[2] As the Korean War was breaking out in 1950, Rhee and a younger brother fled North Korea,[1] leaving behind his mother and four sisters.
As a refugee in South Korea, Rhee recalled: Church World Service came with food, blankets, most of all hope in the hopeless situation for the people who were struggling.
His friends from Quantico sponsored him as a student at Davis and Elkins College in West Virginia, where Rhee majored in English and religion.
He was ordained in Louisville and a week later married Haesun Rhee, a long-time friend and medical doctor in South Korea.
He served as the director of the Asian-American Study Center at Union Presbyterian Seminary in Richmond, Virginia, before he moved to Atlanta in late 2014.
There he served as the distinguished visiting professor for global leadership development at Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur Georgia.