him
2. To understand how Father could have hope when he was sent to a labour camp
– Father understood the way of indemnity. If you suffer for righteousness sake, eventually you will be blessed and be victorious. If you love people who hate you, eventually you will win
2) Give background information about the story
Show the location of Pyongyang and Heung Nam on the map. Show the pictures of the Nitrogen Fertilizer Factory. It was the world’s second largest fertilizer factory at the time. It had three huge plants, one to make explosives , one to make fertilizer and one to make chemicals.
3) Tell the story
A summary – Prisoners at Hung Nam had to fill 1,300 bags with ammonium sulphate everyday. It was hard work, but they had very little food. Most men died after one year. Father was determined to live. He worked very hard and twice won the best prisoner award. He never complained about his situation, and with God’s help he survived.
4) Questions to discuss
* Conditions in the labour camp
1. What did the prisoners eat every day?
breakfast – salty soup, lunch and dinner – a handful of boiled grain and salty soup
2. What was their daily work?
In teams of 10 men, they had to load 1300 bags of ammonium sulphate and carry them to the factory loading dock. Each bag weighed 40kg.
* How did Father survive?
His weapons to survive were prayer, discipline and love, discipline and prayer
LOVE
* He determined to maintain a loving attitude to God, to his fellow prisoners and to the Communist guards, regardless of how miserably he was treated. If his love for God weakened, he would be gripped by the same passion that consumed most of his fellow prisoners: sheer desperation for survival.
* He gave away his gift of rice powder to the person who stole it
* He worked hard to reduce the burden of men on his team
* He never accused the guards for their treatment of the prisoners
DISCIPLINE
* He decided to give away half of his three hundred gram grain ration to one of the men beside him.
* He did this at every mealtime for two weeks. Then he began eating the whole ration again, viewing the doubling of his food as a gift from God.
* He determined to throw himself into the work so that it became a source of fulfillment.
* He washed himself with clean drinking water, instead of the polluted shower water
* He prayed every morning and every night
* He kept working even when he got malaria
PRAYER
* He didn’t complain to God
* He didn’t ask for help
* He promised that he would fulfill his mission and never give up
* He told God not to worry about Him. He knew God was already suffering and didn’t want to Him to suffer more
5) Activities
*Have a relay race with 5kg bags of rice. While doing so, pretend you are work teams at the prison.
* Eat rice balls and drink small cups of water to understand how much food Father was given in prison. Do they think they could have survived on so little? What would they have done?
* Complete the worksheet
* Colour the picture of Heung Nam prison camp
6) Review the lesson
Discuss with the children what they could learn from this story. Conclude by talking about the two key points from the lesson
* To learn about Father’s attitude towards his situation
– love of God, prisoners and guards,
– discipline to overcome desperation to survive
– prayer to give him spiritual power
* For children to think about their own attitude towards difficulties
– Can they pray, love others and be disciplined? What experience did they write?
7) End with a prayer
