Three escapes, two imprisonments and a heritage of faith

“My grandmother was a Christian, but I never knew,” says Jung Jik*. “Every morning, when she cooked rice, she would mumble. Before she went to sleep, she sat down and mumbled. I thought she believed in some superstition, but looking back, I now know that it was prayer.”

She couldn’t talk about her faith – even children were known to tell the authorities about their relatives’ secret Christianity, and it would lead to her imprisonment or execution. But Jung Jik’s grandmother could pray. And that would have a profound impact.
 

A message from prison

The authorities knew that his father had become a Christian and that’s why he was sent to prison. Jung Jik was unable to visit him, but his siblings did – and, before he died whilst still detained, he had a message for them. “He wrote on their hands that he was a follower of Jesus,” says Jung Jik.

Jung Jik’s was born in the 1960s. From an early age, indoctrination from the regime was quick and effective – he was told that Kim Il-sung (founder and first leader of North Korea) was the only god, and he even thanked him when buying sweets from the shop.

  When his father fled North Korea during the devastating Arduous March – a famine that led to the starvation of three million people – Jung Jik was angry. “I thought that he only wanted food for himself, so he would survive,” says Jung Jik.

But his father went on to discover far more than just food. “In this foreign land, my father found out that his grandfather was a famous Korean martyr who was murdered by North Korean soldiers during the Korean War,” continues Jung Jik. “My father became a Christian himself. After some time, he was arrested and deported back to North Korea.”

“Today, I think that because my father devoted himself to Jesus, the rest of my family could follow suit – we could go out of the country and be survivors there, come out from North Korea, and believe in Jesus. In the Bible, one seed buried on the ground can become a big tree. I’d like to believe this is what happened with my father’s faith.”
 

Nameless and numbered

Like his father when he escaped, Jung Jik was also captured after fleeing North Korea. Whilst he wasn’t tortured as harshly as his father was (he wasn’t a Christian at the time), the experience was still an horrific one.

  “In prison, you are no longer considered human,” says Jung Jik. “They never called me by name, but by a number. There was hardly any food. The husks of corn had no salt in them, otherwise prisoners would have energy to escape. The prison cell was very small. We were cramped, with 30 people inside. I couldn’t even lie down. If you wanted to sleep, you had to lean against the prisoner next to you.”

After 20 days in prison, Jung Jik managed to escape over a wall overlaid with electric wires. “I found a hook and threw it against the wires,” he says. “No sparks. I knew that, because of the blackouts, there was no electricity. I walked into the corner and, when the guard turned away, I climbed over the wall.”
 

Escaping guard and encountering God

After crossing the border a second time, Jung Jik was cared for by a church. It’s where, for the first time, he learned Bible verses, discovered about prayer and even experienced the Holy Spirit – all of which helped him when he was captured again and taken back to the prison he had previously escaped from. “For the first time in my life, I really prayed to God: ‘Holy God, if You exist, please let me live!’”

Jung Jik’s heart sunk when, one day, he saw the guard on whose duty he had earlier escaped from. “I prayed to God that he wouldn’t recognise me. He pointed at me. But thankfully, it wasn’t because he knew I was the prisoner who escaped from his clutches; he was just selecting me to do some work outside the prison.”

That evening in his prison cell, Jung Jik thanked God for saving him and said, “If You open the way, I will study the Bible.” He heard a voice reply, “Alright.” The next day, a prison guard told Jung Jik to go to his house to fetch him alcohol. He gave him an hour to get it. Jung Jik left and didn’t return.
 

A familiar song

Leaving North Korea for the third time, Jung Jik returned to the church where he was earlier cared for – but this time he was a believer. He studied the Bible for a few years and his passion to tell others about Jesus grew. Eventually, he sensed a calling to return to his homeland. “I left as a traitor, but now, I was determined to return as an evangelist.”

  “I prepared myself to go back that winter,” he continues. “The border river is usually frozen around that time. That was the case when I crossed the border. However, the ice was very thin. I had to lie on my stomach and crawl over the ice like a snake to avoid breaking the ice.”

Across the border, Jung Jik met a family and, after staying them for two days, he recognised the song hummed by the 73-year-old grandmother. It was ‘Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so’. Jung Jik asked her how she knew the song, and she said that, before the Korean War, her mother took her to church. Jung Jik shared his faith and the family gave their lives to Jesus!

Because of the dangers for him and the family, Jung Jik could stay only a few days, but with the winter almost over, the ice was melting, making it difficult for Jung Jik to escape.
 
“We prayed together the whole night. The very next day, there was a very heavy snow and very cold wind, and all the streams and the rivers froze! The family came to me and said: ‘Uncle, God is really alive!’ I asked them, ‘How so?’ They replied, ‘We were praying, and it happened! A few days ago, the ice melted. Now, the river is fully frozen!’

“When I came to North Korea, I crossed the river like a snake, but when I left, I crossed the river dancing!”

“God uses your prayers”

Jung Jik now lives in South Korea with his second wife and their child. His first wife divorced him when he fled the country. They have a child together who is in North Korea. “Pray that I will see my child again and I can tell them about Jesus myself,” he says.

  “Don’t be disappointed when you pray,” says Jung Jik. “God uses your prayers. There still is a large underground church. Because you pray, many people are miraculously healed, and they experience God’s power. They come to faith. The seed of the gospel never dries up. Thanks to your faithful support and prayers, the doors of North Korea will open so that more people will get to know God. Because of your prayers, the underground church in North Korea is expanding.

“If I had only walked an easy path, I don’t think I will believe in God so much. Suffering is beneficial. This is why I’m believing in God. In those sufferings and those difficult times, in these trials, I experience how God answers my prayers, and this is how I now believe that God is a living God. I want to follow Him until the end.”

*Name changed for security reasons