God is still performing miracles in North Korea

Dear Prayer Partners,

For this month, we would like to share a testimony of Mrs. Lee Young-sil, a defector who came to faith in North Korea. She inherited a legacy of faith from North Korea four generations ago and shared how members of the North Korean underground church continue to pray and evangelize even in the face of persecution. Her testimony depicts the underground church and it is alive and well.

A copy of the worn-out book in a closet

Before I could even say the words 'mom and dad', I was sent to a daycare center where I was brainwashed into saying, “Thank you, Grand Master Kim Il Sung,” over and over again. So until I met Jesus, I lived my life thinking, “I must only give my body and soul for the Party, for the Grand Master, for the country, and for the people.” My parents were very careful to hide their Christianity from their children, so I never heard anything about God or Christianity as I was growing up.

Then one day, when I was twelve years old, I reached the bottom of my dresser drawer to get something out, and I found a book. It was an unusual book with nothing written on the outside. “What is this?” I thought, and I opened it up and it read, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth”. In North Korea, all foreign publications are required to be reported. “How can there be such a ridiculous book in my house? Should I go to the Ministry of Security? Should I tell my homeroom teacher? Oh, my house is ruined!” I was shaking like a leaf. I was lying awake at night thinking, “What should I do?” and wondering, “When is the

beginning? What is God? What are the heavens and the earth?” Questions kept churning inside me. Every night I could not go to sleep. Finally, after about two weeks, I asked my dad bravely, “Why is that book over there?" I asked. Then, without saying anything, my dad took my hand, and we walked outside. And then he asked me, “Did the existence of those stars just happen? Or did someone create them?” He asked me. When I couldn't say anything, he asked me, “What animals are you most afraid of in the world?” When I answered “snakes,” he told me the story of Adam and Eve eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and how there was a God who created it all. Strangely enough, without fear nor doubt. I believed the story. My dad started with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and then he told me the story of Joseph, and I said, “Wow, that makes sense,” and it was so interesting. I knew that in communist North Korea, I would be persecuted for believing in God, but I loved to hearing and learning about God.

He could not give up on God, so he became a martyr.

After I believed in God, the first thing I wanted to do was to tell my friends at school. When I was trying to figure out how to tell them about God, I did as my father had told me, “Hey, what's the scariest animal in the world?” In North Korea, I could not share the gospel as freely as I can in South Korea. The moment Christianity or God came out of my mouth, my family would disappear like rats and birds. So I did not discuss it extensively. Rather, I talked about it quietly and carefully only to very close friends. But at the same time there are some people who are boldly sharing the gospel, saying, “I am okay with dying". There was a man who lived in my neighborhood, and he kept saying that he believes in God, and he kept speaking out about it. A Security Bureau Officer told him, “Don't let the word of God ever come out of your mouth again. Don't preach about God.” But the man continued, “we must pass on the truth of God to the next generation” He continued saying “what could the official would do to a man indwelt with the Holy Spirit?” Eventually, the Security Bureau officer said to him, “If you deny God here, we will let you live,” but he said, “I cannot give up God, who has never let me down” So he was immediately executed and his wife and children were sent to a political prison camp. In North Korea, when you evangelize, you have to prepare to give up your life. You cannot just say, “I believe in God.” If you do not live it out, the Gospel does not reach people. So there is no such thing as false faith in North Korea. When I meet people in South Korea who say that there is no gospel, no underground church, and no evangelism in North Korea, I feel frustrated and hurt because I feel like they limit God to only being in the worship center.

God is still performing miracles in North Korea

My father shared the Gospel whenever he had the opportunity. He did not approach people to evangelize them right away, but he would take about six or seven years to see an opportunity, pray about it, and then share the word of God. He said that when he did this, no one ever responded negatively, “What is this? What are you talking about?” I remember one time I asked my father, “If God is alive, show me,” and he told me a story that stuck with me until now. Around 1998, a man who worked with my father during the March of Suffering hadn't come to work for a few days, so my father went to his house. “He told me that his wife and kids had run away, and he had contracted pulmonary tuberculosis and was dying, which was not unusual in those days when there was nothing to eat, people were failing, and the bodies of flower children were lying on the train tracks”.

My father took food from the house and fed him, knowing he would not live long. After a few days, that sick man recovered so much that he said he was surprised when the man took my father’s hand and said, “I've been watching you for last twenty years.” He said that every day from the time he went to work in the morning until the time he left in the evening, he went to the Security Bureau and wrote down what my father said and what he did during the days. He said, “I have never talked to the Bureau about the God you talked about,” and he confessed, “I think my time to die is near, and I will die believing in the God you believe in.” This is not possible in North Korea unless God is alive. It is our God who performs miracles even in North Korea.

How do North Korean believers pray to God?

When I was twelve years old and believed in God, I asked my elders, “How do you pray?” My grandmother and parents told me that they prayed for South Korea, and they prayed every day for the restoration of spiritual Israel as it is written in the Bible. There was nothing else but to pray for the coming of God's kingdom in South Korea and the restoration of Israel.

He did not pray for me and my family to be well, because that is for the gentiles, but he prayed as the Bible says, seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all things will be added to you. People who believe in God in North Korea do not say, “God, why have you left us in this suffering?” They just accept the suffering and pray to discern what God wants to do through it. We pray that God's kingdom will come to the land of North Korea, that the miracle of the five-ringed ears filled with only God's word will happen, and that God's will be fulfilled so that others will see the kingdom of God.

The day when North and South Korea will unite and go up to North Korea together.

Young-sil said "I believed God in North Korea. I came to South Korea as a believer from a family that has believed in Jesus for four generations. I am living now with the heart that I will be the first to enter North Korea when it opens. When God tells me to go, I want to go to North Korea without looking back. But one thing I would like to say is that North Korea should never be taken for granted. North Korean defectors tell each other that if there is reunification, South Koreans will be eaten and robbed by people in North Korea. Even before I defected, they said that there were only foxes and wolves left in North Korea, that all good people were all dead and only bad people were left. Do you care about how North Koreans speak, what they eat, what they like to do? You cannot just naively think, 'I'm going to go up to North Korea when Korea is reunified,' without knowing anything about these things. If you go into North Korea without the determination of 'dead or alive,' you're just going to get beaten. There is a verse in the Bible that says, 'How beautiful it is when brothers dwell together.' I think North Korean defectors and South Koreans should unite to go up to North Korea. North Koreans can never do it alone, nor can South Koreans it alone. I believe that when northern defectors and southerners unite and go to North Korea as partners in prayer, God will quickly bring the kingdom of God to the land of North Korea."

In addition to this letter, we have attached a weekly prayer for the Month of June and we invite you to join us in prayer.