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| John Lee Tae-seok, a priest, is with his students in Tonj, South Sudan, on Sept. 22, 2002. / Courtesy of Society of St Francis de Sales |
By Kim Hyo-jin
A Korean Catholic priest will be introduced in South Sudanese textbooks to be released next February.
John Lee Tae-seok provided medical aid in the war-torn country for a decade until his 2010 death.
His life will be covered by an entire page in the social studies textbook for elementary schools and two pages in the citizenship textbook for middle schools, according to South Sudan's Education Minister Deng Deng Hoc Yai.
It is the first time South Sudanese textbooks have included the story of a foreigner for his volunteer service in the country.
Lee, who graduated from a medical school and studied theology, became a priest in 2001.
He began his missionary work later that year in Tonj, a poverty-stricken town in the northwestern part of South Sudan. He built a clinic and treated villagers himself. About 300 patients a day visited Lee, the only doctor in the town.
Lee was a father, doctor, teacher, conductor and architect in the small African village. He dug a well for people suffering a water shortage and cultivated a field to grow vegetables and crops. He also established a school and taught students music.
The priest, who left a 35-member brass band in the war-torn village, died in 2010, two years after being diagnosed with colorectal cancer. The members of the band visited Damyang Catholic Park in the southwestern part of Korea, where Lee is buried, to pay tribute to him in 2012.
"Father Lee was the first one who made the band of all the priests who engaged in missionary work in South Sudan," said Lee Hae-dong, a priest who went to the town to carry on Lee's legacy in 2015. "Local people view him as a visionary leader who gave hope and confidence that they can do anything so long as they are given opportunities for education."
The South Sudanese education minister said in an interview in late January: "We expect our new textbooks to let young generations know about Father Lee and what he did. I hope our students can learn his devotion and sacrifice for the poor and the weak."
Sudan went through civil war amid conflicts between Muslim Arabs in the North and Christian and indigenous Africans in the South during 1983-2005, leaving over two million people dead. The South broke away from Sudan and gained independence in July 2011.
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