Saturday, November 06, 2010

Persecution will not destroy North Korean believers

If history is any indicator, persecution will not destroy North Korean believers.

When "Mary" and her family originally escaped from North Korea into China, relatives introduced them to church and her father came to faith in Christ. But the Chinese government discovered this and repatriated her father back to North Korea. North Korean authorities sent her father to prison.

Mary represents thousands of suffering believers. Her stories brought many to tears at Cape Town 2010: The Third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization held last month in South Africa. These personal accounts opened the eyes of conference delegates from the developed world, most of whom were unfamiliar with the plight of most of the world's Christians.

Benjamin Kwashi, the Anglican bishop of Jos, Nigeria, shared with the Lausanne conference that he is targeted for murder and his family has been attacked. Following the second attempt on his life in 18 months, Kwashi said that such incidents are nothing new.

"The gospel is worth living for; it is also worth dying for," he said. "Persecution has never, and will never, kill the church. Conditions may be difficult or dangerous for a time, but the seed is in the ground and at the right time it will burst out."

Open Doors USA

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