I have learned that God is present in the darkest places.

That he was with Sang Min on that execution stage.

That he is with believers in the prison camps right now.

that he does not abandon his children even when it seems like he has.

I have learned that the gospel is true.

It must be true because nothing else could sustain people through what North Korean Christians have endured.

Nothing but the hope of resurrection.

Nothing but the promise of eternal life.

Nothing but the love of Jesus.

I have learned that I am stronger than I thought.

Not in my own strength, but in God’s strength.

On my own, I would have given up years ago, but God has carried me.

He has given me the strength to keep going, to keep telling the story, to keep hoping.

And I have learned that my brother’s death was not in vain.

Every time I tell his story, every time someone hears it and is moved to pray or act or simply remember, Sunung means death takes on meaning.

He did not die for nothing.

He died for Christ and that is everything.

I think about what Sunung mean said to me once, that he would rather his children grow up knowing their father died for something true than grow up watching their father live for a lie.

He made that choice and it cost him everything.

But I believe I have to believe that he is in paradise now.

That he is with Jesus.

That he is free from pain and suffering.

That he is worshiping with a loud voice instead of a whisper.

I believe I will see him again.

That we will stand together before the throne of God.

That he will introduce me to Mrs.

Park and Mr.

Choy and all the others that we will sing Amazing Grace together with our full voices with joy with no more fear until that day comes.

I will keep telling his story.

I will speak for him because he cannot speak.

I will remember for him because the world has forgotten.

I will live for him because he died.

This is my calling.

This is my burden.

This is my joy.

My name is Jinho.

I am a North Korean defector.

I am a Christian.

I am the brother of a martr.

On June 30th, 2009, my brother Sang Min was executed by firing squad in Riong Chon, North Korea for the crime of believing in Jesus Christ.

He was 32 years old.

He left behind a wife and three small children who were sent to a political prison camp where they have spent the last 15 years if they are still alive.

Sunung min died singing amazing grace.

He died praying for his executioners.

He died with faith and courage and peace.

He died so that you could know the truth about what is happening in North Korea.

Please do not let his death be forgotten.

Please pray for North Korea.

Pray for the underground church.

Pray for the Christians in the camps.

Pray for Sun’s children.

And please, if you believe in Jesus, live like he is worth dying for.

Because in many places in the world, he is.

Sun knew that.

He proved it with his life and his death.

May his faith inspire us all to live with that same courage, that same conviction, that same hope.

To God alone be the glory now and forever.

Amen.

I want to close by reading you the words that sustain sin in his final days.

The words he memorized from the Bible, the words he taught to me and to our small church from the book of Revelation chapter 7 13-17.

Then one of the elders asked me this in white robes, who are they and where did they come from? I answered, sir, you know.

And he said, these are they who have come out of the great tribulation.

They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the lamb.

Therefore, they are before the throne of God and serve him day and night in his temple.

And he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence.

Never again will they hunger.

Never again will they thirst.

The son will not beat down on them, nor any scorching heat.

For the lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd.

He will lead them to springs of living water.

And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.

This is the promise that Sunung min believed.

This is the hope that kept him faithful even unto death.

He has come out of the great tribulation.

He is before the throne.

He will never hunger or thirst again.

God has wiped away his tears.

And one day, one glorious day, I will see him there.

Until then, I will tell his story.

Please do not forget him.

Please do not forget them.

Please pray for North Korea.

Thank you for listening.

Thank you for caring.

Thank you for remembering.

May God bless you and keep you.

May his face shine upon you and be gracious to you.

May he lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.

Amen.

 

 

 

 

Muslim Group Attack an Underground Church in Yemen — What Happened Next Shocked Everyone

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My name is Pastor Khaled and I am alive today because God stopped bullets from firing.

I know how that sounds.

Believe me, I know.

But I’m not asking you to take my word for it just yet.

I’m asking you to listen to my story and then decide for yourself what you believe.

I was born in Yemen in S into a secret that defined my entire life before I before I even understood what it meant.

I grew up thinking every family was like mine.

That every family had two faces.

One for the outside world and one for inside the walls of home.

I thought everyone whispered their prayers and hid their holy books.

I didn’t know until I was older that my family was different, dangerously different.

My grandparents were the first.

They converted to Christianity in the 1970s, back when Yemen was even more closed than it is now.

I never knew exactly how it happened.

My grandmother died before I was born.

And my grandfather would never tell the full story.

He would only say that Jesus appeared to him in a dream and after that dream he could never go back to his old faith.

He told his wife, my grandmother, and she believed too.

Together they carried this secret for decades.

They raised my father in the faith, teaching him about Jesus in whispers, making him memorize scripture in hidden corners of their home.

Hello viewers from around the world.

Before Pastor Khaled continues his story, we’d love to know where you are watching from and we would love to pray for you in your city.

Thank you and may God bless you as you listen to this powerful testimony.

They taught him to live two lives.

The outer life that everyone could see and the inner life that only God knew.

My father grew up attending mosque on Fridays to keep up appearances but praying to Jesus in his heart.

He learned to bow toward Mecca with his body while his spirit bowed to the cross.

When my father married my mother, he told her the truth on their wedding night.

It was the ultimate risk.

She could have reported him, divorced him, told her family the penalty for apostasy from Islam is death.

He was trusting her with his life.

My mother cried that night, not from anger or fear, but because she had been carrying her own secret.

She too had dreamed of Jesus.

She too had been searching for truth.

She had been praying in secret, asking God to show her the way.

And now here was her new husband telling her he followed Christ.

She saw it as God’s answer.

So I was born into this hidden faith.

My earliest memories are of my parents reading to me from a Bible hidden inside the hollowedout Quran.

I remember my grandfather placing his weathered hands on my head and praying blessings over me in whispered Arabic, asking Jesus to protect me, to make me strong, to use me for his purposes.

I remember my mother teaching me songs about Jesus, but warning me never ever to sing them outside our home.

I grew up attending mosque with my father.

I learned to recite the prayers.

I fasted during Ramadan.

I did everything expected of a good Muslim boy.

But at home in secret, I was being taught something completely different.

I was being taught about grace instead of works, about a God who loved me unconditionally, about salvation through faith in Christ alone.

It was a confusing childhood.

I lived in constant fear of saying the wrong thing, of accidentally mentioning Jesus at school, of somehow revealing our family’s secret.

I watched my parents navigate this impossible balance.

And I saw what it cost them.

The weight of constant pretending, the isolation of having no fellowship, the fear that never went away.

When I was 15, my grandfather died.

He was 78 years old and he died in his sleep with a small smile on his face.

We gave him a Muslim burial because we had no choice.

We recited the Islamic prayers over his grave while inside my heart was screaming Christian prayers.

I wanted to tell everyone there who he really was, what he really believed, but I couldn’t.

Even in death, we had to keep the secret.

At his funeral, an old man I had never seen before approached me.

He waited until we were alone, until no one else could hear.

And then he leaned close and whispered in my ear, “Your grandfather was a light in the darkness.

Continue his work.

” Then he walked away.

I never saw him again.

But those words stayed with me.

Continue his his work.

What did that mean? My grandfather had lived his entire Christian life in secret.

He had never preached, never testified publicly, never baptized anyone, or led anyone to Christ.

He had simply survived keeping the faith alive for his family.

Was that what I was supposed to do, just survive? I struggled with this question all through my teenage years and into my 20s.

I got a job working at a small shop selling electronics.

I went through the motions of life.

I attended mosque.

I kept up appearances.

But inside I was wrestling with God.

If I was a Christian, what did that mean? If I believed in Jesus, wasn’t I supposed to tell others? But how could I? The penalty was death.

My parents were content to keep living as they always had.

secret believers, hidden disciples.

They didn’t push me to do anything different.

They understood the danger too well.

But I couldn’t shake this growing restlessness in my spirit.

When I was 26, I met a girl named Amira.

She was beautiful and kind and she came from a good family.

Our families arranged for us to meet and I liked her immediately.

We talked several times before the wedding, always with a chaperon present as was proper.

She was intelligent and had a gentle spirit.

I thought I could be happy with her, but I was terrified I would have to tell her the truth eventually.

I would have to trust her with the secret that could get us both killed.

I prayed about it constantly.

I asked God for wisdom.

I asked him if I should even get married at all.

The night before our wedding, my father took me aside.

He looked older than I had ever seen him, tired and worn down by decades of secrecy.

He told me about the night he had told my mother the truth.

He told me how terrified he had been.

Then he said something I will never forget.

He said living in fear is not really living.

Your grandfather used to say that we don’t keep this faith alive.

It keeps us alive.

If you love this girl, trust God with her.

Tell her the truth.

And whatever happens after that, trust God with that, too.

I told Amira 3 days after our wedding.

We were alone in our small apartment and my hands were shaking so badly I had to sit on them.

I told her everything about my grandparents, about my parents, about the hidden Bible, about Jesus.

I told her I was a Christian and that I had been living a lie my entire life.

She was quiet for a long time.

so long that I thought she might be planning how to report me.

Then she started crying.

Not quiet tears, but deep sobs that shook her whole body.

I thought I had destroyed everything.

But when she finally spoke, she said, “I knew there was something different about you, something good.

I see it now.

It was Jesus.

” She didn’t convert that night.

She wasn’t ready, but she didn’t reject me either.

She didn’t report me.

She said she needed time to think, to pray, to understand.

I gave her my Bible, the one that had been my grandfather’s, and I told her to read it and ask God to show her the truth.

It took 6 months.

six months of her reading in secret, of asking me questions, of wrestling with everything she had been taught her whole life.

I didn’t push her.

I just prayed.

My parents prayed.

We trusted God with her soul.

Then one morning, I woke up and found her sitting on the floor with the Bible open in her lap, tears streaming down her face.

She looked up at me and said, “I believe.

I believe in Jesus.

I want to follow him.

We had no pastor to guide us, no church to join.

We only had the Bible and the Holy Spirit and each other.

I baptized her myself in our bathtub whispering the words because even the walls might have ears.

It was clumsy and awkward and probably not theologically correct in a dozen ways, but it was real.

God was there in that tiny bathroom as surely as if we had been in a grand cathedral.

For the next two years, it was just the four of us, me, Amira, and my parents.

We would meet in my parents’ home once a week to pray together, to read scripture together, to encourage each other.

It wasn’t much, but it was fellowship.

It was church.

Then my father got sick.

Cancer, it spread quickly, and there was nothing the doctors could do.

Watching him die was the hardest thing I had ever experienced.

He was only 54 years old.

Nears the end, when the pain was very bad, he called me to his bedside.

He could barely speak, but he gripped my hand with surprising strength and said, “There are others, secret believers, scattered across the city.

They need a shepherd.

Find them.

Gather them.

Don’t let the light go out.

” He died the next day.

I didn’t understand what he meant at first.

What others? How would I find them? It seemed impossible.

But then I remembered the old man at my grandfather’s funeral.

I remembered his words.

Continue his work.

Maybe my father’s work, my grandfather’s work wasn’t just to survive.

Maybe it was to build something to gather the scattered believers to create an underground church.

The idea terrified me.

It was one thing to hide your faith in your own home.

It was another thing entirely to actively gather believers to create a community to do something that could get not just me but many people killed.

I wasn’t a trained pastor.

I had never been to seminary.

I had barely even been to to a real church.

All I had was a hidden Bible and the legacy of secret faith.

But the idea wouldn’t leave me alone.

Every time I prayed, I felt this growing conviction that this was what God was calling me to do.

Not to hide anymore, but to gather, not to just preserve the faith, but to spread it.

I started carefully, very carefully.

I would mention Jesus in coded ways when talking to customers at the shop.

I would quote Bible verses and see if anyone recognized them.

Most people looked at me strangely and moved on.

But every once in a while, someone’s eyes would light up with recognition.

Someone would lean in and lower their voice and ask, “Are you a believer?” That’s how I found Ahmed.

He was a young man who came into the shop looking for a phone charger.

We started talking and somehow the conversation turned to faith.

I took a risk and mentioned something Jesus said.

Ahmed’s whole face changed.

He looked around to make sure no one else was listening, then whispered, “I thought I was the only one.

” He wasn’t.

Over the next year, I found seven others.

All of them secret believers.

All of them isolated, thinking they were alone.

An old woman named Fatima, who had converted after her Christian neighbor, now long dead, had shown her kindness when everyone else shunned her.

Two brothers who had both had dreams of Jesus.

A widow whose husband had been executed for his faith, but who still clung to Christ despite everything.

Each one had a story.

Each one had been keeping their faith alive in complete isolation.

When I had found these seven, I proposed something dangerous.

I proposed that we start meeting together.

Not in a public place obviously, but somewhere secret, somewhere we could worship together, study scripture together, encourage each other.

They were afraid.

I was afraid.

We all knew the risks, but we also knew we needed this.

Humans were not meant to follow Christ alone.

We were meant to be a body, a community, a family.

We started meeting in my apartment, just nine of us at first, the seven I had found, plus a mira.

We met on Sunday mornings before the city fully woke up.

We kept the volume low.

We sang hymns in whispers.

I taught from the Bible, sharing what little I knew, what I had learned from my father and grandfather, what the Holy Spirit was teaching me through scripture.

It wasn’t much, but it was church and it was beautiful.

Words spread slowly through the secret network of believers.

We learned there were more scattered throughout Yemen.

small groups and isolated individuals all trying to follow Jesus in hiding.

Someone knew someone who knew someone who might be a believer.

It was a delicate web of trust and one wrong connection could unravel everything.

After about 6 months, our group had grown to 15 people.

My apartment was too small and too risky.

Neighbors were starting to notice the foot traffic.

We needed a new location.

That’s when an older believer named Hassan approached me.

He owned a small shop in a quiet neighborhood.

He said he had a basement beneath the shop that no one knew about.

It was accessed through a hidden door.

He offered it to us.

I went to see it with Amira.

We moved a shelf aside in Hassan’s store room, pulled open a small door, and went down concrete steps into darkness.

Hassan turned on a single light bulb.

The basement was maybe 15 by 20 ft.

Concrete floor, concrete walls, no windows.

It smelled like dust and old stone, but it could be our church.

We cleaned it together.

the whole group.

We brought in some thin carpets to sit on.

We couldn’t bring much else.

It had to look unused in case anyone ever found it.

But we had light.

We had space together.

And we had each other.

The first service in that basement was one of the most powerful moments of my life.

18 believers gathered that Sunday morning, arriving one by one over 30 minutes.

We sat in a circle on the floor.

We couldn’t sing loudly, so we hummed and whispered hymns.

I taught from Acts about the early church that also met in secret that also faced persecution.

When I finished, old Fatima asked if we could take communion.

We didn’t have wine or bread, just water and some crackers.

But we remembered Jesus together.

We remembered his body broken and his blood poured out.

And in that basement, Jesus felt more present than I had ever experienced.

That became our rhythm.

Sunday mornings in the basement, never more than 20 people for safety.

We would pray, worship quietly, study the word, then slip out one by one back to our double lives.

My mother was so proud.

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