North Korea Bible

How are Bibles getting into North Korea?

•  When the winds cooperate, Bible balloons imprinted with Mark, the shortest of the four Gospels in the Bible, are released into the air toward North Korea (right). The Bible balloons eventually deflate and land in North Korea after floating the distances determined by the number of holes poked in them.

•  For 30 minutes every day, Christian North Korean defectors in South Korea broadcast the Bible into North Korea by reading the Bible in the North Korean dialect.

•  Some North Korean refugees in China hear the Gospel from the underground Christians in China, believe it, and volunteer to return to North Korea with Bibles and radios capable of tuning into those Bible-reading radio broadcasts from South Korea.

•  Some organizations smuggle Bibles into North Korea via North Koreans and ethnic North Korean Chinese past the North Korean border guards, who are bribed.

How does North Korea resist these endeavors?

•  The guards on the northern border are rotated and are themselves under surveillance.

•  They try to shoot down the balloons and arrest those who pick up the balloons despite the false warnings that the balloons are poison-laced.

•  Everyone is required to spy on everyone else. A neighbor overheard listening to a foreign radio broadcast, let alone the South Korean Bible reading broadcast, is required to be reported.

•  Kindergarten children are taught that if they see their their parents hiding a book at home, they are to bring that book to class to “win” their game of hide-and-seek and receive prizes. A child who thus brings a Bible is feted in front of the other kids, and then ends up in a prison camp with his or her parents, or an orphan given to a couple more loyal to the regime.

•  Agents posing as underground house church cells lure and trap secret believers.

•  Other agents cross into China posing as refugees and seek help from the Christian missionaries who help and evangelize the North Korean refugees. When the trap is sprung, the missionaries are either killed by the North Korean agents or end up in Chinese prison, while any true North Korean refugees caught in the net are repatriated to be shot or to die slower in the prison camps.

Who is winning this battle?

(continued at North Korea Ministries).