Mr. Kim is a North Korea defector. He now lives in South Korea with 12 or 13 thousand others in his situation. 300,000 more are scattered across China and Southeast Asia . They live as beggars. Even though Kim was a commissioned officer in the North Korean military, he joined the line of NK beggars in China when he became disillusioned by the system of that other Kim ruling North Korea .

NK defectors hide out in China trying to avoid the Public Security Bureau of that nation. If they are caught, these "national traitors" will be sent back to prison or execution. The only people they can rely on are the Korean-Chinese churches. He decided to go to one of those churches in Yanji [ China ].

"The church opened the door to me, but the moment I passed through the door, I got to meet a stranger known as ‘God.' We were introduced in a worship service. As days went by I came to the conclusion that God was actually the same as Kim Jung-il. Both made promises about people's futures and destinies. The Scriptures quoted sounded like Kim quotations. Of course I had learned that those quotations were worthless.

"Even prayer time reminded me of how we learned to criticize ourselves in the ‘Life Harmony' period every week. It made me very sad. There was even a trinity, like we had: leader, party, people. 600 songs of praise to the Kims were in our NK songbook. But the Christian hymnal I now used had only 558 songs. I felt the invisible Christian God must be weaker. I felt sorry for these people.

"The truth is, I refused God. But I could not leave because I had nowhere to go, nothing to eat. Then one day I overheard the prayers of some of these Christians. The temperature was minus 30, but they were sweating due to the passion of their prayers! They prayed for my starving people, and the defectors wandering around China . How could I criticize people like this?

"Still, when I was asked to copy the entire Bible by hand as part of discipleship training... it was too much. The pastor said he would send me to South Korea if I copied the Bible one time. But I abandoned this project, left the church. It was February of 1997. I wandered around until I found a ship getting ready to sail to South Korea . While waiting, I was arrested...

"They put handcuffs on me and forced me to return to NK due to the fact that I was a high level military officer and had tried to board a ship to South Korea . The "PSB" turned me over to the State Security Agency who began to torture me terribly as they interrogated me. All of the bones in my fingers were broken, and my mouth was torn. I came to have blood all over my body and was sent to my prison cell after less than an hour.

"After 9 days, three of my fellow officers showed up. It looked like a public trial was coming, with the resultant public execution. I began to pray to the God I had rejected. All during the three day trip to the location of the execution I prayed desperately for God's help. I told Him I wanted to live, that I would give my life to Him if he saved me. The soldiers began to ridicule me, and thought I was so crazy that they began to be a little careless in their guarding of me.

"As we neared Pyongyang , our destination, I stood up to go the washroom, thinking how I could make my break. The bathroom was in such bad shape that the officer kept his distance behind me. It seemed that maybe this would be my chance to escape. Without thinking it through I just jumped off the moving train by launching my whole body through the window frame. I must have aged 1000 years in that moment. I knew I had to risk death if I wanted to live..."

I will continue this story in my next time together with you. Meanwhile, why not listen to the very voice of Mr. Kim as he reads from the first chapters of Matthew, presents a Bible drama about those chapters, and then reads from Richard Wurmbrand's "Tortured for Christ."

One thing: It's all in the Korean language, North Korean dialect. Listen as long as you can, but please tell your Korean friends about this exciting man and his message, and yes, pray for his safety and encouragement. One million North Koreans can tune him in every day! Can you imagine how powerfully Jesus Christ is being represented in North Korea this very day? What a breakthrough! What an opportunity!