[INTERVIEW] Yoido Full Gospel Church vows $84 million for people hurt by pandemic

Lee Young-hoon, senior pastor of the Yoido Full Gospel Church, speaks during an interview with The Korea Times, at the church's office in Seoul, Thursday. Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul

Rev. Lee says church-sponsored cardiac hospital in Pyongyang likely to open in 2023

By Park Ji-won

With the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic set to enter its third year, the cries from the poorest of the poor and self-employed people, who were hit harder than any other groups of people, have been desperate as their livelihoods have deteriorated or completely disappeared.

The nation's largest church, the Yoido Full Gospel Church, has recently vowed to lend a helping hand to those affected with funds set aside from its sale of a property near the church.

"About half of the money will go in taxes and the other half will be used for poverty relief and helping the self-employed members of our church," Rev. Lee Young-hoon, the senior pastor at the church, said during a recent interview with The Korea Times. "We unveiled a bold donation plan with the newly created funds… because a church is not a place for property speculation."

According to the pastor, nearly 100 billion won ($84 million) is available to help those who are in dire need, and his church is mulling various ways to help these marginalized people. Of the total amount, 10 billion won will be provided in cash handouts, and the remainder will be used to support relief efforts and nurture next-generation leaders.

Rev. Lee noted serving underprivileged neighbors and sharing with them were some of the most important missions of his church.

Since its foundation in 1958 by Rev. Cho Yong-gi, also known as David Yonggi Cho, the Yoido Full Gospel Church has set an example for others as a faith-based group actively serving, sharing and helping the community become a better place for all.

Its mission to help the needy knows no borders.

Over 5,000 children who were born with serious cardiac problems were able to get free operations and return to health, thanks to the church.

The Yoido Full Gospel Church has also spearheaded a project to strengthen the healthcare infrastructure of North Korea to save lives there.

Earlier this month, the megachurch received approval from the United Nations to resume the construction of a cardiac hospital in Pyongyang with it allowing the sending of 1,200 items needed for the building work.

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Rev. Lee recently met Unification Minister Lee In-young to discuss ways to proceed with the hospital project. "The thing is that currently the North Korean border is shut down because of COVID-19 and no exchange programs are allowed," he said.

He said the construction of the hospital may be completed by the end of next year if things go as scheduled, and it will be able to have its grand opening in March 2023.

The following is a transcript of the interview with Rev. Lee which has been edited for clarity.

The main building of the Yoido Full Gospel Church / Korea Times file

Q: How has the pandemic affected the Yoido Full Gospel Church?
A: Before the pandemic, the church had been a place for gathering. But after the pandemic, we had to scatter. In the Bible, there's a related story. In Acts, there was a time when the church in Jerusalem faced troubles, and its people had to scatter. Paradoxically the later led to the expansion of the church. We've found some positive aspects of the pandemic as it taught us to prepare church services for future generations. Due to the pandemic we had to jumpstart online services which turned out to be positive in our preparation for the future.

Q: What is the legacy of the late founder Cho Yong-gi who passed away in September? How do you think you and other church members will further develop his vision?
A: Rev. Cho was the icon of a "can-do" spirit. All his life he had tried to build and realize the theology of hopes and dreams. While going through the tough decades for Korean churches in the 1960s and 1970s, he successfully instilled hopes and dreams within the public which was also critical for the success of our church as a megachurch. We are tasked with succeeding and developing his legacy.

Volunteers from the Yoido Full Gospel Church's NGO "Good People" / Courtesy of Yoido Full Gospel Church

Q: What is the Yoido Full Gospel Church's plan to serve the underprivileged?
A: Ultimately, one of the church's important missions is serving the underprivileged by sharing. We are planning to return the money made from the recent sale of property deal to the community. A church is not an organization to make money through property speculation. By the end of this year, we will spend up to 100 billion won in total in saving the underprivileged and nurturing the next generation, and some 10 billion won has been set aside to financially support them. To be specific, we are mulling various ways, for example, giving 1 million won each to chosen self-employed people running small businesses who were hit hard by the pandemic and 500,000 won each to poor families.
We have been giving childbirth subsidies over the last 10 years. Also, we have saved over 5,000 children who were born with or suffering from heart diseases. They can live without heart disease if they successfully undergo surgery. It costs 3 million won each. We've helped them get the surgery without financial worries. Our church is running a U.N. ECOSOC-designated NGO called Good People, which can enter communist and Islamic countries as well. We have been building hospitals and schools in those countries while providing boxes of necessities worth 100,000 won to around 22,000 underprivileged families in Seoul.

A rendering of the Cho Yonggi Cardiac Hospital in Pyongyang, North Korea / Courtesy of Yoido Full Gospel Church

Q: Please tell us about the current status of Cho Yonggi Cardiac Hospital in North Korea. Has there been any progress made?
A: I met Unification Minister Lee In-young last Wednesday to discuss this issue. The border between the two Koreas has been closed because of the COVID-19 pandemic. There have been no human-to-human exchanges between the two Koreas. But the North has continued to ask us to build hospitals in their 260 counties, in addition to the cardiac hospital we had been building since 2007. If the North Korean border opens again, which I believe can probably be sometime next March or April, we will swiftly resume the construction of the cardiac hospital project and complete it by next year so that it can begin working in 2023. Doctors from Yonsei Severance Hospital will go to Pyongyang. The U.N. also allowed our entrance to the North three times. Samaritan's Purse, a Christian relief organization, will donate medical devices worth 20 to 30 billion won and raise money from a consortium consisting of Korean churches as well. If it works, inter-Korean relations will be drastically changed.
In the past, the first thing foreign missionaries did after their arrival in Korea was to build hospitals. If we can do this in the North, the county will thank us and we would be able to play a role in thawing inter-Korean relations and doing something the government cannot do. In North Korea, there are still so many tuberculosis patients.

Q: Can you share your thoughts about the 2022 presidential election? Do you have any advice for the presidential candidates?
A: I hope they stop dividing the nation. Politicians are dividing the country by region, ideology and class. Extremist views have been hurting the people. I think the two leading presidential candidates have failed to impress the younger generation as they failed to address the unification of people and were unable to present any hope for the future.
Despite its spending to boost birthrates, South Korea is the country with the lowest birthrate among OECD countries. Housing is one of the issues that is discouraging younger people from getting married and having children.

Q: You are scheduled to travel to the U.S. next year on business.
A: Yes, I will be going to the U.S. next year to attend the opening ceremony of the Memorial Wall of Remembrance in Washington next July, which presidents of Korea and the U.S., as well as Korean War veterans and politicians will be attending. The wall bears the names of 36,574 Americans and more than 7,200 members of the Korean Augmentation to the United States Army who died in the war. I will also be attending the ceremonial event for the 140th anniversary of diplomatic relations between South Korea and the U.S. I have been helping and cooperating with Dr. Billy Kim, chairman of Far East Broadcasting Company Korea (FEBC-Korea) to network in the U.S.

Lee Young-hoon, senior pastor of the Yoido Full Gospel Church, sits in thought during an interview with The Korea Times, at the church's office in Seoul, Thursday. Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul

Q: What are your views on climate change? What do you think we should do now?
A: The key problem is the destruction of the ecosystem. The ecosystem must be restored and preserved. One of the things President Park Chung-hee did well was that he did not allow anyone to destroy areas set aside for preservation. As these green spaces are destroyed, the ozone layer will be destroyed and global warming will occur. Leaders of the Earth should join hands together and do their best to maintain and restore the ecosystem.

Q: If you have any New Year's message, would you'd like to share with fellow Koreans and global citizens?
A: I'd like to encourage all people to be optimistic about the future. There will be good days if you keep working and challenging yourself for a better future. Korean people are good at everything.
I hope the "haves" can share what they have with the young. Conglomerates should contribute to society by investing to create more jobs and build better infrastructure for the country. They need to donate more because sharing what we have will make the community a better place for all.