Before the first Western missionaries set foot in Korea, a network of untrained indigenous Koreans had already spread the gospel widely throughout the country and converted many Koreans to Protestant Christianity. Their successful strategy, unique in Christian history, relied on their covert personal distribution of thousands of copies the first vernacular translation of the Bible into Korean. That translation was created by Korean merchants under the direction of Scottish missionary, John Ross, who was himself an untrained Bible translator.
This was the core of John Ross’s missionary strategy: introduce people to Christ by giving them only the Bible, the word of God, since Christ is fully present in his word. Nothing else was needed.
And this is the core of our ministry today.
Every year, we distribute an average of 40,000 to 50,000 North Korean dialect Bibles to North Koreans, but in 2025 we distributed more Bibles to North Koreans than we have ever done in any single previous year of our history! This is in addition to our daily Bible broadcasts on our 5 shortwave radio stations that broadcast into North Korea.
Why do we distribute so many Bibles? Because Christ is fully present in his word!
Over 20 years ago, North Korean underground Christians asked us to send Bibles into North Korea and we continue to fulfill that request in the spirit of John Ross. In fact, every year, we use a variety of means to distribute Bibles to North Koreans, wherever they are found.
In order to protect the safety and security of the recipients, we keep the exact number of Bibles as well as most of the distribution methods and technology private. But we always look for opportunities to share stories with you that will not compromise the security of the recipients. Below are three of these stories, about North Koreans who received Bibles in a variety of ways.
Border Guard Allows Bible into North Korea
We met a young North Korean man who was newly arrived in South Korea. He had defected shortly after completing his mandatory ten-year military service and then spent time in China.
When the young man was a border guard along the river, a middle-aged North Korean woman came across the river on a raft made of inflatable inner tubes. She had a box that was labeled DVDs, but when he searched it he found six Bibles concealed on the bottom. When he saw these, he froze as if dead. He said all NK border guards are told, “If you see the Bible, you are dead,” which he as an intelligent young man understood to mean that if an NK soldier ever reported having seen Bibles, he himself would be heavily interrogated and watched. So, in his panic he told the woman, “Never mention this in your life, and I will never mention it in my life,” and he let her in to North Korea with the Bibles.
This is a good reminder that God has his ways of moving hearts and arranging for Bibles to enter into North Korea. Human deception is rarely God’s way. God’s way involves transforming hearts in surprising fashion.
“If I had a gun, I would shoot my NK supervisors . . .”
“If I had a gun,” the North Korean worker said. “I would shoot all my North Korean supervisors and then shoot myself.”
With gnashed teeth, this North Korean (one of the “lucky” few whose application to work abroad in Russia had been approved by the party) recalled the brash and brutal behavior of his supervisors. Since so many North Koreans were eager to work abroad, the supervisors saw this worker, and all workers, as expendable. Supervisors gave them very little food and even less money.
This North Korean worker hadn’t been working abroad for long, but he had already seen many people die from the poor and dangerous work conditions. In North Korea, he had hoped that travelling abroad would hold all the answers to his fears and struggles. Now, however, all hope had been snatched away from him.
Instead of the food, money, and security he had hoped for, the worker was left with little other than bone-chilling hatred and hopelessness.
When our partner visited him, however, he was shocked to find a smile on worker’s face. “What happened?” He asked. “Now, I received Jesus,” the worker said.
This North Korean worker, in addition to many others, had received an MP3 player with the North Korean Bible on it and had listened eagerly to each and every word. Jesus had come into the darkest, dangerous, and most destitute of factories and rekindled the dwindling embers of this man’s heart.
And it’s not just this worker, through these MP3 players, God’s word is moving the hearts of North Korean workers all over the world.
A Head Stuffed Full of Bible
Recently, we connected with another line of underground Christians in North Korea. As usual, they requested Bibles and as usual we distributed Bibles to them.
We are always impressed by the request for Bibles. Living in a place where being found with a Bible means at least imprisonment if not also death, Bibles would be hard for them to come by and not easy to ask for. But what we were more impressed by was that, even before asking us for Bibles, they were quoting scripture word for word!
When asked how they were able to quote scriptures so well, as if they had a Bible, one person responded as follows:
As we (the people in our underground church group) have lived for decades, half of that time has been spent in church. As we study in church, of course our heads have become stuffed full about the Bible. But there are things which we have written down as well. If you send us Bible books, we will be thankful.
The keen eye will notice two things about what the underground Christian said.
First, the underground Christian said that half of their lives have been spent in church. When we hear this, our first thought may be to wonder how they could have spent that much time living in the church since there are no church buildings! But for the NK underground Christian, the church is not a building, it is the term used to refer collectively to the body of believers.
Second, the underground Christian said that their heads have become “stuffed full about the Bible.” But how could their heads have been stuffed full with the Bible if they do not have Bibles? For the underground Christian, “Bible” refers to the word of God itself, not to the container (be it a in a book, an MP3 player, or one’s own head/heart) which houses the word of God. This is why they specifically ask for “Bible books”.
Even after all of these years of doing North Korean ministry, we are amazed by and continue to learn from underground Christians. And we are humbled when they ask us for help when, in fact, we need theirs.
Do the Word 