OMF Blog
24. One Brother’s Story: Part 1
NK Blog - Wednesday 09 December 2009“You will seek Me and find Me when you seek Me with all your heart.” Jeremiah 29:13
A testimony from one North Korean who came to know the Lord…
As you grew up, did you hear anything about Christianity?
I read about Jesus in an encyclopedia so I knew a bit about him, but that was all. I thought of him as a mythical hero and that Christianity was some folk religion similar to shamanism. I never read a Bible and I thought that anyone who did was probably stupid. The Juche ideology in North Korea teaches us to be self-sufficient, so I was only interested in what I could achieve and not in religion.
What was growing up in North Korea like?
Many people hear bad things about the North, but it’s not necessarily all bad. While I was there it was okay. Since I left (about 1997) the economy has got worse, so maybe now it’s harder.
How did you become a Christian?
On my journey out of North Korea I received a Bible and started to read it. I had to keep moving around so I didn’t have much help from Christians in understanding what I was reading, but I kept reading it by myself. In some ways the Juche ideology has many similarities to Christianity; after all, Kim Il-Sung’s grandmother was a Christian. But in other ways it is a completely different worldview. For about two years I struggled with questions of what is truth, what is sin and so on. Sin is a difficult concept for communists to grasp. I gradually found answers in the Bible and was baptized. (39)
- Praise God that this man was able to meet Him through the Lord Jesus.
- Pray that others like him in the North who hear about Jesus will have a strong desire to learn more about him.
- Pray that more North Korean seekers will get hold of Bibles, read them and learn about God’s truth.