He fled Pyongyang to South Korea at the time of the war and encountered Christianity as an old man through his daughter. At age 90, he began inking verses on traditional Korean paper and has made 700 posters of this artistic expression. He speaks to the local Catholic weekly magazine of his story of feeling God's word in his fingers.
Busan (AsiaNews) - He patiently transcribed the Bible word by word onto Hanji, the traditional Korean paper made from bark, also called "thousand-year paper" because of its strength and resilience.
This painstaking gesture has punctuated the daily life of Busan's Elder Ahn, now 101, for years, and is described by the Korean weekly Catholic Times to mark this Sunday of the Word of God created by Pope Francis, in the midst of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.
Ahn begun this endeavour "when he was 90 years old," the Korean periodical reports, "and he has made 700 large Hanji displays."
"I spent 7 or 8 hours a day transcribing the Bible, struggling with brushes and paper, with bandaged elbows," he recounted. A tiring act for an elderly man, but accompanied by the joy of feeling God's words on his fingertips.
"When I was 90 years old, I thought of a small gift I could give to the Lord for the rest of my life, so I started transcribing the Bible. I concentrated all my mind on the tip of the brush and was happy."
Born in 1922 in Nampo-now North Korea's second largest city-Ahn spent his youth in Pyongyang where he was a teacher of Korean and Chinese. With the war he managed to escape with the thousands of exiles by boarding a ship to Busan.
Here he continued his work as a teacher until by then already elderly, at the invitation of his daughter, he met Christianity, receiving baptism in 1991.
At the invitation of his pastor last summer, he donated his Hanji to the Busan Institute of Church History, which intends to make them known to Korean Catholics: "They encapsulate a special grace that is not given to just anyone, but only to the elderly."
As for what awaits him, Elder Ahn tells with faith, "When the gates of heaven open, I would like to be a little dandelion in a corner of the Church's flower garden. That is my only wish."
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