Korea Branch Tour

The Korea Branch, located in Gongdo-eup, Anseong-si, supports the ministry of the approximately 100,000 witnesses in Korea. The branch was established in 1953 in Seodaemun-gu, Seoul. That office was expanded twice, but by 1980, the need arose for a larger facility. The current branch office with printing facilities was constructed in 1982. It too has been enlarged several times. Printing has since been moved to Japan.

SKE students, family and friends piled into these two buses early in the morning and rode over two hours to the branch office.

Happy to be off the bus.

We first watched a video and then broke into smaller groups for our tour.

    

Audio/Video Department

 Laundry Department

Upholstery Department

Maintenance creativity.

Fun with Jun (Caleb), Jina (Sophia) and parents.

    

A fishing boat, costumes, scrolls and a writing table used in dramas and sign language videos.

    

A model of the Korea Branch. It's a beautiful complex. 

I can only imagine how lovely it would be in any season besides Winter.

After lunch we enjoyed a tour of the Legal and Service Departments.

    

    

Statistics on display in the Service Department.

    

An issue of the Watchtower from 1952 (left). Subscribed magazines were packaged separately and sent to the readers by post. The addresses were printed by using the mimeograph (right). A five ton truck was sent out with magazine subscriptions from the Branch to the Post Office twice a month.

Items from prison.

In a prison cell like this, 15 to 16 people lived.

Conditions now are better.

As of 2004, this is the number of Korean brothers who suffered unjust punishment for keeping their Christian neutrality.

The names of all those brothers are found in the image.

Our brothers are awaiting the release of a significant decision from South Korea's Constitutional Court. 

Check out What's New on jw.org for more information.

The following day, our group visited brothers in the prison. There were 20 of us and we were scheduled to visit 16 different brothers. A maximum of 5 visitors were allowed in at a time. Aaron and I went into a small room with Curtis, Kathleen and an interpreter. On the other side of the glass was our brother, Han Byeol Park. We had only ten minutes to speak with him through a microphone. A timer counted down each minute as we asked him questions and tried to encourage him. As the last minute drained away, the music came on and our brother formed his fingers into a heart and smiled as we left.