ICC Note:

Hae Woo was imprisoned in a failed attempt to defect from North Korea. Rather than cowering in fear she used her time in prison to share the Gospel with her inmates and start a church. On Sundays they would meet near the toilets or an area of the prison the guards would avoid. Hae Woo recounted that if they had been caught, “…I would certainly be executed.” North Korea is one of the harshest persecutors of Christianity. Christians and defectors are often placed in labor camps where they are starved, tortured, and killed.      

10/20/2016 North Korea (National Catholic Register) – As she languished in a North Korean prison camp for the crime of trying to escape her repressive homeland, Hae Woo furtively spread the word of God.

Offering a message of hope inside hell on earth, she won a handful of converts, and a tiny secret church was formed. On Sundays and religious holidays, the faithful few would gather to worship at the toilets or another unwatched corner of their wretched home.

“I remained faithful, and God helped me to survive. Even more: He gave me a desire to evangelize among the other prisoners!” Hae Woo said in testimony provided to the Register byOpen Doors, a charity working to end the persecution of Christians around the world. “But I told God that I was too scared to do so. If I were caught, I would certainly be executed.”

Hae Woo (a pseudonym provided to protect her identity), who found Christianity in China during a botched defection attempt, was ultimately able to flee to South Korea, where she can now freely practice her faith. But for Christians still living under Kim Jong-un’s regime, who activists believe could number in the hundreds of thousands, worshipping openly carries the risk of being sent to a labor camp, where malnourishment, torture and death are commonplace.

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