Page 5 - Good News May 2011 paper

n North Korea there is room saw eight Christian prisoners
for only one god - the “Great carrying a big kettle holding
ILeader” Kim II Sung. It is molten iron. “An officer called to
estimated that some two them, using vile words,” she martyrs died.
hundred thousand people are writes. “Tomorrow is the day of “I looked at their
languishing in prison camps re-education training. As you s h r u n k e n
spread around the country, and know, it is held because of your b o d i e s a n d
tens of thousands of these are stubbornness…Tomorrow is wondered in my
Christians. ‘cleaning the mind’ day. You will heart, ‘What do
Author Soon Ok Lee met with go and tell everybody that there is they believe?
some of these captives during nothing in heaven to believe in; What do they
her own six years in prison. In there is no God. Otherwise you see in the empty
her book, Eyes of the Tailless will be killed. Understand?” sky? What could be more important than their lives?’”
Animals, she writes that impri- “When none of the eight Lee did not understand why these people were not afraid to die.
soned Christians, who worked prisoners said a word, the man “Their unbelievable faith brought a big question into my heart, ‘What
all day as slave labourers, were began to yell at them. He became did they see and what am I missing?’”
forced to keep their faces down- furious and started cursing. At Her question was answered after her miraculous release from prison
cast, eyes on the ground. It was the top of his voice, he screamed: in 1992, after which she put her faith in Jesus Christ. She came to
forbidden for them to look up ‘You sons of b----es! All eight of know the God Who lives in heaven but also, through His Holy Spirit,
toward the sky for one reason you come here and put your faces lives in the hearts of His followers on earth. She discovered that
only. Their captors knew that down to the ground!’ The Chris- Christians have hope, no matter what their circumstances.
they believed in the God Who tians followed his orders but [From: Singing through the Night, Anneke Companjen, Open Doors
created heaven and earth. remained silent. Other prisoners International, 2007].
During her imprisonment, Lee were called to the scene. They
was not a Christian, and she saw were forced to fill buckets with
many Christians die. “Yet they molten iron from the oven and
never denied the God Who is in pour it over the kneeling Chris-
heaven. All they had to do was tians. If they refused, they would
say they don’t believe in religion, die the same cruel death.”
and they would have been Lee goes on to describe how she
released.” saw the bodies of the eight
One night in February 1992 Lee Christians shrink and shrivel
witnessed a gruesome scene. from the melted metal’s intense
The imprisoned workers were heat. She and the other prisoners
almost done for the day, and she screamed in horror as the eight