Praying for the Persecuted Church: North Korea

And with the blink of an eye, we bid farewell to February... where is the time going? Anyways, this month i've been committing to praying for North Korea. As I look back, I can say that I haven't been as persistent in prayer with this specific request, but i've been very thankful to see how my prayer life has been changing - being able to pray for others consistently rather than just once and seeing it as a checklist or something. Praise God for sanctification!

North Korea is #1 on the World Watch List for the 13th year in a row, meaning that it has been deemed the nation with the most persecution towards Christians and the faith. I'm sure we all have our own share of knowledge on the nation, but ruled by Kim Jong-Un, there has pretty much been no tolerance for the christian faith in any way. "Anyone discovered engaging in unauthorized religious activity is subject to arrest, arbitrary detention, disappearance, torture and/or execution" (Open Doors, 2015).  The social hierarchy there is divided up into three main groups, Core (28% of the population), Wavering (45%) and Hostile (27%). These classifications directly affect how they are treated, for example in terms of the food they are given, and even the punishments they receive. Christians, being listed under the "hostile" category, are given less food, and greater punishment.

There is so much that goes on to ensure that the faith is kept out but the Gospel cannot be stopped and people have not given up on North Korea and continue to do all that they can to bring others to Christ. Many organizations are trying a "business as mission" strategy where they set up companies as vehicles for spiritual outreach. I've read that as some of these teams bring in bibles, they are counted before entering and after leaving the country to ensure none were distributed; they even spend time flipping through pages to check if any of it has been ripped out (it makes me realize what a blessing and privilege it is to possess God's written word so freely here!). At the same time, the nation sometimes equips teams with "tour guides" to watch over their every action and word. They aren't even allowed to say the word "God".

But God and his Gospel continues to prevail, as people continually come to Jesus through faith, even though it may be so incredibly dangerous - because Jesus is worth it! As I've read up on what God is doing in North Korea, i've come across many different stories. One specifically revolves around talking to God directly, which of course is completely forbidden there, but God is at work and this story finds that speaking of Him in a different language was okay. Here's what happened on a trip in 2009;
"one night, I suggested that the team go to karaoke for foreigners to "worship", but there was a blackout so we had to go out and just sit at the beach. There were also around 30 North Koreans who came out because of the blackout. We just worshipped, singing songs about Jesus and playing the guitar like we were playing around. There was one team member form Ghana, so I asked him to pray for us in his language. He came to the front and started repeated, "God is great" for 10 minutes in his language. I was disconcerted but the North Koreans started following this. At the end of the worship, he said "Amen" and then all the North Koreans were surprised and his words spread out quickly"
It's amazing to hear such stories - many times, those teams are found humming worship songs as they travel, praising God in their hearts. But at the same time, 50 000-70 000 Christians are known to be suffering and in prison in North Korea, including Missisauga's own Hyena Soo Lim from the Light Korean Presbyterian Church. The latest update I read was that he was sentenced for life to labour work as officials saw his works as harming the leadership of North Korea, and as an attempt to destroy the nation. He works 8 hours a day, six days a week with no bible and I would also assume that he had barely any human interaction.

A few weeks ago, many supporters went up to Parliament Hill to pray and ask the government to take action in regards to his release. What a display of people trusting the LORD! There are so many other stories of how God is at work, and even though we may not have seen some of those stories through yet, know that God will see them through.

I encourage you to take some time out of your day to pray over this nation; pray for:

1) the ones imprisoned in labor camps, that they would continually hope in the LORD knowing that God will sustain them
2) the people who are suffering through the drought that happened in 2015, that Christ's love would be seen through sharing the food He provides
3) the government, that they would loosen their grip on the christians there, and that the believers would find their strength renewed in Christ alone
4) Pastor Lim, and his freedom - he desires to return back to his family and church congregation, pray for his well-being also, and that He would look to God for help, clinging to Him as his refuge
5) the spreading of God's Word, that it would continue to sweep the nation powerfully - He is LORD over all!

References

  • http://www.opendoorsuk.org/news/stories/north_korea_160212.php
  • http://www.torontosun.com/2016/02/17/feds-visit-pastor-serving-life-sentence-in-north-korea
  • http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/foreigners/2013/11/christian_missionaries_in_north_korea_inside_the_front_companies_christians.html
  • http://www.opendoorsuk.org/news/stories/north_korea_160205.php
  • http://www.opendoorsuk.org/persecution/worldwatch/north_korea.php

Comments

Popular Posts