In this episode, author Helen Lee shares the pieces of her life and heritage that have inspired her writing, including her recent children’s book, Kaylee Prays for the Children of the World. Helen and Aaron discuss personal history, challenges and growth in praying, and teaching children through song.
Transcript
Aaron Lee: Hi everyone. This is Aaron for SOLA Network, and today I am here with Helen Lee. Helen, I am glad that we finally get to connect. I feel like I’ve known you for a while, but only through the internet. You know, it’s kind of one of those parasocial relationships. Would you mind introducing yourself to our listeners, and then also maybe talk about your book for a second?
Helen Lee: Yeah, I’d be happy to. So, thank you, Aaron, for having me here. Glad to be here to talk about all the things that we’ll get to talk about today. So my name is Helen Lee. I am currently at the Director of Strategic Initiatives at Intervarsity Press. I’ve been at IVP for about 10 years, a little over 10 years now. I started there as an Acquisitions and Development Editor. Did that for a number of years, and I was asked to run the Marketing Department. I did that for a few years, and now I run this lovely, small but mighty team. I call us the entrepreneurs of IVP. We get to start new things, new multimedia ventures of different kinds that IVP has not traditionally done before, like podcasts and video courses and things like that. So I do that. It’s my day job.
So by day on that, and then in random spare time, when I can find it, I try to write. I’ve been a writer and an author for, I mean, decades now, so I’m not super prolific, but I just keep, little by little over time, continue to build different genres of writing. So I started in Christian journalism. My career is in publishing, and Christian publishing started at Christianity Today, many, many years ago, did some book writing, and continue to do that, mostly in Christian nonfiction. But now, I’m starting to venture into what I call kidlit, children’s literature, which I think is kind of my desire to root and stay there as much as I can in the future.
So I’ve just done this picture book. It’s back here in the corner with IVP called Kaylee Prays for the Children of the World, and that will come out in just a couple of weeks, and I am currently revising a middle grade novel, title to be determined, and we’ll see how that turns out. So that’s a little bit about me.
I live in the Chicago area, married to Brian Lee. He’s a classical pianist and a professor at Moody Bible Institute. He’s been there for, oh my gosh, over 20 years now. I have, we have three boys who are, gosh, they’re almost grown, but still, I think of them as, you know, young, because they’re my kids. So 22, 19 years old, and 17 is my youngest. And one dog, who is trying to get in here, so if you hear like pawing noises, that’s my dog trying to come down and be part of the whole conversation.
Aaron Lee: That’s awesome. Super inspiring to see your work and all that you’ve done at IVP. I’ve been a fan of IVP for a long time, so just thank you, thank you for the work that you do there.
Helen Lee: My pleasure.
Aaron Lee: Yeah, it’s a ministry for sure. Kaylee Prays. This is your first children’s book, I believe, right, I read?
Helen Lee: It is.
Aaron Lee: Yeah, it’s unique in the sense where it features a Korean American multi-generational family. And so, your book, you know, it features Kaylee praying, and you see her interact with her grandpa, I think, is what it is, right? So tell me about your family history and how God brought you to where you are now. And, yeah, like, why you kind of wanted this to be present in your first children’s book.
Helen Lee: So we’re gonna start that. So I’ll start with family history a little bit. So I’m second generation. I was born here in the U.S. My dad was a refugee from Pyongyang, and so during the Korean War, escaped to the southern part of the country with his dad and his brother. And during that period of time, he had thought he would just go back home and see his mom, or catch up with his mom later on, or get back home. You know, within a couple weeks, it’s a very common story for that generation. But of course, the conflict broke out in such a dramatic way that he never was able to go back home, was never able to see his mother alive again. So that’s my dad’s story.
So you’ll see, even in this particular story, a couple of references that really are kind of a way to memorialize my dad and his experience as someone who was a refugee from Pyongyang, and he eventually immigrated to the U.S., met my mom here in the U.S., also an immigrant from Korea. They met on a blind date, a very American way to meet, but they got married here in the U.S., and of course, eventually had me. And so that is kind of generationally like where, where I fit, more or less.
And Brian, who I married, is from Toronto originally, and his parents, his dad was younger than my dad, and he felt like, we should give, to use the Korean word for grandfather, halabeoji, as soon as me and my husband started having kids. They felt like, my father and I felt like, we should give the word halabeoji, the Korean word for grandfather, to my dad, because he’s older, they wanted to give him a more respectful term, and he said, let’s call me “Halbi,” like for short. So that’s why, in the story, there’s a dedication page that is dedicated to Halabeoji, who’s my dad, and Halbi, which is the short form of grandfather. You know, grandpa, potentially. So you kind of have a nod to both of these paternal figures in our family and both men of faith, both people who were committed to the church.
I grew up in the Korean church and grew up in all the things that go along with being a part of a Korean youth group as a Korean second generation person growing up in the U.S. So there are some, even there too, some echoes of things that I experienced, and we can talk about this maybe a little later on, from my Korean youth group experiences that kind of made it into the book as well.
So, I feel like I haven’t answered everything related to that. I mean how, maybe how that led to the story and why I ended up here. So the origin story of the book itself. I actually just did an Instagram reel about this, because I wanted to show people that sometimes people think, oh, children’s books. I mean, you could just write that in an afternoon, within an hour. They’re so short and they’re so, you know, so simple. But this was a 15 year journey from beginning to end. For me, with what ended up becoming the book I have now, it started out as just this, like self published thing I did called God Cares for Bangladesh. I had read some stories about what some children were suffering from in their work in Bangladesh because of the poverty in some cases, that we had these stories of children who, as their job, would literally, like, break open batteries, because there was a core inside there that can be, like, reused or recycled, or has some value. But in the course of pounding open these batteries, all this black dust would emerge. It’s very toxic, very and how these, you had these Bangladesh children just covered in this black dust. And that story kind of moved me to write that initial God Cares for Bangladesh. And after I wrote that, mainly as a resource that I mentioned in my first book called The Missional Mom, it’s just an example of how for me, even just the act of writing that was a way to just honor and bring some voice, you know, to the plight of these particular children.
So then after I really just kind of sat. I didn’t really do anything with it, but IVP, in the meantime, eventually started a kids’ line. So I was talking to the editor one day, and I said, “I have this, like old story. It’s like sitting in my, you know, in my computer. What do you think? Do you think it could be something that would work?” And so over time, the editor, Elissa Schauer and I just began talking, she had some suggestions to broaden it beyond Bangladesh. And then it became very natural for me to think about the main character being a Korean American girl. I mean, that’s just when I think of children, and it was just the easiest way to kind of root myself in what I know, and I think that I was motivated to some extent, because at IVP, so far, we don’t have any books that kind of feature a Korean American family. And within Christian publishing, you don’t have many. There might be some out there. I haven’t done like a exhaustive search, but it’s not common to find a Christian book for children that has kind of a Korean American family in it. I love the idea of having a grandfather or grandparent figure living in the house, that’s very Asian, right? To have that kind of multi-generational kind of family structure is not uncommon that it’s, I know it’s not just an Asian thing, but, but often, and you see that in many Asian American families here in the U.S. and elsewhere, and there had to be a dog because, you know, just, you know, you have to have a cute dog in a children’s story, so, yeah, and so the grandfather figure in the book is kind of a fictional mix, kind of inspired by my dad and my father and both kind of together.
Aaron Lee: That’s awesome. I love how it’s so personal to you. I mean, I assume that, okay, there’s, there’s glimpses of your life in here, at least culturally, but it’s good to hear, like the really personalization of it that you, that you put in there. You mentioned that one takeaway from this book is that you want to reassure readers that it’s all right to experience struggles when we pray. Now, I can relate to that, but I want to know if there’s a personal story coming from you about why that’s that’s a big takeaway from the book.
Helen Lee: Yeah, so when I was a kid, you know, we didn’t talk about prayer much, and I experienced prayer in, like, the church context, youth group context, but we didn’t always necessarily talk about it much at home. And there’s lots of reasons. Maybe part of it was, maybe my parents felt like it was more personal, like intimate to be talking about faith. It almost felt like it was shameful to talk too much about prayer and the idea of your own struggles and prayers. This is my own experience. And so I felt like I eventually had to kind of learn that a little bit on my own as I grew up and got involved in InterVarsity as a college student, and I was surrounded by a lot of people who seemed very comfortable with prayer. They seemed to come from just backgrounds where praying together, praying just prayers, just seemed like easier for them. And so, I think in part, I wanted to normalize for the reader, that if sometimes you don’t always feel like you have the words, it’s okay, that’s not something to be embarrassed about. Or if you sometimes struggle, like, sometimes, I think especially kids, when they’re learning how to pray with people and praying in groups, it can be embarrassing. They may feel that kind of, again, that shame that comes from, “Am I saying it right?” “My words aren’t coming out right.” “I’m not being very articulate.” And I was just trying to like, even like, lessen some of that stigma that we can put on ourselves.
I mean, God just wants us to come as we are. You know, he doesn’t need for us to be perfect in our prayers or eloquent in our prayers or any of those things. He just wants us to be honest and come as we are. But for me as a young person, it wasn’t always easy to feel that comfort, to be able to pray, just pray freely or all, or even to know the words to pray, especially if we were talking about something that was difficult or something that was challenging, or something that felt either painful, either for myself, or in the world where it just felt like it’s too hard to pray for this. It’s just not easy. And so, sometimes the words flow, you know, in our prayers, and sometimes there’s just like a struggle within our soul. And I just wanted to say that range of the human experience when we pray, God invites it all, and he can handle it all, and he welcomes it all. He wants relationship with each of us, and that kind of honesty and vulnerability, which is not always easy for us as human beings, I don’t think, even with God. I wanted to just try to like lower the bar as much as possible in the story, to honor that range of experiences that people might have and children might have in their prayers.
Aaron Lee: Yeah, I love that. I mean, for just, just in talking to my kids, I have three young kids right now, and it’s just hard to get them to express feelings to me, you know, or like, just bring articulation. And so, I mean, trying to get them to pray to God, that’s another language that you have to kind of get out of them. And so, yeah, I appreciate the book coming from that angle. And it’s not just kids. I mean, I have problems as an adult, you know, trying to express myself. So yeah, I resonate deeply with the book.
Let’s talk about your Korean youth group experience here for a second. Tell me more about praying in one voice you mentioned this. Tell me about this and your personal experience and connection to it.
Helen Lee: The first time I experienced praying in one voice, I was at a typical kind of Korean youth group, kind of gathering all the different Korean youth groups in our local area had all gathered together. There was this band back in the 80s. I don’t even know if anyone knows of this band anymore, but those of us who grew up in the 80s, it was called Alpha Omega. They were a Korean like praise band, very popular, who were there, like a massive gathering of, I don’t even know how many people, you know, it felt massive to me at the time, not being used to like so many Koreans in one place, like 500 you know, 600 youth altogether, and then all of a sudden, you know, the worship leader or the pastor―I don’t remember anymore, it’s been a while just―you know, just said, invited us to all pray in one voice. I had no idea what was it. And it was wild, you know, it took me by surprise, and it was this crescendo of voices, all different kinds of emotions. It took me a while to kind of get used to it, and it was a little jarring at first.
But as I was just kind of like trying to, like, orient myself in this space, there’s also something reassuring about it too, that I could just pray out loud, and it would be part of this amazing chorus of voices, even if I couldn’t hear my own words or couldn’t understand what was going on around me, there’s this amazing swell. And then eventually, as the Spirit led, there was this calm. It was just amazing to me.
And later, much, much, much later on in life, you know, I came to read up on some of the details, and I won’t get the history right about any of this, but Pyongyang, at one point, was called the Jerusalem of the East, and in 1907, there is a historic revival that happened in Pyongyang, where you read about that potentially being the origin of this whole idea of praying in one voice, happening at this revival, which has been kind of carried through the generations over time in the Korean church.
I then experienced it after some of those youth group experiences when I was a kid, when I was―and this is not even that long ago―when I was in an InterVarsity multi-ethnic staff conference. This was like five years ago. So InterVarsity had over time, like found ways to continue to draw from the worship experiences, spiritual experiences from different ethnicities all throughout the movement, and so they kind of embraced this idea of praying in one voice. And at that particular time, that was right around the time when there had been some news about a man named Eric Garner, he had been a black man who had been killed at the hands of police at that time. And there was a conviction that was supposed to be given down, or a judgment, maybe not conviction is not the right word. There was a sentence that was supposed to be announced, and I think that at that time, the police officer in that particular case was was acquitted.
So this multi-ethnic staff gathering was all different staff from all different racial and ethnic backgrounds, and we had an evening of just worship and lament and prayer in dealing with time, there was a praying in one voice moment, and this was the first time I prayed in one voice with not just Koreans around me, like with a whole bunch of different people from different backgrounds, and it was really very profound to be surrounded by my black brothers and sisters who were grieving and lamenting in a way that I couldn’t understand, you know, in the same way, since I, myself, obviously am not black, but to be sitting in their midst and just being surrounded by their grief, their tears, sometimes their rage, and just hearing them pour it all out, just pour it all out to God, and just be there alongside my brothers and sisters, just to kind of hold that grief alongside them, and hold all those emotions, even if I didn’t personally exactly know it to their depth, there was something that connected me to my brothers and sisters in that moment that was super profound. I left, even though I in my head can’t fully understand exactly the same experience, I left with the sense of, I connected spiritually with their grief in a way no words could actually have ever communicated it. Like, reading about someone else’s pain is different from like experiencing it in a moment of profound, honest prayer alongside your fellow Christian.
So something about that is so unique, just the idea that we cannot just pray in the kind of Western sense of this, like individualized spirituality, I think, is such a common thing. But in that moment, really getting to experience what it means to be the body of Christ, suffering together and truly bearing one another’s burdens was really, really profound. So praying in one voice is certainly not just a Korean tradition or an Asian American. It has, you know, transcended multiple cultures. But I am most familiar with it from the Korean church setting, and then eventually, now in some of these other multi-ethnic settings, which has been really powerful.
Aaron Lee: Right. Yeah, no, that’s incredible. I mean, I think there’s beauty in it because of the history that comes along with it, you know, like, yeah, I did not know about about the history of it, and I need to do more research on that. And then also, just the fact that it is, it is a communal, a truly communal experience. You know, that you go through it together. And I think there’s a definitely something more spiritual about it than just what you were saying, like the westernized version of individualized prayer, you know? So, yeah, so good, so good.
I want to, I want to combine these, these two questions, okay, for our last one. So, okay, your kids are a little bit older than mine. Can you give me some quick pointers on praying with my young children? So I’m being selfish here. I want you to give me advice personally. I don’t care about my listeners. And then, what has God been personally teaching you about prayer recently? Maybe you can combine those two. Or, you know, maybe, oh, boy, maybe they go one in the same, and to make it even more challenging, is there anything particular that resonates with you as an Asian American? I think that’d be a great place for us to close here.
Helen Lee: Oh my goodness. Okay, I don’t know if I can combine the answers that’s gonna get all those notes.
Aaron Lee: Yeah, but you can take it one at a time.
Helen Lee: How old are your kids?
Aaron Lee: My kids are five, four, three, basically, right now.
Helen Lee: Oh, five, four three.
Aaron Lee: I mean, they’ll be turning six, five, four, this year.
Helen Lee: So, I mean, those ages are wonderful, because there is that whole idea of, you must be like a child, like Jesus, instructs us, right? But unless you become like a child, you know, you have no part in this kingdom. And there’s something about the openness of children, just the faith of children, the lack of cynicism and the lack of doubt in a child, that is so wonderful, that I think that, first of all, modeling―just the act of modeling alone, the intentional act of just modeling for your child, this is something you as a Christian do, is going to communicate to them, whether they fully understand it or fully can articulate it, the fact that you’re modeling it, that makes such an impact, even if it’s messy, and even if they may not always listen and they don’t get exactly what’s going on, the modeling is huge, number one.
Number two, I think that music and children and prayer go along really, really well together. My kids in particular have really deep memories of every summer when we would do VBS, all those songs, even from those VBS, like even now, as young adults and teenagers, they can remember songs, hand motions, all of it. Music, I think, is so powerful, playing in the car when you’re driving with them, like, have one particular, whether it’s an album or a playlist, that you’ve gotten a chance to kind of choose the ones you like the most, and have the messages you like the best, and that just that you enjoy, because you’re going to have to listen to it over and over. Kids just absorb all of that, like all the spiritual truths, the joy, the messages of God’s love for them, like all of that, becomes embedded, and those can become prayers. You can pray as you sing. And I think that’s a super easy way that kids just absorb all that goodness and all that truth without it feeling like a chore.
You know, I think sometimes, as we get older, right, this is what we lose as we can become adults that are so easy as a child, to embrace joy, to embrace the truth of God’s love, those are things that are so easy for children. So the more I think we can even at a young age, help them pray those songs and even, and you can say that as a parent like, you’re singing about how much God loves you. You can pray that, and it is a prayer too. It’s not just a song, like psalms and prayers. And that’s the Psalms, right there, right, so many of them were songs and prayers, and that model is biblical and something that we can also bring into our children’s lives on a smaller, simpler scale, but I think those can be profound lessons, words, theology, that they can grasp even at a young age. And so I think children naturally love songs. They naturally love hand motions and things like that. And that’s not just singing. That’s also, again, you can be teaching them. These are not just songs. They’re also things that are prayers and ways we can express to God our love for him and also take in his love for for us.
Aaron Lee: That’s so good. I’m actually a worship leader too. So, yeah, I do it in children’s too. So yeah, you know what, I’m gonna do it, I’m gonna do it. I’m gonna do exactly what you’re saying. Yeah, you know, a lot of times I just barrel through the songs. But you know what, I’m gonna stop and I’m going to sing the song, and then maybe stop and pray that song, and then go to the next one. Yeah, that’s great. This is good.
Helen Lee: You asked other good questions. I know I’m probably forgetting, let’s see.
Aaron Lee: Yeah, okay, tell me, what has God personally been teaching you about prayer and anything?
Helen Lee: Oh boy. Well, that’s a great question. For me, right now my challenge is, it’s not the praying part, that’s the hard part, it’s the listening part. So like, for me, I have a lot I’m like, I feel like I talked about all day long, right? And this is kind of what we’re instructed to you, right? When you get up in the morning, as you walk along the way, as you go down the road, we’re supposed to surround ourselves with just thinking about God from morning till night and communicating that to our children, right? So that’s another way we’re even teaching, is that we can teach our kids, that we are praying all throughout the day. So for me, that one-way communication of like me just feeling my thoughts, my frustrations, my irritations, my laments, comes easy.
What I feel like, this is a constant thing that I feel like I’m struggling with, and I continue to have to remind myself is to just stop talking and to actually, like, listen. I mean literally, like, carve out time to listen, because there’s so much noise in our world, and there’s so much noise and distraction all around us, so much we can look at, so much we can there’s like, no end of things that can take our attention away from God and from hearing his voice. So that’s the part of prayer that for me is probably the hardest right now.
It’s not just me talking. I have to be more intentional, to sit and to carve out space and do nothing and just rest in God’s presence and give him the space to speak. And of course, God speaks as we as we read his word. He speaks as we’re with other Christians. He speaks in lots of ways, but there is something about silence and solitude that is so hard for us to find time for and to make time for. But for me, the most profound times of really hearing God’s voice is in that combination of being able to be by myself, solitude and silence in God’s word and just listening, okay, not just reading, but also just silence and listening. But boy, is that hard, you know? I mean, it is just so hard. It’s a constant struggle for me to make and carve out the time. I try to tell myself once every quarter, try to figure out a way to kind of carve out whether it’s just half a day, an hour. But you know, that was like one of my resolutions about three years ago, every quarter like, carve out at least half a day. So I haven’t even been able to do that. But, yeah, that’s something I continue to struggle with, but it’s something I want to continue to grow in, because I feel like that listening part is the other part of prayer. It’s not just speaking, it’s listening.
And I tried to, even in the book, kind of even model that a little bit, where there’s just times of Kaylee, just like sitting silently, she doesn’t quite have the words, and so she waits for the Spirit to give her the words, and she listens and hears kind of even the voice of God being able to reassure her, so that listening I’m still―Kaylee’s got that figured out better than I, in some ways.
Aaron Lee: Well, that’s why the books out there. And thank you so much, Helen for writing it, and thank you for sharing it with us, and thank you for your time. I really appreciate hearing your personal stories and just hearing about your life. It really helps me get perspective on your book. And I’m really glad I just got to talk to you as a person. Thank you so much.
Helen Lee: It was a blessing. Thank you, Aaron.