2017-02-20 Blast from the Past

We were visited yesterday by one of the first refugees to study in TNKR! She has remained a good friend of TNKR, and of course I love her because she constantly praises me as a hero of North Korean refugees. Well, that's the official reason I love her.

The unofficial reason is that she always says I am so handsome.

TNKR National Director Eunkoo Lee is now volunteering at TNKR full-time. That means she is now available to counsel refugees who visit us and to also answer phone calls from refugees asking to join TNKR. This was a turning point in TNKR (now FSI) history. After four years of running TNKR part-time as volunteers, Eunkoo Lee and I both quit our jobs to volunteer full-time. It was clearly among the dumbest financial decisions either one of us had ever made. However, for the organization, it was the moment we could start to grow and stabilize. I would laugh out loud at people who were comparing us to LiNK and larger organizations--we were all volunteers, working together on weekends or evenings, with no committed sponsors and relying on online donations.

I had told Eunkoo that either this organization was going to become something special or we should downsize it and treat it like a hobby. I quit my job at Freedom Factory first, then the day after I published this Korea Times column about her, she decided to quit her job too
https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/opinion/2021/01/626_222156.html

(As an aside, for the stupid chattering class of expats who live in the world of "gotcha! media", yes, I showed her the column in advance, and she approved it. I say that because when I was interviewed on the radio months later, a host accused me of blindsiding Eunkoo. Thankfully I had pushed for her to join me to be on the radio, she was there to dismiss the host's accusation.)

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2021 update: Thankfully, we are no longer volunteering. TNKR would not have survived to this point. The Korean government intervened on my behalf againstTNKR, demanding that TNKR pay me. The first year, TNKR could not survive my government-mandated salary.

Well, the government can force me to be paid, but it couldn't force me to keep the money! The first year, I donated 56% of my salary to TNKR so we wouldn't go bankrupt. I still laugh out loud and try not to curse when people ask me if I have ever donated to TNKR.

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Obama debating Keyes, 2004, education excerpt

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