North Korean Ministry Visits the Middle East to Teach Persecuted Christians Lessons from the North Korean Underground Church
Voice of the Martyrs Korea board chair Hyun Sook Foley and CEO Pastor Eric Foley recently returned from the Middle East after leading an August training event in which they taught persecuted Middle Eastern Christians lessons from the North Korean Underground Church.
This training event was hosted by Voice of the Martyrs Korea’s Middle Eastern Ministry partner, Uncharted Ministries, and was attended by 30 Yazidi, Kurdish, Jordanian, and Palestinian Christians.
The Foleys have been working with the North Korean underground Church for 15 years. Their organization, Voice of the Martyrs Korea, supports the work of the North Korean underground church through a broad range of projects that help evangelize and disciple North Koreans wherever they are found. 36 individuals associated with the ministry’s work have been martyred during the Foley’s tenure.
Says Board chair Foley, “Since Christians in the Middle East also face fierce persecution like North Korean underground Christians do, our partner, Uncharted Ministries wanted to equip Middle Eastern Christians with a biblical understanding of persecution and how God calls us to respond.”
“The main driver of persecution in the Middle East is evangelism,” Representative Foley explains. “Most Christians are not persecuted simply for being Christian. Usually, they’re persecuted when they share Christ with family or friends.”
Middle Eastern Christians who attended the event were deeply impacted by the training.
“In the past when Korean missionaries visited us, they only talked about the prosperity associated with the Christian life. Very rarely did they talk about persecution,” one of the Jordanian Christian leaders in attendance said. “This training was the most important that we’ve ever received because it equipped us to understand why we must suffer and yet rejoice.”
On the basis of this training, VOMK has been invited to visit four other Middle Eastern countries to train persecuted Christians there.
“The church is one body around the world and across time,” Representative Foley says, “so we need to be more aware of the suffering that our Christian brothers and sisters are experiencing because of their faithfulness. We need to be faithful to advance the gospel in the face of persecution.”
To learn more about the persecuted church in the Middle East, you can order Uncharted Ministry Representative Tom Doyle’s best-selling book, Dreams and Visions, from Voice of the Martyrs Korea by calling 02-2065-0703. You can also learn more about Voice of the Martyrs Korea’s Middle Eastern ministry by visiting their website at http://vomkorea.com.