November 2016 Persecution Magazine (2 of 3)

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NOVEMBER 2016

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North Korea Explore the Bizarre World of North Korea: A state-created false religion, a national counterfeiting operation, and first-hand tales of tragedy and escape from the world’s worst persecutor of Christians

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Our Prayer for North Korea

Chilgol Church

Chilgol Church in Pyongyang, North Korea, is one of only two Protestant churches in North Korea. It exists as propaganda for foreigners to convince visitors that North Korea has religious freedom.

By Sandra Elliot

This issue of Persecution is the second in a rare two-part series on North Korea. Christians there face the worst imaginable persecution in the world, but the hermit kingdom may be slowly unraveling.

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orth Korea is a totalitarian regime with little to no regard for the lives of its own people. In fact, North Korea is concerned with only one thing and that is blind loyalty. Twenty-five million people are imprisoned in a state run by an iron-gripping,

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exorbitant, and ludicrous family name.

False Religion The ideological underpinning of the DPRK is the all-inclusive philosophy of Juche (see page 18). Within the parameters of this socio-political-religious concept, the Kim family is the supreme authority and spiritual head and the state of North Korea is the provider of all things. There are roughly 100,000 Juche research centers spread across North Korea meant to indoctrinate the population into this false ideology. This is part of the North Korean design to undergird and sustain the regime’s power and longevity by playing on human beings’ need to believe in and

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live for something.

Christianity poses a direct and potent threat to the ideological framework of Juche. Juche dictates that your state and leader are your religion and god. Christianity says that there is only one God and we are all His children, created in His image, equal before Him. Nationality is of minor importance.

As a result, Christians suffer greatly for their faith in North Korea as their neighbors and friends are automatically pitted against them in their practice of Juche. Christians suffer the cruelest form of torture, imprisonment and execution in North Korea, as the state sees their faith as an existential threat to its claim.

And rightly so. The love of Christ and the spread of His message by His followers is the most lucid threat to the Kim regime.

NOVEMBER 2016

The Kim family is the spiritual head of North Korea and is the provider of all things.

The Tower of the Juche Idea on the Taedong River was built as a monument to the regime’s religion of Juche (see page 18). Creative Commons photo from flickr by David Stanley.

real world as they never thought they would.

Thankfully, our Lord Jesus is sovereign and merciful. In Sammy’s story you will see how the untiring and powerful prayers of a mother for her son’s salvation came to fruition. We also interviewed New York Times bestselling author and TED star, Hyeonseo Lee. The Lord provided all the strength she could ever imagine when facing impossible circumstances.

Their stories reveal the true nature of North Korea and the power of Christ at work in saving lives.

Future of North Korea

At the end of World War II, the Korean peninsula was divided. See page 30 for some possiblilites that could affect the future of this nation.

Office 39 So how does North Korea maintain the loyalty of its people aside from Juche?

Well as with many things in life, through money and fear mongering. The DPRK is the only government in the world that has established a branch of government which collects illegal funds to operate effectively.

Office 39 is basically a secret branch of government that engages in illicit economic activities to create a slush fund for the running dictator of North Korea (think “mafia”). This includes counterfeit money laundering, black market weapons trade, and insurance fraud that crosses international borders. All this illegal cash serves to buy loyalties, build a nuclear arsenal, maneuver around sanctions and support

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the lavish lifestyle of the Kim’s and other elites.

North Korea depends on Office 39 to carry out its criminal activities domestically and internationally. Perhaps the easy solution to ending the terroristic Kim reign is to choke them financially.

Defectors Most of what we know about North Korea comes from the testimonies of defectors and escapees of the DPRK. On pages 23-27 you can read the personal accounts of some who have heroically escaped the hermit kingdom. They have faced death, torture, enslavement, and great loss in their journey to freedom. Once free, they must overcome the trauma of their past and face the

But Christ can do more. While we celebrate and thank Him for the salvation of individuals within North Korea, we beg Him for more.

The future of North Korea, according to many scholars, is dimly lit and destined to fail (see page 30). The severity and harshness of the Kim Jong-Un regime is creating discontentment and likely rebellion among his inner circle of loyalists. China, while still the strongest ally to North Korea, has also recently defected in their alliance and support to the regime. But most importantly, Christians are finding new and creative ways to get the Gospel inside the DPRK. The Gospel, in and of itself, disqualifies the Kim claim on these 25 million people. When North Koreans learn of the true God, they will undoubtedly recognize the counterfeit ones.

As ambassadors and followers of Christ, our contribution to the freedom of North Korea is to pray He opens the eyes of the blind.

As you read through the pages of this month’s magazine, pay close attention to what you could do beyond praying for North Korea. Join us in our efforts to free the prisoners of North Korea and spread the Gospel to a desperate and desolate people. Remember the word of your Savior: I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. - Matthew 16:18-19 (ESV)

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False Religion and the Repression of Christianity

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By Sandra Elliot

n early 1907, a city that was known for its debauchery was set ablaze with a powerful revival after years of prayer. Fifty thousand people were converted to Christianity in 1907 alone! Afterwards, there were so many Christians living out their faith that Pyongyang, the present North Korean capital, became known as “The Jerusalem of the East.” The Pyongyang Great Revival lasted through 1910.

Two years later, a baby was born – the son of Christian parents and grandson of a Christian pastor. The baby’s name? Kim Il-sung, the founder of North Korea.

Kim was intimately familiar with Christianity and witnessed Christians choose martyrdom over worshipping the Japanese Emperor during Japan’s colonization of the Korean peninsula. Recognizing the power of Christianity, he wanted the worship directed at himself. So he took Christianity, removed God the Father, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, and set up himself, his wife and son as the new trinity. This false religion was later complimented with the addition of a full-fledged ideology known as Juche. It is a counterfeit religion that is deathly afraid of the true version, and rightfully so.

The Philosophy of Juche Juche (JOO-chay). It’s not a word with which most of us are familiar. In fact, I doubt any one of us knows how to correctly pronounce it upon reading. Juche. It means selfreliance, in some sense or another. It has been described as Kim II-Sung’s “original, brilliant and revolutionary contribution to national and international thought.”

In the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea), it is the reigning phi-

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losophy and the most adhered-to line of thinking. In 1972, when Kim II-Sung established his iron grip Chawi on North Korea, Military Independence Juche became the autarkic state ideViolence is the best way to defend the ology of the nation. nation Any other beliefs, Christianity included, are considered a threat to Juche and the survival of the state of North Korea.

If you want to understand North Korea, you must first understand this twisted ideology of self-reliance and the extensive irony under which it operates.

Kim II-Sung, upon instituting Juche as a national thought, explained it as so: “This means holding fast to an independent position, rejecting dependence on others, using one’s own brains, believing in one’s own strength, displaying the revolutionary spirit of self-reliance.”

Why is this so blatantly and grossly ironic?

If you know anything about North Korea, you know that it is a nation obsessed with controlling its people, specifically the minds of its people. So by use of this “self-reliance” and self-determination, Kim II-Sung enslaved a whole nation into thinking as one and believing this as freedom.

The regime at the time instructed the North Korean people in Juche by using an analogy of the human body. Kim II-Sung, the great leader, was the brain in which decision making and issuing orders are the primary role.

The government is the nervous system that channels information to the bone and muscle (the North Korean people) who must, in turn,

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Chaju Political Independence Yielding to foreign pressure or idea (i.e.

Christianity) is abominable

Juche These components of Juche illustrate the self-sufficiency of this false religion.

Charip Economic Independence To establish total political independence, North Korea must be selfsufficient

physically execute the orders of the brain.

This is probably the greatest example of the success of socialist revolutions in that the masses have rallied around and supported leadership under a single ideology and line of thought. Now we must better understand what it is they believe/are indoctrinated with.

There are three main components to Juche ideology: (1) chaju, which means political independence, (2) charip, which is economic independence, and (3) chawi is military independence.

Chaju is the central tenant of Juche in that it is the obsessive focus on state sovereignty.

This basically means that yielding to ANY foreign pressure or tolerating ANY foreign ideas (i.e. Christianity) is an abomination.

Chaju is basically a justification for the political grip of the Kim family and the hermit kingdom style of North Korea.

Charip, meaning economic independence, is the material basis for chaju. To establish total and supreme political independence, North Korea must be totally and supremely self-sufficient.

Lastly, chawi, the military independence of Juche ideology, sees violence as the best way to defend the nation. It is decidedly belligerent NOVEMBER 2016

JUCHE Kim Il-sung

CHRISTIANITY Founder

Jesus Christ

Kim Il-sung Kim Jung Sook (wife) Kim Jong-il (son)

Trinity

Writings and teachings of Kim Il-sung

Holy Text

The Bible

Worship

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.”

Matt. 22:37 NIV

North Koreans are required to worship Kim Il-sung with all their heart and might

Fear On Self Man is master of the world and his own destiny.

Motivation Reliance

God the Father God the Son God the Holy Spirit

Love On God

Master

Jesus in submission to God.

North Koreans must hang pictures of Kim family in homes and bow to worship.

Images

“You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them.”

Ex. 20:4-5 NIV

Spy on your neighbor

Others

Love your neighbor

North Koreans gather regularly to admit their wrongdoings.

Confession

and overly presumptuous, referring to outside ideology as imperialistic and aggressive.

The Repression of Christianity In light of these tenets of Juche, it’s easy to understand why the North Korean government is so adamantly against Christianity.

Juche ideology allows the Kim family to act as

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“Therefore, confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.”

James 5:16 NIV

stand-in gods to the North Koreans. In Juche, you rely on your nation, your teaching and your leader…and no one else. Juche is your absolute religion, false though it may be.

There are estimated to be some 200,000 to 400,000 Christians living in North Korea today.

Of that number approximately 60,000 are serving in prison and labor camps for their faith.

Prison camps in North Korea closely resemble the concentration camps of WWII, which killed

almost 12 million people. It doesn’t take much to end up in such a dreadful place.

Christians in North Korea can be prosecuted for propagating religion, possessing religious items, carrying out religious activities, or having any sort of contact with religious persons.

Secret police are integrated into society at the most intimate level. For this reason, Christians in North Korea must keep their faith an absolute secret.

Those who are found out easily suffer arrest, torture, imprisonment and execution. Perhaps the greatest challenge and tragedy is that Christians are often turned into authorities by their own neighbors and friends.

Juche means total loyalty to the government.

You do not love your neighbor in Juche, you spy on him. You do not feed the poor in Juche, for that man is not self-reliant. Christianity is the anti-juche, the greatest threat to the Kim dynasty and pet nation. This is why North Korea fears Christianity and makes examples of anyone daring to accept this faith.

Stories from defectors paint horrifying illustrations of living conditions and punishments inflicted on the Christian population. For example, reports tell of ‘execution by train’ in which the authorities go to the extreme trouble of having men and women tied to railroad tracks and run down by trains. This is not a simple execution to rid a threat; this is a terrorizing form of persecution.

When looking at the history and timeline of Juche, one can easily see spiritual forces of evil at work. This false religion and counterfeit Christianity is not just the work of one crazy man but was birthed through him.

In 1907, there was one of history’s most amazing revivals in Pyongyang. Thirty-five years later, the Soviet Union installed Kim Il-sung as a puppet leader who went on to lead the Korean War that killed 2.5 million people. After the Korean War, he consolidated his power and then went on to strangle Christianity.

As Christians, we know that our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers and principalities of darkness (Eph. 6:12).

Satan wanted to extinguish the light that burned in North Korea and then to build a fortress to keep out the light and to imprison and blind the North Korean people from truth.

Juche and the false worship of Kim and his progeny were keys to that prison. Belief in both are fading quickly inside North Korea and it’s only a matter of time before the locks break and the prison doors of North Korea swing open.

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Interviews with

Defectors Two North Korean defectors share their stories of loss, freedom and salvation with ICC.

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By Brianna Young and Ashley Shay

raise and Sammy are two North Korean defectors who shared with ICC their stories of courage and escape from one of the most evil regimes of the modern world. Now living in a free world, they both share how the power of the Gospel has impacted their lives since escaping North Korea, and how the Word of God reaches across the borders of a nation where to be a Christian is punishable by death.

Sammy’s Story: Plucked from Hell “My life there was empty,” recalls Sammy of his existence in North Korea. “People in North Korea are living empty and meaningless lives.”

The decision to leave North Korea is never made lightly as it may end in your death or imprisonment.

In Sammy’s case, it was even more complicated because he had loyally served in the military for more than 12 years.

The path that led Sammy from his life in North Korea to his final decision to escape is one wrought

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with pain and loss. He had lost both of his parents while serving in the military and, after being discharged, nearly starved to death. Sammy knew that his family could lead a better life outside of the confines of the Kim regime.

In the summer of 2007, Sammy, along with his wife and 14-month-old daughter, left their home for a future in an unknown world.

The journey was daunting, beginning with a 40-mile trek to the Tumen River, the border between North Korea and China. It was the rainy season, and floods delayed the family’s escape by several days.

By this time, the police had distributed flyers and were searching intently for the runaway family who was hiding in a friend’s home.

On June 19, after 15 days of waiting in hiding for the flood waters to subside, Sammy and his family ventured out to cross the river into China.

Tragically, Sammy’s daughter, LeiSung, drowned in the struggle to make it through the water.

“My wife lost her mind and she couldn’t remove our daughter’s (body) from her back.”

Overcome by grief, Sammy and his wife were forced to learn to live in a world without their daughter. He purchased a blue teddy bear and gave it to his wife in memory of their daughter: “Since that time, the

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Many barriers keep North Koreans trapped in an oppressive life - some physical, some geographic, and some psychological.

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Tumen River Bridge

The Tumen River runs between North Korea and China. It acts as both a barrier and route to freedom for North Korean defectors like Sammy. Creative Commons photo from flickr by user wifarm.

blue bear stayed with us through the fear, risk, and suffering. Now it is sitting nicely in our bedroom. That blue teddy bear is [figuratively] our daughter LeiSung and also a painful scar.”

Despite the tragic loss of his child, or maybe because of it, Sammy found Christ.

In all his years in North Korea, Sammy had never heard of Jesus, and yet, looking back, he realizes that God had been working in his life long before he escaped and found Christ.

Years before Sammy’s escape, his brother had recounted their mother’s strange actions before she died. Desperate for food, she had daringly crossed into China for food but according to Sammy’s brother, his mother brought back more than food.

“My brother told me that my mom had developed a mental disorder after visiting China several times. He said she kept talking to herself every morning… saying, ‘Please take Sammy to the father. Please let Sammy meet you, Father.’”

At the time of hearing the story, Sammy assumed that perhaps she was speaking to his father, who had died of starvation. After Sammy became a Christian, he realized that his mother wasn’t crazy but had been praying incessantly for his own salvation.

“Now, I know that the Father, that my mom

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was talking to was not my dad, it was our God, the Father.”

Since his escape, Sammy has helped his brother and sister-in-law escape North Korea.

He now lives in the United States and continues to raise awareness regarding the plight of those still living under the control of the Kim regime.

“Now that I look back to our journey, I know that it would be impossible if God hadn’t guided us with his love and [direction].

I thank our Lord for picking me out of hell, [out of] the darkness; and guiding us to this

In all his years in North Korea, Sammy had never heard of Jesus, and yet, looking back, he realizes that God had been working in his life long before he escaped.

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land of freedom (the United States).”

Praise’s Story: God at Work in the Market Generation Praise Ju is a member of a young generation of escaped North Koreans who are seeing many North Koreans come to Christ after years of labor to reach the closed country with the Gospel. She shared with ICC her life story and how the spread of the Gospel and underground believers in North Korea are the hope of the future of the prison state.

They’re called the Jangmadang (Market) Generation. They grew up during North Korea’s great famine and during the breakdown of the country’s Public Distribution System, a rationing system used to control the populace and reward and punish citizens based on their loyalty and use to the regime.

Early on, this generation was weaned from dependence on the state; these youth have grown up buying and selling on the black market, for which their generation is named, and this has shaped their worldview in a completely different way than their parents and grandparents.

You see, the black market has brought in more than food. It has brought in a flood of NOVEMBER 2016

media; everything from South Korean soap operas to Western pop movies (Titanic is a favorite) and access to this information is changing the face of the most closed and secretive country in the world.

Praise Ju, a young leader in this promising generation, was born in 1991. In 1998, her father brought home an illegal radio that would change his family’s life forever. North Korea routinely jams foreign broadcast signals, especially Gospel broadcasts in a cat and mouse game. But Ju’s father would diligently search and find Christian broadcasts as well as Chinese media coming in over the border. For the next 10 years, Ju and her family would be transformed by what they heard and watched behind closed curtains and beneath blankets at night. While her father was drawn to Gospel broadcasts, Ju was initially more interested in foreign songs, soap operas and movies coming from China. Even though the content was mostly drivel, this kind of media has been vital in breaking the hold of the regime’s propaganda stranglehold on the minds and imaginations of its citizens and especially its youth.

By 2000, her father had come to the conclusion that they had been duped by the Kim regimes for their whole lives and it left him outraged. For the sake of his children, he decided to defect and began making preparatory trips to China before finally escaping in 2007 to make way for his family. They agreed to flee separately to avoid undue attention.

After a seven-month journey, Ju’s father arrived in South Korea and began working feverishly to earn enough money to reunite his family. In 2008, Ju’s mother and two younger

‘‘People around the world are praying for you, so don’t be afraid,” Ju’s father told her. Ju said, “I didn’t know what prayer was, but I prayed to God to save my life.”’ siblings followed and arrived safely the same year – leaving Ju alone at the age of 17.

Fortunately, her parents had moved their family to the country during the famine to ensure their children would continue to eat to survive.

After talking her way out of a close call with North Korean police who had been tipped off to her father’s use of foreign radio, Ju was able to contact her father in South Korea and plan her first attempt to defect in 2009. By an act of providence, Ju was late to meet the broker who was to assist in her escape. Her broker was arrested upon his arrival – as she would have been had she been on time. Her father advised her to lay low for a time and even suggested she remain in North Korea indefinitely to spread the Gospel. Ju readily agreed and enrolled in nursing school to pursue that calling, but later learned her that mother was becoming physically ill at the thought of being separated from her daughter forever.

Street Market in North Korea capitol Pyongyang

The “Black markets” in North Korea have been a source of smuggled food, media, and technology that has brought up a new generation of citizens who are more aware of the outside world. Creative Commons photo from wikimedia.

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In 2010, her father hired another broker who helped her and another young girl to bribe the border guards and escape across the river. In China, Ju and her new friend were arrested when police raided the broker’s home. Miraculously, Ju was able to contact her father from prison.

“My father told me on the telephone, ‘People around the world are praying for you, so don’t be afraid and pray to God,’” Ju told ICC. “I didn’t know what prayer was, but I prayed to God to save my life.”

In a short time, an underground organization in South Korea raised nearly $100,000 – enabling her father to bribe police. On the day they were to be repatriated to North Korea, Ju and her friend were loaded on a truck and driven to safety. In 2011, Ju crossed through Laos and Thailand and finally rejoined her family in South Korea, where she still lives today as an advocate for human rights and reaching North Korea with the Gospel.

“We don’t consider ourselves lucky,” Ju said of her family’s escape. “If not for the intercessory prayers of other believers and for us submitting ourselves in obedience and humility to God, I don’t think we would be where we are today.”

Ju’s exhortation to fellow defectors of her generation is to send more than money back to their families in North Korea.

“If the Church could train defectors to not just be Sunday Christians, but true disciples of Christ, they could send more,” Ju explained.

“Sending in the Gospel would bring about true change.”

Never before has a North Korean generation been so open to change and so likely to act.

North Korea is not the hermit kingdom it once was. While it remains a prison state, there are whispers within of coming change.

The people of North Korea are anxiously awaiting the change of political salvation and release from their prison. The need for regime change is great, but their greatest need is for release from their eternal prison. Economic sanctions, diplomatic agendas, or even war will not meet the deepest need of North Korea—only Jesus can.

If there were ever a time to reach North Koreans with the truth of the Gospel, it is NOW! We have the treasure of Christ and we are shepherds of the Word of the Lord.

We have been called by our master to take that treasure to the end of the earth - to North Korea!

Please join us in doing just that by going to page 32 to see how to open the prison doors of North Korea.

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Young North Korean girls take part in a community event.

Keep the next generation of North Koreans in prayer.

Creative Commons photo from flickr.

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