Pastor founds school in Kenya named for late daughter

The Rev. Ryu Tae-hee, left, lays a foundation stone for the Ryu Jee-sun Adventist Mission School with his fellow workers in Osinoni, western Kenya, on July 22, 2012. The school opened on March 14 after three years of construction. / Courtesy of the Rev. Ryu Tae-hee

By Jhoo Dong-chan

A pastor who lost his daughter in a car accident has founded a school in Kenya named after her.

“The school and students attending there make me feel like my daughter came back to life,” the Rev. Ryu Tae-hee, 58, of the Seocho Church in southern Seoul, said.

To Ryu, Kenya was just a faraway country that he had never thought of visiting before his daughter Jee-sun’s death in a car accident during a summer vacation trip in August 2011. She was only 19.

Ryu said everything in his life fell to pieces. He lived in despair for six months until, by chance, he found Jee-sun’s diary.

Majoring in nursing at university, Jee-sun wrote in her diary about her dream to help people in need in Africa.

“So I decided to make her dream come true,” Ryu said.

From March 2012, Ryu started to build a school in Osinoni, western Kenya, with the help of a local charity organization.

More than 200 million won of her daughter’s death benefit was also used to build the school.

It took three years to complete and the school opened on March 14 as the Ryu Jeesun Adventist Mission School.

The school is a three-story concrete building with the classroom capacity of 300 students. It also provides some 130,000 square meters of farmland next to the school so that students can raise cattle and grow kale and potatoes.

The school hired six local teachers and enrolled 23 students who wanted to study but could not afford it.

“Don’t lose hope. Study hard and help your neighbors when the time comes,” Ryu said during the opening ceremony for the school.

Ryu also vowed to take care of the school and its students from now on.

“I and my wife still miss our lovely daughter very much,” he said. “But we try to overcome the emptiness with a seed of hope in Kenya. I know Jee-sun will be very proud up there.”

The Rye Jeesun Adventist Mission School will recruit 100 more students and start its first semester next month.