THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, March 30, 1995 TAG: 9503300423
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B7 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Medium: 55 lines
A Virginia missionary couple found slain in their apartment in the Russian Far East gave up a prosperous life in the United States ``for the love of Jesus,'' their minister said Wednesday.
``They had been deacons,'' the Rev. Ji Duk Dho, pastor of the Tidewater Korean Baptist Church of Virginia Beach, said of the victims, Chu Hon Yi, 60, and his wife, Kei Wol, 59. ``He was a charter member of our church. They were very faithful church members.''
The dead couple were Korean natives who had become U.S. citizens, Dho said. They had been working at the Khabarovsk Medical Institute since the summer of 1993.
Their bodies were discovered Tuesday night in Khabarovsk, 200 miles from the Sea of Japan, said officials of Cooperative Services International, a Richmond-based Southern Baptist aid organization.
The man was beaten and the woman was strangled, said James Hampton, the group's associate director overseeing operations in Russia and the Middle East.
There was no sign of forced entry; the apartment's front door was locked when police arrived. Police estimate the couple died Thursday, Hampton said. Police entered the apartment at the request of a concerned friend who had not seen the couple for several days, he said.
According to Dho, Yi was a cardiologist who settled in Virginia at least 20 years ago. His wife was a registered nurse. They had planned to attend the church's 10th anniversary celebration in September, the pastor said.
``They were just very peaceful people,'' he said. ``But he couldn't be satisfied with his money and his job. Finally, they made the big decision to dedicate the rest of their lives to being missionaries.''
Dho said the couple had been teaching Bible classes in English while they were abroad and had hoped to see their mission work grow.
Their deaths frightened the congregation, he said. ``But God's working is sometimes strange. We're going to make a mission fund for them. A lot of people sacrifice doing God's work, but their souls will be in heaven.''
Then he added, ``They went to heaven so quickly. That part we can't understand.''
Johnny Farmer, the English minister at the church, called the dead doctor ``the model of what a person should be as a Christian leader. Both he and his wife expressed that same spirit.''
``It's rattled the congregation,'' Farmer said of the deaths. ``We're in shock, to say the least.''
KEYWORDS: MURDER by CNB