In May 2024, I found myself in a small chapel in the remote countryside of Wales, standing unexpectedly in front of a picture of Robert Jermain Thomas, North Korea’s first Christian missionary martyr. I was traveling for a series of meetings in the UK, but because of an illness with one of the members of our team, the first Sunday of meetings was canceled, leaving me some time to explore a little on my own. A quick internet search led me to a remote dirt road in Wales, barely big enough to fit my car down as I made my way to a small chapel made of staggered grey stone.
Inside the walls of Hanover Chapel in Llanover, South Wales, an energetic Korean named Pastor Daniel Yoo pointed to the picture on the wall and revealed to me a story that I had never heard before about the first missionary martyred in Korea on August 1, 1866.
The tiny chapel is now a popular destination for South Korean Christians, with thousands making their pilgrimage to the Welsh church every year. “Korean Christians owe so much to this man,” Pastor Daniel said as he pointed to the photo of Robert Jermain Thomas. “He gave his life to preach the Gospel in Korea and Korean Christians want to come here to honor his sacrifice.”
Pastor Daniel was from South Korea. His church sent him as a missionary to Wales, bringing the connection full circle. More than 150 years ago, Wales sent a missionary to Korea and today, Korea is repaying the debt by sending a missionary to Wales to serve as a pastor in the very church that sent out Robert Thomas.
“When Robert was only 17 years old,” Pastor Daniel said, “he preached his first sermon right here in this church.” The title of his first sermon was entitled, “Jesus Christ, the Same, Yesterday, Today, Forever” from Hebrews 13:8.
“And there!” He said, pulling on my arm, and moving me over to the open door to our left, “right there is the house he grew up in.” Pastor Daniel pulled me through the threshold of the door so that I could see the house more clearly.
It was there in the childhood home of Robert Thomas that I met Dr. Stephen Price and his wife Stella. They had spent their entire life researching the work and efforts of Robert Thomas. Stella wrote the only biography on the life of Robert Thomas called Chosen for the Choson.
In 1863, at age 24, Robert Jermain Thomas left his humble home in Wales on a boat for China. He was accompanied by his new bride Caroline Godfrey.
He was hit with a slew of challenges from the moment he dedicated his life for missions. While en route to Shanghai, fellow passengers caught smallpox, a deadly disease that could have easily killed him, but he escaped relatively unscathed. After arriving, there wasn’t a place for him and his wife to live, so he left his pregnant wife in Shanghai to travel to faraway Hankow in search for a place to live. While away, Robert’s wife had a miscarriage and they lost their unborn baby. Robert was not there to comfort his grieving wife. She died immediately after that.
Walking away from a full time ministry position, Robert took a job as a customs officer in Chefoo (Yentai) where he focused all his energy praying for an opportunity to take the Gospel message to Korea, a place where no other missionary had succeeded in planting a full time church.
Robert learned everything he could about the people of Korea, including reading the writings of Karl Gutzlaff. One of his friends, Alexander Williamson of the National Bible Society, knew Robert had a strong desire to serve in Korea, so it seemed like a natural fit when he introduced him to two Catholic Koreans who were desperate to get their hands on Bibles.
Catholics were suffering harshly in Korea under the reign of King Gojong in what later became known as the Byeong-in Persecution where thousands of Christians were slaughtered for their faith.
Robert and Alexander teamed up together to negotiate with the Scottish Bible Society to support the persecuted believers by sending Chinese-print Bibles to Korea.
In September 1865, at the age of 26, Robert got the opportunity that he and Alexander had been praying for when he took a small secret wooden boat with a large number of Chinese Bibles and smuggled them onto small islands off the west coast of Korea. His first stop was Baengnyeong Island, and he later traveled to Changlin Island, where he stayed for about two and a half months, distributing Bibles to the islanders, learning Korean, and sharing the Gospel with the locals before returning to China.
After his first trip to Korea, he was addicted. He was desperate to return again. It was all he could think about.
After Robert returned to China, he heard the horrible reports of Korea’s persecution against the Catholic believers. By January 1866, nine of twelve French missionaries were brutally tortured and executed and about 8,000 Korean followers were slaughtered.
The French Navy responded to the torture and execution of their own citizens by bringing battleships into the region. When the French military heard that Robert had been learning the Korean language, they recruited him to be an official interpreter. This led to him being taken into Korea by The General Sherman, an American merchant ship loaded with goods from cotton textiles, to tinware, to mirrors and glassware – items that were not widely found in Korea.
Following in the footsteps of Karl Gutzlaff, Robert was not only traveling on a trade vessel, but also dressed in the national clothing of the Koreans and carried Chinese Bibles.
On August 16, 1866 The General Sherman entered the mysterious Taedong River and sailed toward the capital city of Pyongyang. Captain Page stopped at every small village along the way to allow Robert to hand out Bibles and engage the locals. When the foreigners were seen by Korean officials, they immediately warned the captain and ordered him to turn the ship around and return to China. When their warnings were not heeded, the Koreans feared the American ship could actually be an agent of the French seeking revenge for the death of the missionaries.
The ship navigated the waters effortlessly at first, but Captain Page and Chief Mate Wilson misjudged the depth of the river because of summer rains that made the river unusually high. When the water receded, the 187-ton side-wheel schooner found itself unexpectedly marooned on a sandbar with no way to escape.
The well armed crew with their two 12-inch cannons were only as effective as their ship’s mobility. Stuck in the middle of the river made them sitting ducks. After several days of sitting helplessly on the sandbar, the locals on the banks of the river began to get more and more hostile. The foreigners were at the city walls and had directly disobeyed the orders of their king.
Robert tried to keep the peace, but in the anxiety of the moment, on August 31st, Captain Page ordered the cannons to be fired at the crowds, killing both Korean soldiers and civilians. The worst fear of the Koreans had been realized. They feared the foreigners were in Korea to start a war and now they had proof.
The battle raged on for four days with poorly armed Korean soldiers shooting arrows and throwing rocks at the ship. The General Sherman, stranded without means to withdraw, seemed destined to fight to the finish. Time favored the Koreans.
When the rocks and arrows proved ineffective, the Koreans launched another wave of attacks using their trusty wooden fleet of small boats known as Turtle ships. These boats were effective in their battle with the Japanese, but proved ineffective against The General Sherman’s armored plate.
Robert yelled out for cease fire, but no one listened. The Americans were determined to defend their ship and the Koreans were determined to kill the foreigners. Robert was trying to bring a message of light in the midst of a climate of death.
After every method the Koreans developed proved ineffective, they developed another plan to tie boats together, set them on fire and sent them towards The General Sherman. Their plan worked! The American ship caught on fire and the gunpowder cache exploded. Many crew members died in the explosion. Those who didn’t were captured and beaten to death.
Robert quickly grabbed several Bibles and threw them off the ship and into the river to save the precious cargo. He grabbed one of the Bibles, held it close to his chest and lept from the ship, into the water and swam to the shore.
Before reaching the beach, several locals grabbed him and dragged him through the sand and mud mix until he was laying at the feet of Chu Won Park. With anger and hate in his eyes, he drew his sword and as he held it in the air above Robert’s head, Robert quickly clammered to his knees, held out his Bible and proclaimed that Jesus loves him.
Chu Won Park brought down his sword on Robert’s head with such brutal force, that Robert’s skull was immediately split in two.
40 years later, Chu Won Park found himself in a small prayer meeting in Pyongyang, the place where he slaughtered Robert. After heavy conviction by the Holy Spirit, he yelled out, “I confess! More than forty years ago, a young man jumped from a burning ship. He carried the Word of God in his hands, crawled to the beach and with the last breath in his lungs, he told me that Jesus loves me. I saw the love of Jesus in his eyes as he kneeled before me holding a Bible in his hands. I had no mercy on him and sliced him through with my sword.”
“I watched his Bible fall into the sand as his lifeless body collapsed in front of me,” Mr. Chu said. “I was proud of myself for taking the life of this innocent man and when I saw his book laying in the sand, I took it. The paper in the book had great value to me and no value for a dead man.”
“I took the book to my home and ripped out each page and decorated the walls of my home with them. Each piece of paper on my wall was a pleasant reminder for me how I killed the foreign man who tried to come into my country. His book was my trophy.”
Mr. Chu began choking up as he remembered the pages of the Bible that he plastered on his wall as a decoration. He paused and tried to regain his composure. “Every day, those words spoke to me. The Word of the Lord surrounded me in my own home and the love of that young missionary called out to me every day. Those pages led me to salvation and I was saved by the message brought by the messenger that I murdered. How can I ever repay that? How can I ever find redemption for the murder of a missionary?”
Mr. Chu cried, but the crowd of believers remained silent and listened to his confession. “I know I will never be able to repay my debt,” he said quietly, but loud enough for everyone in the still silent room to hear. “But I know that missionary gave his life for me just as I must do in the same manner. He followed the example of Jesus by picking up his cross and following the sacrificial road of Christ. I too will do the same. I will open my home to be a meeting place for all Christians no matter what problems it might bring me. From this day onward, I will dedicate my life, my home, and all that I have to preach the message of salvation that I have so freely received.
That small prayer meeting where Mr. Chu confessed broke out into one of the largest revivals in the history of Korea and forever transformed the history of Pyongyang. Following Mr. Chu’s confession, a church was built on an island in the middle of the river where Robert’s body was buried and today is the place that provides the foundation for the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology where many Christian missionaries have continued to serve being a light in North Korea.
This story will be published next year in two BTJ books – one about the life of Robert Jermaine Thomas and one about the history of the underground house church of North Korea.
la can’t wait to buy the two books .
Thanks, Dr. Eugene, for yet another story of the blood of a martyr loudly proclaiming the gospel! Only God!