Light in the Darkest Places
Uniformed policemen tore apart the small house, ransacking drawers and digging up the garden. They needed evidence. Proof that the quiet man cowering with his daughter was a Christian.
They got what they came for.
“The men found a Bible wrapped in plastic, buried in the garden,” said Ji Ho*, a schoolgirl at the time. “My father and I sobbed. In that moment, we knew we’d never see each other again.”
In North Korea, where Ji Ho lives, owning a Bible can put you in jail. It’s the most dangerous place in the world to follow Jesus, and believers risk torture and even execution if discovered.
Ji Ho doesn’t know what happened to her father. He was taken and she grew up alone. But even in the darkest places, God cannot be silenced.
Ji Ho’s life was changed after hearing about Jesus on a transistor radio.
‘Words of Jesus’
One evening, Ji Ho tuned into her father’s old transistor radio. Like half of all North Koreans, Ji Ho was starving amid chronic food shortages, and she was desperate for news of food supplies. But instead, Ji Ho heard a man speaking the words of Jesus.
“I nearly dropped my tea,” she said. “I became convinced: this Jesus was the teacher my father had been trying to tell me about.”
Ji Ho gave her life to Christ. But like the estimated 400,000 believers in North Korea, she keeps her faith secret. As far as she knows, “I might be the only Christian in my country.”
Believers like Ji Ho need to know they are not alone. Only the love, prayers and support of their global church family can help courageous Christians follow Jesus in the darkest places.
Life and death
Open Doors works through secret networks to provide food, medicine and spiritual support to 100,000 North Korean Christians. Now more than ever, believers like Ji Ho depend on you.
Your gifts can help broadcast daily gospel radio programs to strengthen faith, and provide emergency food to keep North Korean Christians from starvation. Your prayers help Ji Ho persevere.
“I’m a Christian now, like my father,” said Ji Ho. “I hope someday I can meet another follower of Jesus. For now, I’ll keep listening to the radio. I’ll keep following Jesus.”
Ji Ho represents the real experiences of secret believers in North Korea, whose accounts of true events have been combined to protect their identities.
*pseudonym used for security reasons
Will you help Christians survive in the darkest places?
Please pray
Pray for Christians like Ji Ho. Ask God to strengthen and be with them, so they will not feel alone.
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A gift of $36 brings encouragement to another believer via radio broadcast.
