North Korea’s Secret Christians Get Support From South

by Glen on 2001-04-25 00:00:18

A husband and wife who fled North Korea in 1997
describe the life of Christians there in yesterday’s
Washington Post. They asked the reporter that their names
not be published, saying it would further endanger two
grown daughters living in North Korea. Because of their
parents’ flight, the daughters have lost their jobs and
were sent to the countryside where life is hard and food is
scarce. A grown son is expected to die in prison. The
family was part of an underground church whose members risk
persecution by the Stalinist regime by keeping their
Christian faith.

As North Korea tentatively opens its locked society to
get the aid it needs to survive, South Korean Christian
groups supporting a network of largely Protestant
underground worshipers see an opportunity to increase
membership. They have stepped up their activities, both
underground and open. They are smuggling tiny Bibles into
North Korea. And they have set up secret way stations in
China to assist the growing numbers of desperate Koreans
who cross the border and return to North Korea with food.

(The Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/articles/A18300-2001Mar30.html
)