Grace Roads says truth will be revealed

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Grace Road Group administrator Heera Chae at their farm in Navua. Picture: JOVESA NAISUA

THE Grace Road Group says it will “wait for the truth to be revealed”.

The group was responding to allegations made against it and its leader, the Rev Shin Ok-Joo by two of its former followers.

This week, Lee Yunzae and Park Chanmoon shared their experiences as church members with this newspaper.

The two claimed that followers of the church working at their Navua farm were overworked and paid no money during their stay in Fiji. Rev Shin and three others were arrested in July at Seoul’s Incheon International Airport in South Korea on charges linked to violence against some of the church’s 400 members in Fiji.

Mr Park and Mr Lee claimed that Rev Shin’s biblical teachings were that Fiji was the paradise promised in the Bible.

 

Grace Road Group employee, 32-year-old Jiulia Narua tends to the tomato plants inside one of the many greenhouses at their farm in Navua. Picture: JOVESA NASUA

 

They claimed that she manipulated and brainwashed members to run away to Fiji.

They also claimed that Rev Shin had destroyed all connections between church members and their families, and certain church members were violently punished on her orders.

Grace Road administration staffer Heera Chae confirmed the two men were former followers of the church, saying their allegations against Rev Shin and the group were not true.

“Basically, we deny all the false claims by Chanmoon Park and Yunzae Lee,” Ms Chae said.

“These are all false claims and also what we can say now is that the truth will be revealed.”

She said as Christians, group members believed the word of God, not what Rev Shin taught.

“We are not followers of our pastor as a person, but we are followers of Christianity. It’s not that we follow her as an individual, it’s not like that.”

Grace Road Group public relations officer Grace Park said church members wanted to be Fijians and would like to live here forever.

“We think this is our country, graced by God,” Ms Park said.

In an earlier statement, the group said that because their leader had been leading the biblical reformation promised in the book of Hebrews, she had been attacked and slandered by those who spoke lies different from the Bible.

“They were joined by the ex-members, who disagreed with our mission and vision and pursued their own greed, and made up all the lies. They are not true and those lies are for slandering and damaging our reverend and GR Group,” the group earlier said in a statement.

“Because we are enraged by blasphemy of the name of God and dishonouring our reverend and GR Group, 400 of us want to speak up that all these are not true.

“All the stories reported in the media are not true and we have evidence to disprove (them). God shall let the truth be known to the entire world soon,” the statement added.

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