After the War, penniless, he travelled first to France, landing in Marseille, and then on to Switzerland, where he met Francis Shaeffer (who would write the highly influential "Whatever Happened to The Human Race?") and, in 1960, to Britain, where he studied at Bristol's Clifton Theological College. 

Later, he returned to Seoul and, in 1976, began a series of business enterprises in Florida. But he never forgot his vow - a promise which he kept hidden in his heart - and, in the 1980s, he sold his businesses and home to finance a university college in South Korea. By1992 he was ready to export his model of education to China. Yanbian University of Science of Technology (YUST), in Yanji, Northeastern China, became the country's first foreign joint-venture university. YUST became the model for Pyongyang University of Science & Technology (PUST).

But before PUST could happen, Dr. Kim would be arrested by Kim Jong Il's North Korean Government - accused of being an American spy - and for 40 days he would languish in jail. He was sentenced to death.

Ordered to write a will - and, in keeping with his vow to give everything back to his country - he told his captors that once they had executed him they could have his body parts for medical research. 

In his will and testament he wrote to the US Government that "I died doing things I love at my own will. Revenge will only bring more revenge and it will be an endless cycle of bitter hatred. Today, it will stop here and the hate will not see a victory. I am dying "for the love of my country and my people. If you take any actions for my death then my death would truly have been for nothing and for no reason."

In explaining what then occurred, James Kim said, "The North Korean Government was moved and allowed me to return to my home in China." He made no public complaints about what had happened and "two years later they invited me back to North Korea and asked whether I would forget our differences and build a university for them like the one I had established in China."

He said yes, but with certain conditions. He was to choose the site of the university; be given the title of the land; be allowed to bring foreign professors to teach; and be authorized to establish a research and development center.

His stipulations were all met and by Providence, the site he chose proved to have extraordinary significance. It was on this site that a young 29-year-old Welshman, Robert Jermain Thomas, born in Rhayadar South Wales in 1839, was martyred and a church was later built on the site to commemorate his memory.

In 1865 Thomas met two Korean traders who told him that there were about 50,000 Catholic in Korea, and who had received the Christian message and baptism from other Koreans who had travelled to China in the eighteenth century. They had formed a number of house churches and had suffered terrible persecution. In 1846 the first Korean priest, St. Andrew Kim, had been executed, proclaiming, as he died, "This is my last hour of life, listen to me attentively: if I have held communication with foreigners, it has been for my religion and for my God. It is for Him that I die. My immortal life is on the point of beginning. Become Christians if you wish to be happy after death, because God has eternal chastisements in store for those who have refused to know Him."

Funded by the Scottish Bible Society Robert Thomas decided to take bibles to the beleaguered Catholic community. He handed out more than 500 but was captured and beheaded.

Having picked up the last of Thomas's bibles, the executioner reflected, repented and became a Christian. His son would become an Elder and a Presbyterian church - the Thomas Memorial Church - was built on the site where Thomas had been beheaded. The church was destroyed by the Japanese during their occupation of Korea. It is the site where PUST now stands. Dr. Kim believes it is "the hand of God bringing two histories together."

Dr. Kim believes his own experience is evidence that the North Korean regime "can be touched and messages can be communicated at some level. On a much grander scale we need to deepen the experience of reconciliation."

Undaunted by the challenge which this enterprise has entailed, Dr. Kim asserts that an approach based on patient love "is the only thing that can touch the heart of souls in North Korea. There is nothing that won't change or be inspired by it."

A friend of his from childhood says of this remarkable man: "Since our boyhood days, he carried an overpowering aura of righteousness and optimism that is incomparable to anyone else I know. He is neither foolish nor naïve but rather shrewd, precise, resourceful and witty. His appetite and thirst are generated from his ideals and sense of justice." 

Dr. James Chinkyung Kim is a man with an infectious joyful laugh and says he doesn't "believe in capitalism or communism. My 'ism' is Lovism.".