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To protect the safety of our sources and the people involved, we cannot give names or locations, but this year, multiple Christians have been discovered and arrested by the North Korean authorities.
For believers in North Korea, this is one of the greatest dangers they can face.
To own a Bible, to pray at home, or to meet with others in secret is enough to be branded an enemy of the state. This is why for 30-plus years, North Korea has ranked at or near the top of Open Doors' World Watch List—the annual list of the 50 places where it's most difficult to follow Jesus.
When a Christian is arrested in North Korea, their arrest is usually followed by days of harsh interrogation at a local police station. Beatings, sleep deprivation, and psychological pressure are routine. Prisoners are pressed to betray relatives or fellow worshipers.
Many Christians—especially leaders or those accused of organizing underground worship—are sent to the kwan-li-so, the inhumane political prison camps known as total control zones. Prisoners there are never released. Entire families may be taken, condemned to a lifetime of forced labor, hunger, and abuse, often until they die.
Others—sometimes families of believers or those caught with "lesser" offenses—are sent to the kyohwa-so, the "re-education through labor" camps, where they serve long but technically limited sentences. Conditions there are still brutal: prisoners face exhausting labor, starvation, torture, and disease. Many people never make it out alive, simply from the horrific conditions in the camps.
Despite the threat of arrest, imprisonment and death, the underground church does not give up. Faith cannot be destroyed by chains. Even in the hardest places, Christians cling to the scriptures they have memorized and seek ways to encourage one another in secret.
The way they utter their prayers may seem like a "soundless amen," but the Lord hears every intercession and every cry for help.
Will you join us in praying for those arrested this year? You may not know their names, but God does. He has inscribed His people "on the palms of [His] hands" (Isaiah 49:16). He is a "refuge in times of trouble; He cares for those who trust in Him" (Nahum 1:7).
Pray these promises for your brothers and sisters sitting in the darkness of the North Korean penal system.
Remember those in prison as if you were together with them in prison, and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering. (Hebrews 13:3)
