A few weeks ago, an unexpected prayer request arose in my heart. It began with a letter from a young man—twenty‑one years old—whom I had never met, a young man writing from prison.

The letter said:

“I am writing because I have a request. Even if you read this and choose not to help, I have nothing to say. I write these few lines like a drowning man grasping at a straw. I immigrated here ten years ago with my mother. My father passed away early in Korea due to illness. In high school I fell in with the wrong friends, stopped studying, and eventually ended up here. Looking back, what I regret most is not being able to study. So I took the GED here and passed. But then I wanted more. I wrote to several colleges asking if I could study by correspondence, and one school accepted me. Since I was young, my dream has been to work in international trade. I want to study that while I’m here, but I need tuition. My mother is struggling alone, and I feel I would only burden her more, so I gave up—until I suddenly decided to write this letter. You may think it shameless for a stranger to send such a request. But I want to be able to say that I did everything I could to pursue my education. I hesitated for a long time, wondering if I had to kill my pride to this extent. But even so—I want to study.”

His single sentence—“I want to study”—struck my heart like lightning. It was the very cry I had shouted countless times in my own youth, after losing my father early and stumbling through a dark and uncertain future.

While my friends sat in their classrooms studying, I was sent home by a teacher because I hadn’t paid the school fee. Walking alone across the empty playground, tears streaming, I whispered the same words: “I want to study…”

Later, attending night school and working as an office errand boy at a construction site—cleaning, running small tasks—I held onto that desire as if it were my lifeline. Those were difficult, painful years.

So I decided I would help this young man, whoever he was, wherever he was. But when I looked at my own situation—supporting my eldest child through college—I realized I could not possibly take on another student’s tuition. Still, I could not simply give up.

I first spoke with the prison’s education officer. They said they could help with paperwork, but not with tuition. I contacted the college he mentioned, asking whether any financial aid was possible, but they said scholarships could not be offered.

For days I left a blank sheet of paper on my desk, unable to write a reply. Each dawn I prayed earnestly, waiting. That single letter had become precious to me.

One evening, while washing dishes, I prayed again:

“Lord, You know the sorrowful story of this young man who sent his plea across the barbed wire. He has placed his hope for the future in us. You who were with me through my own poor and difficult youth, who guided and helped me until today— I still do not know how to help him. Surely You have already prepared the answer, but I cannot yet see it or hear it. Help me.”

As I prayed, suddenly a name came to mind—someone I had not thought of in years. Long ago, when I recommended a student from a struggling family, this person had helped financially.

A certainty rose in my heart: “Yes—he would help this young man.”

With soap still on my hands, I hurried to call him. I was so urgent I barely greeted him and simply explained the situation. He listened quietly and then said one simple sentence:

“Please send me a letter of recommendation.”

“Really? A recommendation? Of course! Thank you—thank you so much!”

Before imagining the young man’s joy behind the prison bars, I realized something else first: the bars of fear that had locked my own heart about the future were opening, and a beam of hope was shining in.

With gratitude, I opened Psalm 121 and began filling the blank page with my reply:

“I lift up my eyes to the hills— where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth…”

That one unexpected letter reminded me how great and mighty God’s helping hand has been— through every mountain I have crossed, through every moment He has been with me.

— Yoon Wan Hee, March 25, 1996