Underground University
Underground University
UU 학교
Underground University isn’t just a school that teaches North Korean defectors how to do North Korean ministry—it’s a school through which North Koreans actually do North Korean ministry. Rather than waiting for Reunification, UU students take steps toward reunification by ministering to their own people—North Koreans who have defected, been sex trafficked, or who have been sent out to work in order to make money for the NK regime in countries around the world.
[Same names have been changed for security purposes]
UU students take a group photo “underground church style”
UU STUDENTS REFLECTIONS ON
“TORTURED FOR CHRIST” MOVIE
Recently, we held a retreat for our North Korean Underground University North students who want to take on more ministry responsiblities. They went on Luke 10 mission trips, learned ministry procedures, and completed homework assignments. The retreat gave students an opportunity not only to learn ministry methods, but also to reflect on the cost of discipleship, the faith of persecuted Christians, and their own calling before the Lord.
As part of preparation for the retreat, students watched the movie Tortured for Christ (Link the words Torttured for Christ to this link – https://vomkorea.com/tfc ) and wrote reflections. For many, Pastor Wurmbrand’s testimony did not feel distant or foreign. It connected directly with their memories of North Korea and their growing understanding of Christian witness. It also prompted many students to recall their own eyewitness accounts of North Korean underground Christians.
“What I learned from Christians is that even when life is dangerous, they do not give up God’s Word and truth, and even under torture they do not yield and do not give up. Watching Pastor Wurmbrand’s video, who kept faith, I looked back and was ashamed, thinking that I had not even prayed properly once for North Korean compatriots and family, saying I still do not know God well, and living only for myself as a selfish person.”
– Student A
“…Pastor Wurmbrand’s video, who fought for as many as 14 years in prison without yielding even to cruel torture, did not feel like someone else’s matter, but I felt that it was like the suffering we received in North Korea. When I was caught in China and repatriated to North Korea, receiving a two-year sentence in the notorious (location withheld) prison cell, I once saw an old person in his seventies who came in after receiving a fifteen-year sentence because a Bible book was discovered. At that time I did not even know what a Bible book was or what the contents written in that book were…”
– Student B
“Watching Pastor Wurmbrand’s video, who for 14 years did not yield to all kinds of torture and finally came out into the bright world, I had said that I myself would become a second Apostle Paul and live for the day of carrying the gospel to my homeland North Korea, but I was very ashamed before myself. In such a reality, what would I have done? I was also afraid…In the place where I lived, I witnessed about twenty Christians being taken by the State Security Department. Also, after going to one house, now looking back it was a large-print Bible. I saw that book, and those people all went around without wearing portrait badges, used honorific language, and rode bicycles to rural areas; I witnessed it.”
– Student C
“In (the early 2000s), while working in China, I was repatriated to North Korea, and in the North Korean State Security Department they questioned each person, asking whether they had attended church. At that time, among the people who came out with me, one person had attended church, and somehow it was found out; that person was beaten a lot and tortured. I directly witnessed that. How can they behave to that extent? That is North Korea’s reality.”
– Student D
Dr. Foley leads a session of the UU retreat.
Prayer Requests for this project
- Pray for the Underground Students. Pray the Lord would help the UU students to commit to be good models of what it means to be a Christian for other UU students.
- Pray for an Underground University student to evangelize her Family. A UU student is starting to come to terms with the fact that many of her family members are still non-believers. Pray that she would proclaim the gospel to them, and that the Holy Spirit would open their hearts to respond.
About Underground University
1. We train and deploy students for ministry to North Korea today.
We do “works of mercy field trips” each month where we practice sharing our bread, opening our homes, healing and comforting, visiting and remembering, and other disciplines with North Korean defectors and South Korean outcasts. Students are required to minister to NKs internationally before they graduate. That puts them in a very small category of experienced NK ministers!
2. There is an emphasis on hearing and doing the word.
This is not only a field ministry training program. There are homework assignments and quizzes for every class session. Students memorize large amounts of scripture weekly, in keeping with the tradition of the North Korean underground church. Each of our tracks, like Persecution Theology (using In The Shadow Of The Cross), is serious study. We hold ourselves and our students to a seminary standard in theology while offering and requiring more practical theological participation than many South Korean seminaries.
3. Rooted in mentoring.
1 Timothy 3:1-5 shows that the key to effective missionary service is learning to be an effective minister in one’s own family. That can only be learned life-on-life, and that has made UU a one day classroom experience supplemented by a six day supervised life experience—one that continues well beyond their graduation.
Alumni mentor existing students by acting as examples, coaches, and understanding elder brothers and sisters. This is proving to be a crucial missing piece in both enabling more thorough instruction and also creating greater connection with our alumni.