By Mark Ellis –
The programming began early, at her day care center, where children were repeatedly taught to say, “Thank you, Grand Master Kim Il Sung.”
“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,” Lee Young-sil told Cornerstone Ministries International.
When she was 12, she reached into the bottom of a dresser drawer and found something unexpected. “It was an unusual book with nothing written on the outside,” she recounted. What is this, she wondered, as she opened the first pages and 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?
In the following days, questions swirled through her mind amid sleepless nights.
Finally, she mustered the courage to confront her father about the book she found. Without saying a word, he took Lee’s hand and led her outside.
He pointed upward toward the night sky and asked, “Did the existence of those stars just happen, or did someone create them?” He began to share with her the story of Adam and Eve and about the God who created all things.
“Strangely enough, without fear nor doubt, I believed the story,” she shared with Cornerstone.
After her father explained the gospel, she decided to follow Jesus as her Savior and Master, rather than Kim Il Sung.
“After I believed in God, the first thing I wanted to do was to tell my friends at school,” she recalled. But she knew she must tread cautiously. “I talked about it quietly and carefully only to very close friends.”
She was surprised when she discovered another man in their neighborhood who believed in God – and shared openly about it. A Security Bureau officer challenged the man, telling him: “Don’t let the word of God come out of your mouth again. Don’t preach about God.”
Fearless, the man continued to witness boldly to others. “We must pass on the truth of God to the next generation,” he said. “What can the official do to a man indwelt with the Holy Spirit?”
Finally, the official gave the Christ-follower an ultimatum: “If you deny God here, we will let you live.”
“I cannot give up on God,” the man replied. “He has never let me down.”
The man was immediately executed, and his wife and children were sent to a prison camp. “In North Korea, when you evangelize, you have to prepare to give up your life,” she observed. “There is no such thing as false faith in North Korea.”
As a new believer, Lee asked her parents how to pray. Her grandmother and parents said they pray every day for South Korea and for Israel. “There was nothing else but to pray for the coming of God’s kingdom in South Korea and the restoration of Israel.”
“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…and that God’s will be fulfilled so that others will see the kingdom of God.”
Lee currently lives in South Korea. “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.
“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,” she said.
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