Youth March for Unity

Cho Yea-eun
October 2007

There isn't much one person can do for unification. But if more and more young boys and girls begin to create unification from their environment, while maintaining an undiluted and consistent passion for unification, I believe North-South reunification will come, just as the waters of different rivers joins to create an ocean.

Namely, we can expand the culture of true love. We can set our minds on seeing the reunification of Korea. We can live for the sake of the others, beginning with our neighbors.

If we can do this while maintaining our intellectual skills, and actively take part in related activities, I'm sure all these efforts will become a stream leading to unification!

A number of the young people who took part in the great march across the Fatherland were not interested in church activities or didn't often take part in them. There were some who said they decided to join the march because it was something of an outreach activity that they wanted to experience or because their parents encouraged them to go.

Things did not always go smoothly during the three days we spent together. We were sweating and drenched with perspiration as if we had been hit by rain. The march felt as if it would never end.

Because of the way we conducted the march, most of the actual activities were done in streets; we were face-to-face with people. In the middle of crowded streets, we shouted our hopes for the reunification of North Korea and South Korea. We spent nearly half of each day walking outdoors. The blisters on our feet were battling one another for dominion as they spread between our toes. In this situation, a strong bond gradually emerged between the participants. Under such difficult circumstances, it was natural that the marchers began to feel respect for their fellow marchers who were also enduring.

The kids ranged in age from thirteen to eighteen (the first year of middle school to last year of high school). They were still-growing students and were different from each other in height and appearance. There were short little young girls, and there were tall hulking boys; for them, all moving together toward one goal probably felt great. I marched with them, and I couldn't help feeling that the kids looked so young but were actually quite amazing.

Three hundred young boys and girls converged at Imjingak, seven kilometers south of the point of division, where they shouted "Unification of Korea!" That was really a touching moment. I'm sure that even someone as emotionless and detached as a piece of wood would have been moved in that emotionally charged atmosphere.