Korea, North

Challenges for Prayer

Food shortages are often severe. With only 15% arable land, low yield from medieval agricultural practices and regular floods caused by massive deforestation, more than three million have starved since 1994. Pray for:

a) Starving North Koreans, forced to desperate measures to feed their families. This may include theft, foraging for edible grass and plants, hazarding the dangerous passage to China or even black market cannibalistic activity. Pray that, in some form, food might arrive to sustain their lives without their resorting to crime or sin.

b) Aid agencies, many of them Christian, have been able to offer food but never with permission to share the gospel. Pray that this food might get to the population – much is diverted to Mr. Kim’s inner circle and the military. Pray for wisdom on the part of foreign governments and NGOs in handling this tragic and delicate situation.

The Church in North Korea was the birthplace of Korean revival – Pyongyang was known as the “Jerusalem of the East”. But most Christians fled to the south during the Korean War or were martyred and their churches destroyed. Very little is known about today’s underground Church, only that it has survived and is growing amid great suffering and danger. There are four propaganda “show” churches in the capital, but up to 100,000 Christians are interned in labour camps. Possessing the Bible, saying “God” or “Jesus” and meeting as believers are all punishable by death. Pray for North Korean believers, that they persevere in what is probably the most difficult country in which to be a Christian.

     For an additional 6 Challenges for Prayer see Operation World book, CD-ROM, or DVD-ROM.