VOMK REACHES OUT TO NK DEFECTOR “LOST SHEEP” IN SK COUNTRYSIDE

Posted on December 21, 2021 by Pastor Foley

Government statistics indicate that about 35% of North Korean defectors live outside of the Seoul/Incheon/Gyeonggi Province area. Yet only the tiniest fraction of faith-based humanitarian and outreach efforts are directed to them.

That’s why we at Voice of the Martyrs Korea are launching a 500,000,000 KRW (approx. 500,000 USD) initiative to evangelize and disciple North Korean defector “lost sheep” in the South Korean countryside in 2022.

Dr. Foley and Pastor Foley train NK defector students for outreach to NK defectors in the South Korean countryside as part of its Underground University missionary training school.

Jesus said if you have a hundred sheep and one gets lost, you should leave the 99 and go find the one. But when it comes to North Korean defectors, most efforts to evangelize and disciple North Korean defectors continue to focus on the Seoul metropolitan area. There are very few churches or ministries reaching out to North Korean defectors in the countryside, yet more than ten thousand North Korean defectors live there. 

Involvement with NK defectors in the countryside is the result of the teaching strategy we as a ministry have employed at our missionary training school for North Korean defectors in Seoul over the past 15 years.  Voice of the Martyrs Korea uses traditional North Korean underground church methods and materials to train North Koreans to reach other North Koreans for Christ, wherever North Koreans are found. We started with North Korean defector students from Seoul, and they evangelized and discipled North Korean defectors in places like Paju, Yongin, and Yangju. These defectors then evangelized and discipled North Korean defectors in places like Daejeon, Gwangju, Gimhae, and Jeju. And now in this year alone those North Korean defectors have been evangelizing and discipling North Korean defectors in Seosan, Wanju, Gongju, Cheongju, Okcheon, and Wando.

Our mission is expanding rapidly because it is based on the principle that ordinary North Koreans are more effective at reaching other ordinary North Koreans than anyone else. It’s very similar to the Bible women model of the early Korean church. (I should note that most of the defectors in our Voice of the Martyrs Korea’s training schools are older women, active in a local church congregation but without a title, position, or seminary education.) They are just ordinary old North Korean defector women who love the Bible and who have learned how to use it to introduce other defectors to Jesus and how to apply his teachings to their lives.

There is no available list of names and addresses of defectors living in the countryside. Instead, Voice of the Martyrs Korea’s NK defector students must use word of mouth to make contacts and plan trips to visit them. Sometimes they are able to track down a defector who is now living in the countryside whom they met when they first came to Korea. Sometimes they get the name of a North Korean defector “friend of a friend” who married and moved to the countryside. They then call that defector in the countryside and set a time to visit. Then they work with us to get there. Sometimes we go by bus. Sometimes we go by train. This year we bought a used RV to drive to these places which are often very far out in the countryside. Our visitation schedule in the countryside is now so full that we are working to purchase a second RV and hire a driver.

NK defector students at VOMK’s Underground University missionary training program pray together with an NK defector in the countryside, aboard a used RV the ministry is using in its new “Lost Sheep” outreach project.

While Voice of the Martyrs Korea staff always accompany the students, the students are the ministers. When North Koreans meet other North Koreans, even a short visit can accomplish a lot. Ordinary North Koreans can talk frankly about common experiences using a common language without being embarrassed. Even the Bible we use is a North Korean dialect Bible, which they understand much better than other Korean translations.

The living conditions of North Korean defector women in the countryside are often tragically similar to those of sex-trafficked North Korean women living in China. One North Korean defector woman we met in the countryside is married to a South Korean man who is extremely jealous and possessive. He made his defector wife quit her job and stay at home all day every day, and he set up CCTV all over their house so he can watch her when he is not home. Whenever she goes out, he calls her repeatedly to check up on her. But our student is just an old North Korean defector woman.  When she visited their home, the husband wasn’t there but could see her on the CCTV, so he was not suspicious. Our North Korean student could empathize with the North Korean wife immediately, and she was able to share the gospel and share wisdom from the Bible about how to pray and what to do. She told the woman, “God has given you all this time at home, so you can read the Bible and pray.” She gave the woman a Bible, and the woman clutched it tightly and said, “I will surely believe in God. He is very much knocking at my door.”

The outreach to North Korean defectors in the countryside is a missed opportunity of the Korean church. It’s popular these days for South Korean churches to each adopt different cities in North Korea and to set aside money to plant churches there some day in the future. But what we are seeing happen today is North Korean defectors each adopting different cities in South Korea and reaching the North Korean defector ‘lost sheep’ who live in these cities. God is using these ordinary North Korean defectors to turn the traditional South Korean model for North Korean evangelism upside down.

An NK defector student at VOMK’s Underground University prays with an NK defector woman at her home in the South Korean countryside.

The Coronavirus has also played a role in our shift to focus on the countryside. In following the Coronavirus restrictions, it became impossible to continue to gather our large number of students together for class. We prayed, “Lord, what do you want us to do now?” And at that time we received a phone call from a few North Korean defectors in Daejeon, asking us to go down there to teach them. We realized that God was using the Coronavirus to shift us away from a “gathering” model to a “going” model. So we shut down the classroom and told our students, “It’s time for us all to go out to the countryside and reach every lost North Korean defector sheep, one at a time.” We started going out the next week. We typically drive hours to visit one or two defectors in one or two homes in the countryside. And the Lord pours out his Spirit. You can feel his good pleasure with this work. The farther out in the countryside we go just to meet one lost North Korean defector sheep, we rediscover the spiritual power and fruit of the early Korean church.

More information about Voice of the Martyrs Korea’s outreach to North Korean defectors in the South Korean countryside is available at https://vomkorea.com/en/project/northkorea/uu-school/.

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NK Christians teach how to go “from victim to victor” in Dr Foley’s new book, The Hero’s Journey

Posted on December 7, 2021 by Pastor Foley

Voice of the Martyrs Korea today announced the release of Dr Hyun Sook Foley’s new book, The Hero’s Journey!

“In this book I am privileged to be able to tell the real-life ‘hero’s journeys’ of ten North Korean Christians,” says Dr Foley. “I share how they and I each learned to give up our ‘victims’ stories’ and become victors in Christ, by coming to understand how Christ tells the story of our lives. The book shows readers how they can experience that same transformation.”

Dr. Foley holds a master’s degree in licensed clinical counseling with a specialization in trauma recovery from Colorado Christian University. She has worked with North Korean underground Christians and North Korean defectors since 2003, when she and I co-founded Voice of the Martyrs Korea.  

”As North Koreans grow up, they have to memorize more than one hundred stories about Kim Il Sung’s life,” says Dr Foley. “Kim Il Sung is the hero of nearly every North Korean’s story. But when North Koreans escape their country, they learn that Kim Il Sung was no hero. They struggle to make sense of life. They quickly accept the stories that others tell them: That they are victims, or even traitors.”

Dr Foley says that when North Korean defectors see themselves as victims, the results are often fatal. “North Korean defectors have the highest rate of death due to suicide of any group in the world,” she says. “That’s why I began coaching North Korean defectors how to retell their stories using the ‘hero’s journey’ framework. It is a way of seeing our life stories differently than we are used to seeing them, because stories involve so many ‘reversals’—events that seem tragic but are actually the gateway to new life.”

Dr Foley says that the hero’s journey framework is especially meaningful to Christians. “The cross of Christ is the greatest reversal in history,” she says. “Jesus says that anyone who follows him must take up their own cross. That means we should expect God to include life-changing reversals in each of our lives as well. We must come to understand God’s purpose for these reversals, and we must be able to tell our life stories, including those reversals, the way God tells them. If we don’t learn to understand and share our life stories in that way, our stories will always have unhappy endings.”

Dr Foley says that she has seen the “hero’s journey” framework make a difference in the lives of North Korean defectors and North Korean Christians. “Every North Korean who participates in our schools and training programs, we have them write up their life story at the beginning of the training,” she says. “Almost always it’s a victim story, where they recount all of the tragedies of their lives. This is how they are taught to think of themselves, even in church. It’s also how North Koreans are taught to tell their stories in books and news articles. Tragedy sells. Victimhood is popular these days. But then after they learn the hero’s journey framework, we have them re-write their stories. They begin to see God’s hand at work, turning even their worst tragedies into victories through Christ. And that changes them. They stop seeing themselves as needy people and instead see themselves as people loved by God who have something important to give to others: their victor’s story.”

Dr Foley says she sees this book as part of their process of giving. “The Hero’s Journey book is not just a book about North Korean Christians. It’s a gift from North Korean Christians to the rest of us. In the book they teach us how to see our own lives differently. And I get to share how they have helped me to see my own life differently also.”

The book is currently available in Korean and English, with Russian and Chinese language versions scheduled for release in mid-2022.

A chapter of the book is available for free preview for a limited time at www.vomkorea.com/product/hj-eng. The book is available for purchase via the same link and also via Amazon.com at https://amzn.to/3oY41q4 for $10.99.

All profits from the book’s sale go toward Voice of the Martyrs Korea’s work with underground Christians in North Korea and around the world, and with North Korean defectors in South Korea.

This is truly a great book. I’ve lived the stories in this book with Dr Foley, including her own, and she tells them exceedingly well here. I’m thrilled to see the book entering publication. I’m confident the Lord will use this book to change lives–maybe even yours.

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40,000 BIBLES DISTRIBUTED TO CHILDREN IN EASTERN UKRAINE CONFLICT ZONES

Posted on November 23, 2021 by Pastor Foley

When Vanya received his Action Bible New Testament, he burst into tears.

It reminded him of his father.

Vanya, a boy living in a “gray zone” in Eastern Ukraine, cried when he received the New Testament because it reminded him of his father, a jailed and missing pastor.

Vanya, a young boy, lives in a village of about a thousand people in the so-called “gray zone” of Eastern Ukraine, an area which formally belongs to Ukraine, but which is under the influence of Russian separatists. Children in the gray zone hear explosions and mortar attacks nearly every day, but they still attend school. It was at the school that Vanya received the Children’s New Testament, at a gathering of about 30 children.

When Vanya received the New Testament he suddenly started crying because it reminded him of his father, who pastored a small local church before being detained and imprisoned after the war broke out. When the event organizers saw Vanya’s reaction, they prayed with him that God would protect his father. Now they now visit Vanya and his mother on a monthly basis, they support them financially and in prayer, and they have begun searching for Vanya’s father with the help of some international organizations.

The Action Bible New Testament Vanya received was one of 40,000 distributed to children in conflict zones throughout Eastern Ukraine in a project funded and executed by a coalition of ministries including Voice of the Martyrs Korea, Voice of the Martyrs Canada, Mission Eurasia, and School Without Walls.

Children at a camp in a conflict zone in Eastern Ukraine receive Action Bible New Testaments. A total of 40,000 were distributed through a project conducted by a coalition of local Christians and ministries including Voice of the Martyrs Korea.

This region has been beset by armed conflict, evangelical persecution, and totalitarian politics since 2014. It was recently named by the European Evangelical Alliance (EEA) as the area of Europe where the church suffers the most. Some people might say, “You should wait to distribute Bibles until the fighting subsides,” but for us and the other ministries in our coalition who are supporting the local Christians, we know that any time a major conflict threatens an area, that’s when people turn to God and become open to the Bible. They’re looking for hope. They still have to go to work and to the market and their kids still have to go to school.

Eastern Ukraine, with the conflict zones of Lugansk and Donetsk indicated

Distribution during armed conflicts requires local Christians who have knowledge about an area that outside groups don’t have. The hardest work is always done by local believers. It was not a situation where they could just drive in trucks and hand out 40,000 Children’s Bibles. They had to take great risks and overcome many difficulties to distribute these Action Bible New Testaments to children in each community. They had to cross borders and in most cases move in complete secrecy. They worked with local believers in each place about how and when to move, where to distribute, and to whom. It’s not a project that could have been done by missionaries or short-term mission teams with big budgets.

Even though distribution of the 40,000 Action Bible New Testaments is now complete, the ministry work is still underway. Each Bible was given to a real child with real needs and real problems. Just as with Vanya’s family, local Christians are working with our coalition to locate missing pastors, to help evangelical Christians who are suffering because of their faith, and to answer the questions of children who are excited to learn more about Jesus.

Consider 10-year old Maxim, who came from a nominally Orthodox Christian family in an area controlled by separatists. In the summer he is able to go visit his grandmother in a less restricted part of Ukraine. It was there at a summer camp that he received one of the Action Bible New Testaments. At the end of the summer when he returned home, he took the Bible with him, and now he reads it at home with his family. So the impact extends far beyond the children who received the Bibles originally.

Maxim, age 10, received one of the distributed Bibles at a children’s camp while visiting his grandmother in the summertime. He took the Bible back home to one of the restricted zones in Eastern Ukraine, where he reads the stories with his family members, who were previously nominal Orthodox Christians. 

The ministry coalition estimates that this project impacted more than 100,000 family members and also provided resources to approximately 700 Christian leaders from 126 churches in Eastern Ukraine.

Christians in closed countries know how to reach their neighbors far more effectively and safely than missionaries who come in from the outside and who often have to leave when conflict or Coronavirus comes. Local believers say to us, “Give us the tools”—like these Action Bible New Testaments—”and we will complete the work.” That has been the strategy of Voice of the Martyrs globally since the time of the Cold War, and it continues today, as we resource underground Christians in the more than 70 countries where Christians are persecuted or restricted.

Individuals interested in donating to Voice of the Martyrs Korea to support the work of underground believers can give at www.vomkorea.com/en/donation or via electronic transfer to:

국민은행 (KB Bank) 463501-01-243303

예금주 (Account Holder): (사)순교자의소리

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