NORTH KOREA: SIX SECRET CHRISTIANS YOU CAN PRAY FOR NOW…

Where is Kim Jung-wook?

South Korean missionary Kim Jung-wook boarded a plane to North Korea on 7 October 2013. It was his last day as a free man. North Korean authorities arrested him the next day. He’s still being held in North Korea.

Kim Jung-wook would be 61 this year, if he’s still alive. As a missionary, he was involved in helping North Korean refugees in China. He provided shelter, food and other aid to defectors who hid in the Chinese port city Dandong. He also taught them from the Bible.

In 2012, Kim Jung-wook’s work was compromised when China police officers arrested a group of women who had received help from him. North Korean secret agents infiltrated his network, earned his trust and, in 2013, convinced him to come to North Korea. At their instigation, he even brought religious materials. He was arrested a day after his arrival.

North Korea interrogated the pastor and charged him with an attempt to overthrow the regime and spying for South Korea. On 14 February the following year, Kim Jung-wook appeared on North Korea state media and read out a statement. He claimed he had spied for the South Korean government, was paid by the South Korean intelligence agency and had set up an underground church in Dandong.

He also ‘confessed’ that he had paid locals to set up 500 churches in North Korea to overthrow the regime. In 2014, a North Korean court sentenced Kim Jung-wook to life imprisonment and forced labour. Around the same time, North Korea arrested dozens of Kim Jung-wook’s contacts in the country. Most were sent to labour camps, although it’s likely a number of them have been executed.

More church leaders missing

Kim Jong-un’s regime has never given any updates about Kim’s fate since that court judgment – and he’s not the only foreign missionary who’s disappeared in North Korea.

Kim Kug-gi (70, if he’s still alive) and Choi Chun-kil (64, if still alive) were arrested in December 2014, accused of espionage. Both have been locked up in a labour camp since 2015.

Ko Hyon-chol – a North Korean defector who had gained South Korean citizenship and become a missionary – was accused of plotting to kidnap North Korean children who would be sold for adoption in other countries. He was sentenced to a lifetime of hard labour in 2016.

Kim Won-ho – another North Korean defector who had become a South Korean citizen and a missionary – was abducted in China in March 2016.

But South Korean Christians working from China aren’t the only people at risk. Anyone who dares to give aid to North Korean defectors is at risk, especially if you are a Christian.

Pastor Jang Moon-seok was involved in helping North Koreans, compelled by Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 25:35-40. He was kidnapped in November 2014 and never heard of again, though some former prisoners claim to have met him.

‘Remember those who are in prison’

The Bible says, “Continue to remember those in prison as if you were together with them in prison, and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering” (Hebrews 13:3). These faithful believers have been captives for a decade now. Please mention their names in your prayers, and please also pray for all those prisoners in North Korea whose names we don’t know.