Rejoice in Suffering

Session #3

I would like to read to you a story as we continue to talk about rejoicing in suffering.

Han Chung-Ryeol and Grace Jeon

China

2016 The day Pastor Han and his wife, Grace, learned he was on a North Korean “hit list,” they weren’t really surprised.

At least four people Pastor Han had led to Christ had been executed by the North Korean government already, and some were arrested and never heard from again.

Others they knew were in prison in North Korea.

The question wasn’t whether they were in danger; the question was what to do about it. And the answer would not be to stop doing what they knew God wanted them to do.

Because of this, Pastor Han, his wife, Grace, and other Christian leaders came into agreement on a number of security precautions designed to protect Pastor Han while allowing him to continue his ministry to North Koreans who snuck over the border into China looking for food and help for their families back in North Korea.

Soon after they’d moved to Changbai as pastors in 1993, Pastor Han and his wife began pouring themselves into helping North Koreans. Changbai is just north of North Korea on the other side of a mountain that forms part of the border.

When famine hit North Korea in the late 1990s and people risked their lives to cross the border looking for ways to save their families from starvation, there was nothing to do but help.

Over the years, Pastor Han’s purpose became clear: to help North Koreans coming over the border in any way he could and preach the gospel to them.

Then he trained those who placed their trust in Christ to take the gospel back to North Korea.

In 2014, one of Pastor Han’s disciples, Deacon Jang, was kidnapped in North Korea and mercilessly interrogated. (Deacon Jang remains imprisoned in North Korea as of this writing.) Knowing the threat this meant to himself and all the people they had helped over the years, Pastor Han called some of the other North Korean believers to warn them.

“We are ready to die for Jesus,” they told him. Both Pastor Han and his wife, Grace, sometimes wondered if they should give up the work. They knew some of the people they helped were North Korean spies, but there was no way to tell them from those genuinely in need of help.

“Always we had to . . . be careful,” she said.

“We were thinking to leave there several times, but God stopped us.”

Unfortunately, one day, in answer to what he felt was an urgent call from someone in need, Pastor Han fell into a trap laid by North Korean assassins.

On April 30, at about 1:30 in the afternoon, Pastor Han received a phone call.

His wife didn’t hear whom her husband was talking to, and she left for home without asking him who had called. Around dinnertime, she became concerned because he hadn’t called home as he normally did when he was working late. When she couldn’t reach him by phone, she called the police. By 7:00 p.m., they had found his body. Pastor Han was in his car, in a remote area near the North Korean border. He had been stabbed in the heart, and an artery in his neck had been slashed—a method commonly used by North Korean assassins. In addition, he had seven deep wounds to his head, which showed the rage of his killers. For a time, Pastor Han’s wife feared and was deeply suspicious of any North Koreans who came her way. Then she saw a news report while in South Korea and came to a realization: “Kim Jong Un, the leader, has to be transformed first and then the country will be transformed,” she said. I would rather be hanged than betray my Lord.