NK WORKERS RETURN FROM CHINA “SICK BUT CARRYING HOPE”
The 208 North Korean female workers in China who died after Corona have all been incinerated and sent back to North Korea, while an additional 10,000 “sick and problematic” North Korean female workers in China have gone back to North Korea during the past few months. That’s according to a letter from a North Korean worker that Voice of the Martyrs Korea received last month. But according to Voice of the Martyrs Korea Representative Dr. Hyun Sook Foley, the North Korean worker said there was a reason the worker was “joyful and happy” to share the news.
“The letter, which was a thank-you note for Bibles and Christian materials we sent, was dated the end of February,” says Representative Foley. “The worker wrote, ‘Pitifully, [the returning workers] will have a very difficult life in NK but there are many women who have gone back carrying hope.”
The letter continues: “This is because they have seen and heard the Bibles and the various things about God which you have sent and have changed and been born again as new people. I pray that they go back to NK, get healed, and that there will telling of God to many people.”
(File photo) North Korean factory workers in China
Representative Foley’s organization supplies North Korean dialect Bibles to North Koreans inside North Korea, as well as to North Korean laborers working abroad and North Korean sex trafficked women in China. Some of the Bibles, including the ones received by those who wrote thank you letters back to the ministry, are individually distributed to recipients by underground Christians from China and North Korea and the other countries where Voice of the Martyrs Korea reaches North Koreans.
Representative Foley says Voice of the Martyrs Korea distributes 40,000 to 50,000 North Korean dialect Bibles a year in print and electronic formats to North Koreans inside North Korea and North Korean citizens working or living abroad. She notes that the Bible is also read on Voice of the Martyrs Korea’s four daily shortwave radio broadcasts to North Korea.
“A second thank-you letter we received was dated at the end of February, from a North Korean woman who had come out to China to work in the last year,” says Representative Foley. “She said she was ‘shocked’ by the contents of the Bible but is now ‘risking her life’ to study it carefully while she is in China.”
Letter received from a North Korean worker.
The letter reads:
“I am a person who has come out from NK this year. I was so shocked by the Bible and the things about God that I received from a group leader comrade who is a believer. It was so unexpected that I don’t know what to say. In NK, too, it is such a very dangerous religion that you would have to give up your life for it. But, because it is suspicious why the NK government forces our people not to know God, I am risking my life and coming to know about this Bible. I am afraid, but please encourage me and pray for me.”
Representative Foley says that Voice of the Martyrs Korea also received a thank-you letter from a Bible recipient inside North Korea, dated the end of February.
“The letter says that the general situation inside North Korea is ‘very serious’,” says Representative Foley.
Letter received from a North Korean worker.
The letter continues:
“The people are all in outcry. The only person to trust in is God alone. Thank you for sending Bibles and materials for the NK people.”
Representative Foley says her organization publishes select letters from North Korean Bible recipients in order to raise up prayer for North Korean underground believers and North Koreans receiving Bibles and Christian materials for the first time. She believes the letters can help South Korean Christians and other Christians around the world understand the impact the Bible is having today inside of North Korea and among North Korean citizens abroad.
“Christians in South Korea and around the world sometimes wrongly think that the only kinds of mission activity possible toward North Koreans are things like teaching at North Korean universities, sending money for humanitarian aid through North Korean government-approved projects, or conducting training programs to plan for missions in the future when North Korea might ‘open’ to the gospel,” says Representative Foley. “But as the Apostle Paul wrote Timothy in 2 Timothy 2:9, ‘The word of God is not bound!’ The Bible is continuing to get inside North Korea today and to reach North Korean citizens working abroad. More North Koreans are reading it and being transformed by it today than literally any other time in history.”
Representative Foley cites the ongoing research of the North Korean Human Rights Information Center, an independent data-gathering NGO. “The Center found that in the year 2000, effectively 0% of people inside North Korea had ever seen a Bible with their own eyes,” says Representative Foley. “They have continued to update that study, and at the end of 2020 they determined that around 8% of people inside of North Korea have now seen a Bible with their own eyes.”
Letter received from a North Korean worker.
Representative Foley says that Voice of the Martyrs Korea does not disclose information about the means it uses to receive and fulfill requests for Bibles, noting that the safety of Bible couriers and recipients would be at risk by releasing such information. “With the exception of radio broadcasting, anyone bringing the Bible into North Korea from any country in any format, whether printed or electronic, using any means of distribution, remains at risk of prosecution,” says Representative Foley.
Individuals or churches interested in supporting Voice of the Martyrs Korea’s North Korea ministry can make a donation at www.vomkorea.com/en/donate or wire transfer to:
국민은행 (KB Bank) 463501-01-243303
예금주 (Account Holder): (사)순교자의소리
Please include the phrase “NK Ministry” with the donation.