People I Love, Number 20 BRIDE AND GROOM

People I Love : Number 20                        BRIDE AND GROOM   They were plain people, not old, not young. He wore an old overcoat, even through the day was warm. Poor farmers of or area did this to conceal their lack of a suit appropriate to what they considered a formal occasion. She was hatless, Their faces showed a maturity, strengthened by suffering. Their hands were callused, their faces blotched from long hours of field work under a hot sun. They’d come to be married in the Church.   “Have you been married before?” I asked the woman. “Yes,” she answered. Then in a matter of fact voice she told me her story. Married before the Korean War, her husband was a peace loving man. He didn’t want to fight anyone, any time, any place. To escape the hostilities hr ran away to the sparsely populated hills south of Inchon and his hid away in a cave. When she thought it was safe his wife secretly took him food and clothing. When U. N. troops under General MacArthur successfully landed at Inchon, they rejoiced and anticipated an early end to the U. U. troops penetrated the hills and stumbled onto the cave where her husband was hiding. They shot him.   When I asked the man whether he’d been married before, he, too, told his story. Married well before the Korean War, he and his family lived in a village which resisted the communist take-over. The North Korean Army surrounded the village, lined up the people, and them. His wife and children perished. He himself dropped as the shooting began and pretended to be dead as bodies fell around him and into him. He lay still until night and then wriggled slowly away until he dropped into a ravine, which sheltered him as he crouched low and ran away. He was the only one of his village to survive.   As the couple walked away, After setting a date for their marriage, I watched them go and prayed the Lord would allow them to live out the rest of their lives in peace.