This week I read about Ji Seong-ho, a North Korean who fled his country. He was raised in an orphanage where he saw many children die of hunger. One day, he tried to steal a few pieces of coal from a train’s cargo in hope of selling them or exchanging them for something to eat. Starving, he fell asleep on the rails exhausted from the weight of his sack He woke up as the train hit. “Surgeons amputated his left leg above the knee, and his left hand at the wrist. There was no anaesthetic. No blood transfusion. No painkillers.The doctor slapped him to keep him conscious every time he started to pass out. He still remembers the sound of the saw, cutting through his leg bone.” The article says.
He continued his miserable life without limbs but not without hope. In 2006, hobbling almost 10,000 kilometres on crutches that his father made for him he escaped North Korea, through China and South-East Asia to freedom. “The dogs of China ate better than my family in N.Korea!” he noticed. He did escape and now lives in South Korea as an activist to help rescue other defectors, especially crippled ones. This week he was invited at the State of the Union presidential speech. As the President addressed him, Ji Seong-ho brandished the old crutches that dragged him through 10.000 kilometers to freedom. Though he now has prosthetic legs, he kept these crutches. “To me it symbolises that you can achieve anything if you do not give up,” he said. (Click HERE for full story). Those crutches have become a symbol for this man, a remembrance of where he came from in case he should get complacent and whine about his lot in life. Not only should this story put our daily life complaints in perspective, but it should also challenge the many excuses we indulge in for not doing what we know we should be doing with our families, our community, with our lives. If any one had excuses to just roll over and die, he did. What’s ours?
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