North Korea

Growing up in a christian home, going to church every single week, and taking the odd christian holiday here and there lead me to become well acquainted with the idea of "going on mission". I've known many people go on mission, and heard many speakers encourage it. However, going on mission never really took my attention captive until God broke my heart. Which is much too dramatic a phrase for my liking, so let me elaborate.

North Korea.

In 1910, Korea came under the rule of Imperial Japan. Due to Japan's surrender at the end of World War II, Korea was split into two zones, the north occupied by the Soviet Union, and the south by the US. When reunification failed in 1948, two separate governments were formed, the northern government was called the "Democratic People's Republic of Korea", which is today lead by Kim Jong-Un.

North Korea today is self-described as a "self-reliant" socialist state, and described by others as totalitarian dictatorship (think "The Capitol" in The Hunger Games.) North Korea has prison camps for those who defy the governments control, where prisoners work in conditions akin to that of slaves. Defectors from North Korea often tell stories of a country rife with abuse of women and those without power, and Amnesty International concurs that starvation is a massive issue for anyone who isn't in the military. According to the charity "Open Doors" it is the country in which Christians are persecuted the most, and it is justified by the notion that Christians are "hostile to the government".

A quick search online will fill you in on exactly how horrifying the conditions in North Korea are for the people simply trying to live their lives there, and a little further digging will paint a terrible picture of the situation for Christians there.

However, it isn't all bad news.

"Asian Boss" on YouTube have done a good few videos interviewing North Korean defectors, and one such video (see below) sees one of the defectors talking about the rehabilitation they received in South Korea, and the help available to them once they had left the influence of the North.

https://youtu.be/EhmzpMP3bEE

So how does this all tie together?

When reading about such barbaric living conditions spread across an entire nation, I realised something.

I realised that the stories I was told in history lessons a few years ago practically pale in comparison to the reality of North Korea right now, and that we need to get up and do something about it. When this story is told in the history lessons of the future, how long will it say things went on for? What will it say about those who got out? It nigh on broke my heart to realise my brothers and sisters are living through such torture and pain, and it created a passion in me, a desire to get out there and help them.

Now, were I to waltz into North Korea myself and try to help the people living there, be it to get them out or just to distribute food, I would find myself in a rather unsavoury situation incredibly quickly. As such, I looked elsewhere for ways I could help, and that's when I found the video above. So I found myself with an overwhelming desire to help North Korean defectors, and found the best way to do that would likely be with their rehabilitation. However!!! Who I am today is not the kind of person you need yeeting themselves into a group of North Korean defectors, no matter how good my intentions, I wouldn't be very much help. So I realised I need to train, and thats where YWAM comes in.

• This blog post is an old unposted draft, a finished draft was once posted and has since been deleted in favour of the short paragraph in the post 'what on earth is going on'.