Source: www.MNNonline.org
Date: January 27, 2021
North Korea (MNN) — The U.S has a new president, and with that comes a new policy for handling North Korea. President Biden has voiced a desire to encourage denuclearization in North Korea and wants to work with allies in the region to accomplish this goal. However, the administration has not yet unveiled a detailed plan.
President Donald Trump became the first sitting U.S. president to meet with North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un when they held a summit in June of 2018. The leaders met twice more, but no deal was reached.
(Map of North Korea courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)
Eric Foley of The Voice of the Martyrs Korea says most North Koreans won’t notice a difference in how the U.S. administrations handle the North Korean government. “Most North Korean people have very low levels of awareness of the international political dealings of their government. They know only what they hear. They describe themselves as being like frogs in a well, only seeing the space that’s directly above their heads.”
Nor have these kinds of politics created much change in the past, Foley says. Twenty years ago, he was told it was pointless to work with North Korea because the political environment would lead to the collapse of the government. That didn’t happen.
Focus on the mission
Foley and his team don’t worry about international politics but focus on getting Bibles to North Korean Christians. He describes how this process works. “It’s a network of people that are already there, inside North Korea, China, Russia, Mongolia, Southeast Asia. We are wherever North Koreans are found. They’re found in all those places because they’re sent out by North Korea to make money for the government. We find them in the upper reaches of the taiga in Russia. We find them working on construction in Dubai. In all of those places, North Koreans need the Bible. And it is their fellow North Koreans for getting it to them.”
Foley asks readers to pray for every person involved in this process, and that the Holy Spirit would be present in each step. “Sometimes people talk about the Underground Railroad or people escaping from North Korea. But I think the far more daring thing is this supply chain of Bibles that makes it possible for the Bible to reach North Koreans wherever they’re found.”
The Monument of Party Founding in Pyongyang, North Korea. (Photo courtesy of Steve Barker on Unsplash)