It was the first time the leader of North Korea and the leader of South Korea had met in over a decade, and the food they ate together was full of symbolism. There were dishes from the two leaders’ childhoods, noodles specially imported from Pyongyang, and the mango mousse even had a map of a united Korea on it.

But this meal is something that ordinary North Koreans can only dream about.

Kim Jong-un rules North Korea with an iron fist, and every aspect of life there is controlled by the state. All resources, including food, are owned and distributed by the government, and North Korea operates a ‘military first’ policy, meaning that the country’s leaders and armed forces are provided for first; ordinary people get whatever’s left.

Often, that isn’t anything at all.

Every year there are natural disasters, with droughts in the dry seasons and flooding and mud slides in the rainy seasons. Harvests are poor.

Joo Eun*, a North Korean who now lives in South Korea, remembers, “One day the food distribution simply stopped. We didn’t receive anything anymore. The government gave us the advice to go into the mountains, pluck grass and make soup with some salt. It tasted really awful, very bitter.” Her mother and brother eventually died of starvation.

If the mousse with the map of a united Korea on it was meant to symbolise a desire for peace on the Korean peninsula, surely telling people to eat a meal of soup made with grass, a food usually only eaten by animals, is a symbol of what Kim Jong-un thinks of the people he leads.

And Christians are some of the people that Kim Jong-un hates the most. Why? Because Kim Jong-un expects to be worshipped and obeyed as a God – and Christians have the audacity to believe in Jesus and follow Him first, before any earthly leader. Between 50,000 and 70,000 Christians are imprisoned in horrific labour camps in North Korea. Hundreds of thousands more follow Jesus in absolute secret. North Korea has been number one on the Open Doors World Watch List, our annual ranking of the 50 countries where Christians face the worst persecution, since 2002.

And yet, Christians in North Korea don’t hate Kim Jong-un – they pray for him. One believer told us, “They don’t pray that God will depose him or get rid of him. They genuinely ask God to save their leader for the eternal life.” Another who runs Bible studies with North Korean refugees in China tells us, “There is one lady in my group who felt we needed to pray for Kim Jong-un. So the next day when we closed our Bible study meeting with prayer I proposed that we pray for North Korea. And this lady got so excited. ‘That’s what God called me to do! We need to pray for Kim Jong-un and our other fellow countrymen!’”

LIKE SPRING AFTER WINTER

But there isn’t much feasting going on in North Korea right now. The freezing winter makes life even harder. In January, temperatures are typically between -3 degrees Celsius and -13 degrees Celsius in Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea. One secret believer in North Korea told us, “In winter everything is frozen and there’s nothing to eat. These days in our province people are suffering with severe starvation and hunger. Most people suffer from malnutrition. Furthermore, we can’t use our heating stoves, because there’s no firewood.”

Another told us, “Cholera is spreading fast due to impure water and bad hygiene. There are hundreds of patients who are suffering from a severe diarrhoea, and more than half of them are young children and elderly patients whose level of immunity is low. Therefore, people dying of starvation and from various diseases are increasing day by day.”

Incredibly, your faithful prayers and support are helping Open Doors courageous underground workers to smuggle in enough food to keep 60,000 believers alive in North Korea, along with medicines, winter clothes, boots and blankets.

This support is a lifeline. At one point, Open Doors was considering sending slightly less food to North Korea. The believers there sent back a dramatic message. “Please, make any choice you need to make. You can stop with any other activity, but please, do not reduce the amount of food you send us. You don’t know what it is like to go hungry.”

It’s no exaggeration to say that your prayers and gifts are the difference between life and death for some of our North Korean brothers and sisters.

One believer told us, “It’s impossible to imagine a car without an engine. In the same way, we cannot imagine how we’d be able to survive without your concern, support and love for our believers. Whenever we face strong storms of difficulty, we remember that you care for us. Through your love and care, we break through any circumstance, just like spring breaks through the ice cold winter.”

 ‘WE TOOK CARE OF ONE ANOTHER’

Despite having very little, Christians in North Korea choose to share what they do have with those who have even less.

One secret worker says, “At the height of the famine a leader felt called to reintroduce the concept of ‘holy rice’, a practice whereby rice is set apart for use in God’s kingdom. Ever since, these Christians don’t consume all the food they receive from us. They save some to give to people who are even worse off than them. This gives them an opportunity to build trust and later share the gospel with these people.”

This practice even continues when secret Christians are discovered and imprisoned in North Korea’s infamous labour camps. Hea Woo*, a Christian who was imprisoned in North Korea, remembers, “I stood out among the other prisoners, because I helped them. Sometimes I shared some rice with the sick. Occasionally I washed their clothes, too.”

When she describes the daily routine in the camp, you realise how little food the prisoners were given. She says, “At five o’clock we were woken up and the prisoners were counted. After breakfast, which consisted of two or three spoons of rice, we were marched out of the camp, where we had to work in the fields without a break until 12 o’clock.

“Back in the camp, we were again given a few mouthfuls of food, after which we went back to our work on the land until six o’clock in the evening. In the evenings, we had a criticism session in the camp, during which we had to sit in front of the group and accuse ourselves and others of offenses.

“After a few more spoonfuls of food, we were then given ideological training. This was the most difficult part of the day. Our eyes fell shut from exhaustion, but we had to pay attention and learn the words of the leaders off by heart. Otherwise we were punished. After another roll call, at ten o’clock we were finally allowed to go to sleep.”

The rations given to prisoners in the camps are so small that they will resort to eating anything they can find to supplement their diet – including snakes, rats, mice and insects.

Even in the midst of these horrific conditions, Hea Woo was able to shine as a light. She says, “God used me to lead five people to faith. I tried to teach them what I knew. That may not have been much, and I didn’t have access to a Bible in the camp. But on Sunday and at Christmas, we met together out of the view of the guards. Often that was in the toilet. There we held a short service. I taught them Bible verses and some songs, which we sang almost inaudibly. All six of us survived the camp, because we took care of one another.”

HOW CAN I HELP MY PERSECUTED CHURCH FAMILY?

North Korea is the most dangerous place in the world to be a Christian – but it isn’t the only place where Christians face extreme persecution. There are secret believers in other places, such as Somalia, Afghanistan, Eritrea and Iran, where Christians must hide their faith from dictators and extremists, and risk imprisonment or even death for following Jesus.

It can seem like our persecuted brothers and sisters are too far away, and their lives are too different from ours, for us to really help them. but that isn’t true. There are things you can do today that will make all the difference for our persecuted church family.

You can pray. Brother Andrew, the founder of Open Doors, says: “Our prayers can go where we cannot. There are no borders, no prison walls, no doors that are closed to us when we pray.”

Each time you sit down for a meal this week, why not take a moment to pray for your church family in North Korea? Pray that God would provide food for our brothers and sisters, that He would protect Open Doors secret workers as they smuggle in life-saving aid, and that our church family in North Korea would continue to shine as a light, even in the darkest places.

You can give. You can’t help every persecuted believer, but by giving a gift, you could keep hope alive for one brother or sister. In North Korea, your gift could mean the difference between life and death – and the long-term support of people like you is helping an entire generation of believers in North Korea to not only survive, but also continue to show the love of Jesus to those around them.

THANK YOU

Your faithful support is enabling Open Doors workers and partners to be there for our persecuted brothers and sisters for as long as it takes, and show them that they are not forgotten or alone.

One North Korean believer told us, “The fact that you are able to support us is proof that God exists. Thanks to you, we know He has not forgotten us. He has opened the door for us to be connected to many believers abroad.” Thank you for continuing to stand with them.

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Source: Open Doors

Photo: pxhere