On June 24, 1908, a tiny baby girl was born in Korea, much to the chagrin of her idol worshiping father, who wanted a boy. Through her childhood she was subjected to taunts due to her frail physical stature. But seeing her mother’s faith, Ahn Ei Sook gave her heart to Christ at the age of eight.

When she reached eighteen, upon her father’s insistence, she was sent to Japan, which ruled Korea at the time, to complete her education. There she learned fluent Japanese and developed a great love for the Japanese people. She then returned to Korea and became a music teacher at a girl’s Christian school.

In the early 1930s Japan, seeking to force all Koreans into Japanese culture, decided to require them to worship their sun goddess Amaterasu Omikami on the first day of each month. When the faculty and students at her Christian school were summoned to the playground for the monthly trek to the Japanese shrine atop Mount Namsan, Ahn Ei Sook found ways to evade the command. But finally, when she again failed to appear on the playground, the school principal knocked on the door to her classroom.

“Miss Ahn! Are you there? Today is the first of the month. We have to take the girls up the mountain to the shrine.”

Ahn opened the door but said nothing.

“This is a Christian school. Most of the pupils are Christians. So are all the other teachers. I too am a Christian…. We Christians are being persecuted by a power too ruthless to stand against. Unless we worship at the Japanese shrine, they will close this school!”

Ahn remained silent.

“You can see what great trouble you will cause this school if you fail to cooperate. But you don’t seem to care about that. You are thinking only of yourself!”

Finally, she answered, “If you want me to go to the mountain, I will.”

Her students were dismayed to see her on the playground, thinking that Miss Ahn had finally caved. One girl said. “Now God will surely turn away from us!”

“O Lord, I am so weak!” prayed Ahn Ei Sook. “But I am your sheep, so I must obey and follow you. Lord, watch over me.”

Due to her reluctance, the Christian school was the last school to reach the mountaintop. There a voice called out, “Attention!” All present snapped to attention. But when all were commanded to bow before the sun goddess, Ahn Ei Sook alone remained upright. Upon leaving the shrine, she thought, I am dead. Ahn Ei Sook died today at Mount Namsan.

Back at the school she was arrested and taken to the office of the chief of the district. “You miserable woman!” he exploded. “You think you are so smart. Do you want to see what we can do to you?”

But then the telephone rang. An important communication ensued and the chief hastily left his office. Somehow, he forgot Ahn Ei Sook. Seizing the opportunity, she casually exited the building as if nothing had happened.

She found an abandoned home in the country and hid from her relentless pursuers. There she prepared herself for persecution by memorizing more than 100 Bible chapters and many hymns. She fasted from food and water for as much as ten days at a time and slept in the cold. All the while, her ability to hear the voice of God sharpened.

But with the Japanese police closing in, she was forced to flee the house. For weeks she walked obscure mountain trails alone, often sleeping in the wilderness and sometimes in homes of sympathetic villagers until the voice of God told her to go to Pyongyang. There she remained in hiding, except for a continuous stream of Christian visitors who came to her home for fellowship.

One day, an old Christian man known as Elder Park came to Ahn Ei Sook’s house and told her that God had led him to Pyongyang to tell her that they both had been called to proclaim Christ in Japan. In response she fasted, prayed, and read her Bible for three days. Ezekiel 2:1-10 finally clinched the deal for her. She would accompany Elder Park to Japan and address their high government officials. She knew that beatings, starvation and possibly death awaited her, but that would be better than to disobey God.

In March, 1939 the two went to Japan and entered the parliament building in Tokyo. There Elder Park disrupted a meeting with a list of three demands.

1. The Japanese government should repent and withdraw its tyranny from Korea.
2. Examine which is the true religion—Shintoism or Christianity.
3. Burn a stack of wood and throw a Shinto believer and himself into it. The one who is not burned shall prove the true religion.

Both were immediately arrested. Ahn Ei Sook was taken to an interrogation room, where a merciless detective demanded to know why she had come to Tokyo.

“Japan is at present rebelling against God, the Creator of the universe,” she told him. “God has to punish Japan. I have been sent here to tell the national leaders that Japan is going to be ruined by sulphur fire!”

She was imprisoned in Japan for a month before being returned to Pyongyang, Korea. There she was allowed to live in her home, but always under the watchful eyes of the Japanese police. All the while sincere Christian believers came to her house, where they worshiped Christ together until the authorities again arrested her.

For months Ahn Ei Sook bounced from one police station to another. Then on September 20, 1940 she and thirty-three other Christians were transferred to the Pyongyang prison. There she remained for the next five years, facing intense winter cold and disease carrying mosquitoes and chinch bugs in the spring and summer. Nagging hunger was her constant companion. But for Miss Ahn it was an opportunity to draw closer to her Savior.

“I now realized that the more dangerous my situation became, the closer God would be to me. The harsher my torture, the more the Lord would comfort me.”

In the filth of that prison, she seized the opportunity to share the love of Jesus with her cellmates. A 20-year-old Chinese-Manchurian woman who had murdered her husband constantly made a ruckus from a nearby cell. Her hands were tied behind her back to keep her from pounding on the door. Miss Ahn asked if the woman could be moved to her cell. When her request was granted, the woman attacked her new cellmates. Ahn wrestled her until she finally collapsed to the floor from exhaustion and fell asleep for three days. During that time Ahn held her feet to her chest for warmth. When she awakened, she gave the woman her food, combed her tangled hair, and massaged her body. She learned her language enough to discover that the woman had been sold by her parents to a much older man at the age of ten. Ahn told her of the love of Jesus and of forgiveness and she came to faith in Christ. When the executioners came for her, she meekly submitted to her fate in faith.

An arrogant geisha named Sun Wha, who had been a favorite of high government officials, was placed in her cell for fraud. When she demanded better food and cigarettes from the jailers, they abused her. But Sun Wha loved Miss Ahn’s beautiful singing voice and asked if she could learn the hymns she sang. They became friends and Ahn shared with her the gospel of Christ. Sun Wha became remorseful about her wanton life and entered God’s kingdom. Years later, when they met again outside prison, Sun Wha had become an evangelist.

Sixteen-year-old Wha Choon entered her cell, condemned to die for having poisoned her cruel husband. “I shall love her,” vowed Miss Ahn. “I must lead her to Jesus.” She shared her food with Wha Choon and told her stories of different women in the Bible. Soon she too believed. Then early one morning they were reciting John 3:16 together when the executioners came.

“Thank you for everything, teacher,” she told Ahn with a trembling voice.

“You know who Jesus is, don’t you?”

“He is my Savior,” she answered as she was taken away.

When the news came of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the cruel chief jailer ordered all prisoners to worship Japan’s “divine” emperor. When Miss Ahn refused, the jailer had her handcuffed behind her back with special ridged cuffs designed to increase the pain. Days of agony followed, with Miss Ahn wishing to die. But upon learning of the cruelty, a judge ordered their removal.

Not everyone Miss Ahn influenced were fellow prisoners. A cruel jailer named Kane lingered one night before her cell, whispering the word “strange” several times. The next day she got into a conversation with Miss Ahn. The only peaceful faces she knew, both in and out of the prison were Ahn’s and two other Christian prisoners.

“Could I be a Christian? I am so sinful.”

Miss Ahn told her that realizing her sinfulness made her much closer to becoming one. She told her Bible stories, such as of the tax collector Zacchaeus. Jailer Kane too came to faith in Christ. From then on, she did everything she could to help the prisoners.

On March 9, 1945, less than seven years after Ahn Ei Sook warned the Japanese government that Japan would be ruined by sulphur fire from the air, the Japanese parliament building where she had spoken was destroyed when 229 American B-29s firebombed Tokyo. The single most destructive bombing raid in history incinerated sixteen square miles of the city and killed some 100,000 people. On August 6 and 9 the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were destroyed by American nuclear bombs. Finally, at the prodding of Emperor Hirohito, the Japanese government surrendered.

Ahn Ei Sook was released on August 17, 1945, one of only fourteen of the original thirty-four Christian prisoners from 1940 to survive. As they left the prison, a sympathetic prison guard shouted, “Ladies and gentlemen! These are the ones who for six long years refused to worship Japanese gods. They fought against severe torture, hunger, and cold, and have won out without bowing their heads to the idol worship of Japan.” A crowd greeted them as heroes and sang “All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name.”

But now Miss Ahn found herself trapped in the Soviet overrun northern half of her country, where Russian soldiers rampaged against the populace, looting, raping and murdering. She was kidnapped by communists, but miraculously escaped. With other believers she then fled to what is now South Korea.

Ahn Ei Sook married a pastor named Dong Myun Kim. They took the English names of Don and Esther. In the 1950s they planted the Berendo Street Baptist Church in Koreatown, Los Angeles. There Don pastored for almost forty years. The couple also did missionary work and church-planting in South America.

Her complete story is told in her book, “If I Perish.” In 1997 she graduated to heaven.