Extreme Devotion: North KoreaНамуна

Watching the Church Go Underground

Rhee Soon-ja has vivid memories of her father reading the Bible to her and her six siblings when they were children. At the age of 82, she can still picture the phrase “Christ Is Lord of This House” hanging from a wall in their home. 

“My parents prayed that God would use me as His servant,” she said, recalling another childhood memory. 

Those were the days before Korea split into North and South, communist and free. Those were the days when the Christian faith flourished in Northern Korea. 

When Soon-ja was a young girl, her family was among the first to experience persecution under the rule of Kim Il Sung, North Korea’s first leader. Today, Christianity is illegal there, and those who choose to follow Christ are sent to a concentration camp, where they are starved, tortured and often killed. Soon-ja has experienced a lifetime of pain, but when she looks back on her life, she sees God’s hand in it all. 

At the end of World War II, when Korea was freed from Japanese colonialism and divided into two countries, the brutal Communist Party in the north forced most pastors to flee to the south. Kim Il Sung became North Korea’s first premier in 1948, the year North Korea and South Korea gained formal independence as sovereign nations. 

The Communists began to occupy church buildings as North Korea gradually became an atheistic state. “Many of the church buildings were destroyed, and we had to begin worshiping in our own houses,” Soon-ja remembered. 

The government promoted the idea that religion is a drug used to control people and mandated that all North Koreans follow the official state religion, Juche, worshipping Kim Il Sung. 

“My father used to say, ‘No matter how much persecution there may be, we must persevere; we have to endure persecution even when we don’t have anything to eat,’” Soon-ja recalled. 

Her family took time to worship God in their house regardless of the obstacles presented by the atheistic Communist government. They did so knowing that authorities would kill them if they were ever caught. 

At the age of 28, when Soon-ja had been married for three years, the government ordered her husband to divorce her, giving him sole custody of their 3-year-old and 8-month-old sons. Her husband’s relatives were high-ranking Communist officials who considered Christians enemies of the state. 

“My husband asked me to go out from the house,” Soon-ja recalled tearfully. “Our 3-year-old boy was holding my leg and asked me not to go anywhere. At that moment, my husband kicked me out, and he started beating the boys. They kept asking, ‘When are you coming back?’ To comfort them, I told them, ‘I will come back after a few days.’ That was the last time I saw them.” 

Soon-ja remarried and, in 1997, fled North Korea. Today, she lives in South Korea with relatives. She has graduated from a discipleship program and participated in mission trips, including one to China. During the trips, she meets with other North Korean women and tells them how she recommitted her life to Jesus Christ. 

Looking back on her life, she said her biggest regret is that she didn’t listen to her father’s wishes for her to become an evangelist when she was younger. 

Her regrets are slowly fading, though, in the light of an ever-growing faith that her father once prayed she would have. 

“God is using me and my vision, and now I am living as an evangelist,” she said. “I think maybe my parents’ prayer is being answered.” 

Dear Heavenly Father, I pray that my brothers and sisters in Christ who are still inside North Korea will sense Your presence. I pray that they will experience Your hope and peace and an assurance of Your love and the salvation they have in You. May You strengthen these believers to walk worthy of the gospel in word and deed. Please help many more inside North Korea come to know You, including Kim Jong Un. And please, Lord, continue to use Soon-ja to advance Your kingdom among North Koreans. Continue to fill her with Your Spirit and equip her for Your work, Lord. In Jesus’ name I pray, amen.