Kim Dae-jung protected by Jesus

South Korean President Kim Dae-jung gave thanks to Jesus Christ for saving his life as he received the Noble Peace Prize Dec. 10, 2000. The former dissident, a Catholic, recalled that while he was exiled in Japan in 1973 South Korean agents kidnapped him, tied him up, and placed him on a boat, but before they could throw him overboard, U.S. agents rescued him, he said.

"Just when they were about to throw me overboard, Jesus Christ appeared before me with such clarity. I clung to him and begged him to save me. At that very moment, an airplane came down from the sky to rescue me from the moment of death," he said in his speech in Oslo, Norway.

Kim, 76, said he faced near death five times, and spent six years in prison and 40 years under house arrest or exile. "I have lived, and continue to live, in the belief that God is always with me," he said. He won the prize for his work in seeking reconciliation with communist North Korea. This year the two Koreas have allowed reunions of separated relatives, reopened liaison offices, and are planning to reconnect a cross-border railway. The countries divided into communist north and pro-Western south in 1945, and fought a war from 1950-1953.

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