Voice of Freedom

Ji-ho, a young man from a closed country ruled by fear, is sitting with John Whittaker, continuing the story of his life. Ji-ho has explained how he once served as a soldier under his father, the powerful Colonel Kim Sung-hoon, raiding the homes of secret Christians - until a forbidden radio broadcast, a confiscated Bible, and the sacrifice of a prisoner named Kwan changed his heart. Now he tells Whit what happened next.

Ji-ho never saw Kwan again, and for months he could barely sleep, knowing Kwan may have died to protect him. After finishing his service, he returns home and stands before the great gray wall on the border. For the first time he wonders whether it was built to keep enemies out or to keep him in, and he realizes that Kwan and the other Christians were never the real prisoners - he was, in his own heart.

So Ji-ho goes to a secret address on Baesong Street and gives the password phrase, "Your word is a lamp unto my feet." A cautious man named Bai nearly turns him away, since Ji-ho is a soldier and the son of a colonel, but when Ji-ho declares his faith that Jesus is the Christ, Bai lets him in. It is too dangerous for Ji-ho to attend the secret meetings, so Bai gives him a Bible of his own, warning, "That book could be your death sentence."

Ji-ho hides the Bible above a ceiling tile in his room. Then he does something even bolder: he sneaks into his father's office, guesses his computer password, and reads secret files revealing when and where the underground churches will be raided. He becomes a double agent, warning the churches ahead of time, even while marching on the raids beside his father - raids that now find empty rooms again and again.

His secret begins to unravel at home. His younger sister Ara catches him reading the Bible and is horrified, begging him to stop before he destroys the family. She asks, "Why can't you just close your eyes like the rest of us?" Ji-ho answers that it is too late for that. Soon after, at a tense family dinner, his father announces that the failed raids are not bad luck: the enemy has an informant, someone with access to very sensitive files. Ji-ho can barely eat.

The next day the computer password has been changed, and when Ji-ho comes home he finds his room ransacked and the Bible gone. His father is waiting with it in his hands. Ara, unable to keep the secret, has told him everything. Ji-ho confesses that he is the informant and accepts his punishment - but instead of sending his son to the prison camp, the colonel quietly spares him. Ji-ho must burn the book, leave the army, and move out, and the matter will never be spoken of again. His father declares that he will never forgive Ji-ho for forcing him to betray his own country.

Ji-ho loses his job, his home, and his family in a single day, living in a rat-infested room and scrounging for food. Only Ara secretly stays in touch. One day she calls with urgent news: there has been a revolt at the prison camps, and their father never came home. Ji-ho rushes to be with her just as the colonel bursts in - a revolution has begun, and the leaders' heads are wanted first. He hurries his children to a hidden underground shelter, grudgingly allowing Ji-ho to come at Ara's pleading.

Inside the soundproof bunker, the colonel forbids Ji-ho to speak, calling him a traitor whose life he is sparing but who does not deserve it. After a day of silence, the colonel announces he cannot sit still while everything he cares about crumbles, insisting his country is everything to him. Ji-ho finally breaks his silence and challenges him: if country truly came above all else, his father would have sent him to the camps. "Because you betrayed it for me," Ji-ho says, his father already knows there are things greater than loyalty to country. Ji-ho has found his purpose; now that everything his father holds dear is being stripped away, what is his?

When the three emerge, they find no war and no destruction - the revolution has been peaceful, the city calm. They wander to the border and discover the wall itself has been torn down. Peering into the neighboring country for the first time, they see no monsters and no gun barrels, only homes, shops, and a bright, bustling restaurant. The colonel admits he once glimpsed a satellite photo of this place but turned away, believing it was a lie.

Ji-ho decides to cross the border. He begs his father and sister to come, but his father says he knows nothing else, and Ara refuses too, saying she likes her life just as it is. Whit observes sadly, "Some people like their chains." Alone, Ji-ho walks through the gate, past a post covered in flowers and celebration signs - one reading simply "Galatians 5:1" - and steps into the free world.

But freedom does not feel the way he expected. For months Ji-ho is alone and empty, having lost his country and his family, unsure whether his life has been saved or destroyed - the very question he first brought to Whit. Then he explains why he has come to Odyssey: he tracked down a recording of that first forbidden radio broadcast he heard years ago. He plays it for Whit, and it is Whit's own voice, interviewed on a Trans World Radio program about freedom in Christ. The very first time Ji-ho ever heard the name of Jesus, it was from John Whittaker, and he has crossed the world to thank him - and to ask Whit to teach him what to do with his faith. Deeply moved, Whit says he would be honored, and he knows just where to begin: with Galatians 5:1, the promise that Christ has set us free, and that we should stand firm and never again be burdened by a yoke of slavery. Ji-ho agrees that is a fine place to start.