Tribute to Reuben Archer Torrey III by Ben Torrey My father, Reuben Archer Torrey, III, was born in Tsinan, China, a city in the Shantung peninsula, in 1918. His parents were Presbyterian missionaries there. Home-schooled until 8th grade (Calvert School), he went to North China American School then finished his high school in North Korea at Pyeng Yang Foreign School. Little did he know then that some twenty years later he would return to the Land of the Morning Calm to live and minister for the rest of his life. After a year at Yenching University (now Beiching U.) in Peking, he enrolled in Davidson College in North Carolina. College was followed by seminary alternating with sea duty as a merchant seaman during World War II. He started seminary at Princeton then transferred to the University of the South, Sewanee, Tennessee. Following his graduation from seminary, he was ordained into the Episcopal priesthood, taking his first parish in the small town of Darien, Georgia. For a while, he had a friend there, Bert Gilden, who recorded some of the events of the time in his book, Hurry Sundown, under the pen-name of K.B. Gilden. It was not the easiest place to begin one’s ministry and certainly not the most auspicious place to bring a young bride which is exactly what he did in 1948 -- Jane Mebane Grey of Charlotte, NC. Beginning a new marriage as well as a new ministry in a county that was rife with racial, political and economic tension was not practical. They settled in St. Simon's Island with no salary. This situation certainly threw them together in trusting on God to provide. Dad continued to pastor an Afro-American congregation which could not afford to pay him but the Lord provided miraculously many times. At one point their total food supply consisted of some tea, a couple cookies and an onion with no money to buy more. They decided to have afternoon tea and trust the Lord to provide supper rather than save the fixings until supper time and have them with the onion and pretend it was a meal. Just as they were sitting down to enjoy their snack, one of the poorest couples in the county drove up in their dilapidated pickup. The wife joined Mom in the kitchen for tea and Dad stayed to visit with the husband who refused to come in because he still smelled from his day’s work catfishing. As they were about to leave following a pleasant visit, the husband realized that the boxes of groceries they had brought were still in the truck. . . “Some of us thought you might be kind of tight these days so we pitched in and brought you a few things.” The “few things” turned out to be a delicious dinner and provisions for the next couple of weeks. In such ways the Heavenly Father trained my parents to trust in Him and not to look down on anyone whom He sends their way. This was to be the nature of their life at Jesus Abbey. Inspired by his grandfather, R.A. Torrey, who in turn had been inspired by George Mueller, my father held fast to the rule of making his needs known to the King of the Universe and letting Him provide in whatever way He chose. Over the years at the Abbey, he would pray—and teach others to pray—for specific needs. If money was required for several different projects, he would determine what each project required and pray for those amounts. As gifts were given to the Abbey, the amount given would determine which project got done first. Not only did he make his needs known to God only, he let the Lord set the priorities by prompting others to give in certain amounts. Sometimes, the priorities didn’t seem to make sense from a worldly perspective, but later experience proved the rightness of the Kingdom perspective. From Georgia, he moved on to pastor St. John’s Episcopal Church in Athol, Massachusetts. That was my home until I was seven. The seven years spent there were a rich time of blessing for our family and for the little parish in this New England manufacturing town. Meanwhile, my grandfather was now in Korea as director of an amputee rehabilitation project under the auspices of Church World Service. He had lost his right arm in an automobile accident in China during the war then had gone home to the States and retired from active ministry. Called out of retirement, he took on the challenge of training Korean War amputees to lead productive lives just as he had had to learn. He later called his work in Korea his most important. While there, he became friends with Bp. John Daly, bishop of the Anglican Church in Korea, who was looking for a man to reestablish the Anglican Seminary following the war. Bishop Daly, visiting my parents, accidentally found out that their son was a priest in the Episcopal Church—part of the Anglican Communion, an education major in college and someone who knew the Orient deeply from birth. To make a long story short, we ended up in Korea in November of 1957 where my father set to work getting St. Michael’s Seminary going. Seven years later, the seminary graduated its first class of students since before the Korean War. With that done, my father felt God’s call to establish a place for training lay men and women, not just men preparing for the ordained ministry. He also knew that it was to be a laboratory of Christian living, a house of prayer and a place where all dependence was to be on God alone—not denominations or mission boards. Living together in a tent for six months in 1965, Dad, about a dozen Korean men, and I cleared the land and began erecting the buildings of Jesus Abbey, high in the mountains of Kangwon Do. My mother and sister, Yancey, lived in a small house in the coal-mining town of Hwangji (now Taebaek) until we all moved into the first Abbey building on December 22, 1965. The snow had fallen at least twice while we were still living in that big old Army tent. Mom and Dad still make the Abbey their permanent home. It has grown much since then and they have aged as the years go by but God has blessed it all. Prayer warriors and teachers, my parents have led many into a deeper walk of trust in God, first, with service to Him following.

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