Jaeyong Bae at Zee Ireland Surplus.

Jaeyong Bae at Zee Ireland Surplus.

Sometime in July, I chanced upon a towering guy rummaging through the boxes of used books inside a dusty and humid warehouse in Davao City.

All along, I thought he was just an ordinary customer like me who loves to dig through the piles of used imported items sold in different surplus shops.

Then I noticed that he was sorting not just a few pieces of used books but hundreds of books. I asked him if he is reselling the books. “I’m donating these to schools,” he said.

And he introduced himself as Jaeyong Bae, a missionary from Korea.

Few days later, I visited his temporary library, where thousands books are housed.

Learn more about Jaeyong’s story I wrote for Manila Bulletin.

Korean couple Jaeyong and Sandy Bae shows a portion of unsorted books inside their community library in Davao City