Today’s Most Effective North Korean Missionary: A 19th Century Scot

Posted on November 12, 2019 by Pastor Foley

Here’s a piece I wrote with Release International’s Scotland Area Representative James Fraser following Dr. Foley’s and my recent visit.

Every year, hundreds of South Korean and Chinese tourists flock to Scotland. They come for the customary reasons: to see the beauty, the history, and the castles of this blessed land.

But a steady stream of South Korean and Chinese Christians also come annually on a more unique pilgrimage. They come to pay their respects to the 19th Century Scottish missionary John Ross, whom they consider to be one of the fathers of Christianity in their respective countries.

Ross was born in the small north Scotland town of Nigg. He was the minister of a church on Skye before being called to Northeast China in 1872 by the Scottish Union Presbyterian Mission. While serving as a pioneering missionary there, Ross was intrigued by the “hermit kingdom” of Korea, completely closed to foreigners but accessible to trade through the so-called “Corean Gate”. In the midst of vigorous daily engagement with skeptical, interested, and sometimes hostile Chinese residents, Ross also learned Korean from unsuccessful Korean traders. He evangelized these traders by enlisting their help in the creation of the first ever Korean translation of the New Testament, in 1887. A burgeoning “Three-Self” (government registered) church located in Shenyang, China remains the most visible fruit of his considerable efforts in China, the country to which he was officially sent.

After a quiet and uneventful return from China in 1910, he served as a church elder in Edinburgh until passing away in 1915. It is to this church and nearby cemetery that Chinese and South Korean pilgrims are drawn, many dropping in to pray, take photos, and shed moving tears of genuine thanksgiving. John Ross may be remembered (or, more likely, completely forgotten) in his own country as just another 19th century Scottish missionary, but this father of the churches of Korean and Northeast China won’t soon be forgotten by the descendants of those to whom he was sent.

An analysis of John Ross’ missionary methods reveals him to have been a man far ahead of his 19th century time—so far ahead, in fact, that he remains a man yet ahead of his time in the 21st. His missionary methods did not rely on converting sinners, establishing churches, or discipling new believers. His method was simply to present Christ clothed only in the vernacular language of the people—that is, to co-labour with working class non-believers to bring the words of Christ to life in their own everyday speech, and then to get the results into the hands of other working class people, for them to debate, discuss together, and ultimately be transformed by.  

That was the stunning result of his completely serendipitous turn to Korea. Facing the barrier of stigma and risk that prevented Korean merchants from associating with foreigners, he eventually developed relationships with several down-on-their-luck traders. These men were of questionable character and were certainly not Christian, let alone admirable adherents of any religion. But Ross put himself in a position of dependence upon them, regarding them as cultural-linguistic experts in whose hands he sought to entrust a sacred task.  In the process, this most unlikely group of Bible translators brought the words of Christ to life in the marketplace dialect of northwest Korea. And then they were mesmerized by these same words and came to personally know the Lord who first spoke them. At a time when Chinese was the official language of literature and commerce and respectable books in Korean were scarce to non-existent, Ross’s cohort of reprobate evangelists smuggled more than fifteen thousand of these Korean New Testaments from China back into Korea. And thus the Korean church was born. When Appenzeller and Underwood, the first “official” missionaries to Korea, entered the country in 1885, they were beset by hundreds of requests from Koreans for baptism. Perplexed how a country without a missionary could come to know Christ, Appenzeller and Underwood found that Christ had been there before them, in the form of the Ross New Testament. Small covert groups of readers had huddled together around each copy, listening to this marketplace Jesus sharing the words of life in the dialect of a northwest Korean commoner. As more and more Koreans came to know this Jesus, they sought to follow his instruction—”Believe and be baptized”—and this prompted them to beat a path to Appenzeller and Underwood’s doors. Nothing like it had ever happened in the history of Christian mission, before or since.

Today, more than 130 years later, other linguistically superior translations have supplanted the original Ross New Testament, but no missionary method has succeeded or even survived in North Korea other than his. Pitilessly persecuted first by Japanese occupiers and then by the anti-Christian Kim family dynasty of North Korea to whom they gave way, the underground North Korean church still does not have ecclesiastical structures, church buildings, or discipleship programs. Instead, it continues to cling to Christ clothed only in the North Korean vernacular of his word. This is the missionary method of John Ross: Small groups huddled around dog-eared pages (and now digital audio on SD card-loaded smartphones) hearing Jesus speak like a 21st century North Korean black market trader. Through this simple missionary method, sent in the form of 15,000 homely Bibles by a 19th century Scottish missionary who never once lived there, North Korea continues to boast one of the fastest-growing churches in the world despite also boasting arguably the worst sustained persecution in human history.

Ross would be aghast at the thought of a steady stream of pilgrims trekking halfway around the world to pay homage to him at his grave. The closing words of his sadly underappreciated but masterful book, Mission Methods in Manchuria, are as true today as when he first wrote them in 1910: “The greatest and most urgent work now claiming the energy of the Church of Christ is the renovation of China” (and, for that matter, North Korea). Now is not the time for homage to the dead. It is the time for Jesus to speak again, for new ne’er-do-wells to bring the word of life into every nook and cranny vernacular of the Communist-crushed lands of Northeast Asia and beyond. Now is still the time for all of them—and all of us—to huddle together in small groups around dog-eared pages and then respond to the summons to believe and be baptized. It is the only mission method that endures, as the Apostles themselves would attest.

Voice of the Martyrs Korea, the sister mission of Release International, friend of the persecuted church, recently translated John Ross’ Mission Methods in Manchuria into Chinese and Korean for the first time (in the modern vernacular of both countries, of course). After more than a hundred years, Korean and Chinese Christians can study and learn the profoundly simple, profoundly powerful method of the missionary who is yet ahead of his time, whose method is as successful when it is put into practice today as it was when he first put it into practice centuries ago. Sadly, it is a method that is a victim of its own success, having fallen into disuse as churches gain the wherewithal to build the buildings, ecclesiastical structures, and discipleship programs John Ross was convinced (rightly, it turns out) would produce little to no fruit. We have committed to provide free copies of Ross’ masterwork to the Scottish churches along the John Ross pilgrimage road so that when the tearful, grateful pilgrims pause for selfies with their camera phones, their Scottish church hosts can say, “Yes, he was a father and a great man, but have you actually read what he wrote? Here is a free copy of his book, in your own language and vernacular. Perhaps you can carry on his method in your own country today.”

The greatest irony is that Ross’ book is no longer in print in English, not available to be pressed into the hands of this current generation of Scottish Christians who could benefit so greatly from its contents. John Ross might suggest that Nigg, Skye, and Edinburgh of the 21st century are not so very different than China and Korea of the 19th century: Both need to hear Christ speak in our brogue. Perhaps today in North Korea a young man is being raised up who will one day come and visit John Ross’ old haunts, bringing the Scottish speaking Christ with him.

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The North Korean Sparrow That Fell, and the God Who Noticed

Posted on October 30, 2019 by Pastor Foley

Usually the prisoners we help at Voice of the Martyrs Korea are those who are jailed for their Christian faith. But that’s not the case with Mr. Lee.

Mr. Lee is a North Korean defector incarcerated in a South Korean prison. It was not his faith that put him there, but rather his attempt to pass counterfeit money here in Seoul.

Our North Korean Underground University (UU) students have been visiting Mr. Lee in his South Korean prison for the past 10 months. A considerable part of UU happens outside of the classroom, as UU students learn to do ministry today, reaching North Koreans with the gospel wherever North Koreans are found—including in prison in South Korea.

Though our students have visited Mr. Lee for ten months, he has remained stone-cold silent and seemingly unreachable.

Until this week. Finally, he opened his heart to share stories of his past with us.

What he shared was difficult to hear—even for our North Korean students.

Mr. Lee was born in North Korea. His mother died when he was an infant, so he does not have any memories of her. Beginning even as a young boy, he was abused by his father in almost inconceivable ways. He showed us a scar on his head where his drunken father had hit him with a beer bottle. His father also stabbed him and stoned him. His father was known to be a good person in the town where they lived, but at home he was always a monster.

Mr. Lee was forced to learn at a very young age how to avoid his father’s violence. He sometimes ran out of his house and lived on the street.  When he would return a few days later each time, his father would beat him even more. So, Mr. Lee finally stayed away for a month. Then when he returned, his father no longer beat him.

Mr. Lee and his father went to a village in China when he was ten. He was not allowed to attend school. At age fifteen, his father disappeared. Mr. Lee later heard from one of his father’s friends that his father had been arrested. So, Mr. Lee decided to defect to South Korea.

Mr. Lee was twenty-one years old when he arrived in South Korea. He met a girl on a bus, and they exchanged contact information. They got married a short time later. They now have a five-year old boy.

Mr. Lee was arrested for trying to pass counterfeit money. He says he did not know the money was counterfeit when he received it, and that he did not know how to make a proper defense after he was arrested.

Our Underground University missionary training students have also visited Mr. Lee’s wife several times. It is challenging for her to figure out how to earn money, arrange for a babysitter, and other practical matters that are always challenging to North Korean defectors.

Our UU students cried as Mr. Lee shared his story. Then they told him about his Heavenly Father by sharing the story of the Prodigal Son.

Mr. Lee explained to our North Korean UU students that the reason he shared his painful stories with them is that he thinks they are trustworthy. He believes they are being honest with him, unlike other people.

(The situation is not unlike when we took a different group of our North Korean UU students to a country where North Koreans were being discipled by a very gracious South Korean pastor and his wife. When the pastor and his wife went to bed, the North Korean trainees approached our students privately and asked, “The South Korean says God is real. But you are our countrymen. Tell us the truth!” Always, North Koreans are able to reach other North Koreans for Christ more effectively than any foreigner.)

Our UU students’ consistent care for Mr. Lee and his wife is finally bearing the fruit of trust, after nearly a year of faithful presence. But the real story here is the God who has had his eye on this North Korean sparrow since the start of his very difficult and painful life.

One North Korean woman who became an orphan due to the famine in the 1990s and who was subsequently sex-trafficked to China, told Dr. Foley and me recently, “I have had a lot of difficulties in my life. But it was through those difficulties that I met Christ, so I am thankful for all of it.” Another North Korean met the Lord before defecting, but once he arrived in South Korea he became so focused on making money that he forgot about the Lord completely. Now he is in prison for a murder he committed in a drunken rage—and he realizes that the walls of the prison have been the womb of rebirth.

So-called “more fortunate” Christians seem to call God to account frequently, demanding God to explain why bad things happen to them. But North Korea’s fallen sparrows are far wiser and humbler. Having been knocked to the ground by everyone and everything they know, they are captivated by—and thankful for—the God whom everything must serve, even every evil that assails them.  

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Famine in North Korea? The Canary in the Coal Mine Says No

Posted on October 7, 2019 by Pastor Foley

When Dr. Foley and I founded Voice of the Martyrs Korea, we were blessed to know nearly nothing about North Korea.

The reason I regard that as a blessing is that what was “known” about North Korea at that time came from the news media, international aid agencies, South Korean missionaries, visiting academics, political think thanks, and the North Korean government. Dr. Foley and I were largely ignorant of this information and instead made what I believe was the God-ordained choice of turning to ordinary North Korean people to learn about their country, to learn how they believed God was working in it, and to learn how we could support them in that vision.

The picture we received was so fundamentally different than what was then “well known” about North Korea that at first people–especially the experts–thought we were crazy. Even crazier, they thought, was our commitment for VOM Korea to be a place where North Koreans are the teachers, strategists, and actors–the subjects, not the objects–of North Korea ministry. From the beginning, every North Korean project we have done has owed its genesis to North Korean Christians.

I wish I could say that things have changed in eighteen years and that today people see North Koreans as the teachers, strategists, and actors. But this month has brought renewed reports from many quarters about North Korea teetering on the brink of a famine so large that purportedly North Koreans are terrified that it is 1993 all over again. Numerous NGOs have unveiled plans to “save North Korea” from famine. As a result, I have received numerous inquiries from people asking me what to make of it all.

As always, I recommend turning to the experts on North Korea: the North Korean defectors. Nearly every accurate piece of information I have ever learned about North Korea, I first learned from a North Korean defector. Only later, if at all, or in partially accurate form, did I see that information shared by those regarded by the general public as North Korean experts.

So while NGOs are wringing their hands (and your pocketbook) about a North Korean famine, it is important to note that the starvation that is occupying the hearts and minds of North Korean defectors is that of the North Korean defector woman and her six year old son who starved to death in Seoul last month. This is not because North Korean defectors are too busy or poorly informed to take note of deadly suffering looming over their relatives still inside of North Korea. Remember, more than eighty percent of North Korean defectors maintain regular monthly contact with their relatives in North Korea. They always–always–have better “ground level” information on what is happening than the United Nations, the academics, the media, the political think tanks, and the South Korean missionaries put together.

North Korean defectors also have a greater natural predilection to care about what is happening to their relatives in North Korea than NGOs or the UN. Contrary to the romantic notions you often hear of in TV testimonies, North Koreans don’t leave North Korea to find “freedom”. They leave North Korea in order to make money to send to their relatives back home. The freedom that compels them is freedom from starvation. They are never caught unawares when it comes to the food security of their families still inside North Korea.

And this is why the canary in the coal mine–that is, the North Korean defector community–isn’t crowing about starvation and famine at the moment. Back in the early 1990s, when North Koreans were starving in the midst of a famine that scars them still today, people starved because they trusted the North Korean government and distribution system. There was no alternative. That reality led to a “never again” mentality which has made it so that no North Korean relies on government rations the way they did before the famine. The idea that today North Koreans somehow queue up hopefully at government distribution centers and meekly receive whatever the North Korean government and international aid agencies (or secret underground distribution networks, for that matter) give them is nothing but a made-for-NGO fundraising fantasy. It is a fundamental error in understanding how ordinary North Koreans think and act.

The famine caused North Koreans to turn away from the North Korean government ration system to two other sources. Neither of these other sources are NGOs. The first is the grey market–the quasi-illegal private economic activity undertaken by nearly every North Korean family. The second is funds sent by relatives who have defected to South Korea. The UN and food security experts always readily admit that they are unable to measure these sources of food security. Sadly, they do not readily mention these sources of food security in their own alarms about food security, which, in reality, tell us more about the inefficiency and insufficiency of the North Korean government’s food security strategies and economic policies than they do about the real hunger of ordinary North Korean people. This is a hunger that is always due to political choices made by the North Korean government (and tacitly endorsed by all other nations negotiating or doing business with that government) that define being human in North Korea as synonymous with being declared loyal and useful to the North Korean government. Until that definition is changed, don’t bet on international aid to feed ordinary North Korean people. Bet on their families. That’s what ordinary North Koreans do.

The grey markets and relatives working abroad–these are what ordinary North Koreans have relied on for food since the 1990s. It’s why you never hear North Korean defectors praising the UN or NGOs for taking care of their relatives still inside North Korea. It’s why North Korean defectors are not the ones urging you to reach deep into your pockets to help the UN and the NGOs “save” North Korea.

Oddly, the only present danger to the grey markets and defector financial remittances back home is not a present famine in North Korea but the present rumblings of “peace” negotiations between geopolitical entities, all of which always put North Korean defectors in more, rather than less, precarious legal and social positions. Political “peace” between these nations further legitimizes the kind of political “solutions” that nations and NGOs love, while undermining the personal agency and freedom of ordinary North Korean people who have somehow managed to care for their families for more than 70 years, whether nations and NGOs were paying attention or not.

If there is a famine in North Korea today, it is the same famine that has existed since Dr. Foley and I started our ministry. It is a famine of listening–a refusal to receive North Korean defectors as teachers, strategists, and actors. Our nations and NGOs want them to be passive objects of pity needing us to save them, while they apparently do nothing more than to sit around and starve while they wait for us.

We should be suspicious any time the North Korean government is advocating the same plan as the NGOs, the media, and the other purported experts. All of these groups have one thing in common: They do not trust ordinary North Korean defectors to be the subjects of destiny shaping the future of their nation.

Fortunately, God trusts North Korean defectors. He’s not wringing his hands nor is he wringing your pocketbook for you to fund the efforts of nations, NGOs, or experts. Like the North Korean defectors, his eye is on the sparrow, and her six year old son, who died last month of starvation, in one of the richest nations on earth. May he grant us to get over ourselves and our savior complexes in order to learn to listen to the prayers and hopes of North Korean people even a tiny fraction as well as he, the one true Savior, always does.

 

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