One of the recently released American prisoners in North Korea says his crime was prayer. Kim Hak Song told of his year-long ordeal in a North Korean prison at his home church, the Oriental Mission Church in East Hollywood, California in the USA.
He told fellow worshipers that his time was not wasted.
Kim was seized in May 2017 while travelling from North Korea to China by train. Before he crossed the border he was approached by the North Korean security service who accused him of hostile acts toward North Korea.
“I was thinking, I don’t know what I did wrong.”
When he asked his captors what hostile acts he reportedly committed against North Korea, he was informed that his misdeed was prayer.
It was a shocking reflection to realise that the prayer he understood was normal, the North Korean regime said it wasn’t.
Born to North Korean parents living in China, Kim moved to the US in the mid-190s, got his citizenship and attended seminary. It was while studying, he said, that he had developed enthusiasm in for the North Korean plight.
After his ordination in 2004, he returned to China to study agriculture. He had gone to China with the blessing and financial support of the Oriental Mission congregation. But he had ventured into North Korea, he said, without discussing it with the church members back home.
Rev. Peter Joo, a pastor at Oriental Mission Church, an Independent Holiness Church, said when they found out Song had moved to North Korea,
“We prayed for safety because we know what is happening in North Korea.”
Their fears were realised when Kim was arrested. Besides the crime of prayer, his captors showed him an email he had sent to the elders of the Oriental Mission Church asking them to pray for the people of North Korea. They also had records showing he had led early morning prayer for a worship group.
Kim did not waste his time behind bars as God continued using him there. While detained, an officer asked him to write about Christianity. He said he started with Genesis, the first book of the Bible.
“I was grateful and thankful that at this time I was able to share God’s message to this person,” he said.
He also said he devoted a lot of time during his incarceration in prayer—confessing his sins, big and small, being thankful and asking God to watch over his family.
The day he got freed he collected his few belongings and his Bible and boarded a plane for the United States, thankful to God for his deliverance.
When he and his fellow captives boarded Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s plane they handed him this note:
“God’s miracles still happen,” Kim Hak Song said during his sermon. “And prayer is still very important.”
Source: churchleaders.com
