Ji Ho* vividly remembers the moment she saw her father for the last time. North Korean security agents had ransacked their house – and dragged him away when they found his ‘secret book’ buried in the garden. “My father and I both sobbed,” she remembers. “In that moment, we knew we’d never see each other again.”

At the time, Ji Ho didn’t realise her father was a Christian, or that the book was the Bible. To her, it was just a book of stories ‘about a wise man who sat on a mountain and began to teach’. But she did know about his hidden radio, and started listening to it in the hopes of finding a source of food. Instead, she heard stories about the man from the secret book: Jesus. 

“As I listened, I became more and more convinced,” she says. “This Jesus was the great teacher that my father had been trying to tell me about. Jesus wanted to be my Lord and Saviour – and I wanted to follow Him, in the same way my father had.” 

Ji Ho loves hearing the radio broadcasts, but knows she has to keep her faith secret from people she knows. “I know that it would be dangerous to tell anyone about Jesus,” says Ji Ho. “Our leaders don’t want us to worship anyone or anything besides them. I’ve realised that’s why my father was taken – they saw he had a Lord that was bigger than our country’s leaders.” 

All Christians in North Korea are vulnerable to extreme persecution. For several years, the border region with China was considered a particular hotspot, given the constant stream of defectors, but recent moves to fortify the border have made it even harder to escape. 

Matthew* and Peter* are two Open Doors field workers who support North Korean secret Christians. In this rare interview, they talk about the dangers of their ministry and, of course, ask for our continuing prayers for Christians in the most hostile country in the world.

North Korea remains number one on the World Watch List – a position it has held almost every year since 2002. The persecution score has risen two places in the past year, as there have been more reports of violence against Christians.  

In early 2024, the government announced stricter regulations and increased crackdowns. It has been officially reported that North Korean authorities publicly executed about 30 young teenagers for watching a South Korean drama on a USB drive, and several 17-year-olds were sentenced to life imprisonment or death for similar reasons in June and July 2024.  

Several citizens were sentenced to labour camps for picking up plastic bottles filled with cooking rice, which had been thrown from bordering South Korea. 

Through secret networks outside the country, Open Doors secret workers are helping around 100,000 North Korean believers by providing vital food and aid, shelter and discipleship training for North Korean refugees at safe houses in China, and training through radio broadcasting from outside the country.