Island History for Friday, October 9, 2009

Kaua‘i Methodist minister and Korean freedom fighter Soon Hyun (1879-1968) was born in Seoul, Korea, and educated in Korea and Japan, where he converted to Christianity and began theological studies with early Methodist missionaries.  

In 1903, he emigrated from Korea to Hawai‘i as an interpreter with a group of 120 Korean contract laborers recruited for work in Hawai‘i’s sugar plantations.

After serving for two years as an interpreter at Kahuku Sugar Co., O‘ahu, and as a roving preacher and minister to O‘ahu’s Korean Christian community, he was sent to Kaua‘i by the Methodist Episcopal Mission to continue his evangelical work.

On Kaua‘i, Rev. Hyun became pastor of those Korean Methodist congregations located from Lihu‘e to Kilauea, while Rev. Lee Kyung Gik ministered on the Westside.

With the financial assistance of Rev. Hans Isenberg, the pastor of Kaua‘i’s Lutheran church, Hyun’s congregation built a Methodist chapel on the hill overlooking Kapaia Valley by what is today Isenberg Tract. The chapel was later moved near the present location of the Lihu‘e Hongwanji.  

In 1907, Rev. Hyun returned to Korea, where he felt his Christian ministry was needed more than in Hawai‘i. He completed theological studies there in 1911.

From 1919 through 1923, Soon Hyun was a leader of the Korean independence movement from Japan, which colonized Korea from 1910 through 1945.

However, a political falling out with Korea’s Provisional Government President Syngman Rhee caused Hyun’s ouster from the movement and forced his return to Hawai‘i in 1923.

Following three years church of service in Honolulu, he returned to Kaua‘i, where he ministered among Kaua‘i’s 400 Koreans until 1940, when he retired to Honolulu.

In 1975, seven years after his death, the Republic of Korea finally recognized his contributions toward Korean independence.

Soon Hyun and Maria Hyun had seven children.