Post by Pastor Tim – We asked many of you to pray for our first Underground University class of the year.  Here is what I e-mailed many of you,

I am on my way to Korea for the start of Underground University and Underground Technology.  Please pray for all of the new students this year.  Becoming a part of these programs is a huge undertaking of faith for them and along the way they experience the attack of the enemy – join with me in covering our brothers and sisters in prayer!

Please know that when we ask you to pray for something . . . it is not simply an obligatory, token North Korea prayer request. We ask for prayer . . . because it is something extremely important about which we know we need our brothers and sisters all over the world to pray. 

We saw this need so clearly on Saturday with two of our students.  One of our younger students was corrected during the class by an older student. But this younger UU student was terribly hurt and offended–so much so that she basically told us she was leaving UU. She couldn’t bear the shame and humiliation of being corrected by this older lady.

Do you understand what happened?  Before we’d even finished the first class, one of our students was ready to give up her missionary training.  A well-placed attack from the enemy had already beaten her up and left her feeling useless, hurt and shamed.  She was ready to throw in the towel.

Because of the disturbing background that defectors have, they are often much more emotionally sensitive than you or I might be, and they possess next to no skills for dealing with conflict. They almost always respond to conflict with anger and shouting.  And, as in the case of the younger UU student, they would rather run away, than respond to conflict in a Scriptural manner.

That’s why we ask you to pray. Because every week, we deal with students who are ready to give up, even though they have a strong calling to go into the ministry.

So, what happened on Saturday?

We were able to meet with both women. We helped the younger woman understand that God was using this experience to grow her.  If she simply ran away from UU, then God wouldn’t be able to teach her what she needed to learn.  We also helped her to understand that this was an attack from the enemy, in other words, she shouldn’t look to blame the other woman but understand that spiritual forces are at work.

We also helped her to understand that instead of only complaining to us, she need to humbly share her feelings with the older UU student who offended her.  Admittedly, this could be a little problematic, because it would not be far-fetched to envision a shouting match between these two ladies in the middle of our UU day. But when she shared her feelings with the older woman, the older woman humbly asked for her forgiveness.

Maybe it doesn’t sound like a big deal, but it’s a huge deal in NK ministry.  The Lord was at work in the heart of the older woman even before the younger woman approached her. Why?  Because the Lord is sovereign? Yes. And because we helped the younger woman to respond to conflict in a Biblical manner? Yes. But also because faithful men and women were praying for brand new UU students who were beginning their missionary training last week . . .