Yesterday and the day before yesterday we read about Hea Woo, a North Korean Christian who fled her country’s brutal regime and came to faith in neighboring China. After her arrest and repatriation she was sent to a North Korean labor camp. Today we continue her story on the Loveritrea blog in the hope that we will be encouraged by what God has done in her life.
The guards took Hea Woo to a barrack she had to share with fifty other women. The beds were side by side. Every day had the same monotonous rhythm, she explains:
05.00 am - Wake up
05.30 am - Roll call in the barracks. “We lined up with our heads bowed until we were all accounted for. Then there was some time to wash ourselves.”
06.00 am - Breakfast. “We cued up again and slowly moved through the barrack where the food was distributed. This took a lot of time. We got only a small cup full of rice. Maybe about 2 or 3 spoons in total.”
08.00 am - “March to outside the camp, to the country side, where we had to do agricultural work. Until lunch time there was no break. Prisoners have no right to rest.”
12.00 am - “To the camp, lunch, walk back to the fields. About the same amount of food as during breakfast and dinner.”
02.00 pm - Back to work.
06.00 pm - Walk back to the camp and criticism session. “We had to criticize each other and ourselves about the things that we did wrong that day. After that: ‘dinner’.”
08.00 pm - Ideological training. “The hardest part of the day. We were hungry and weary. Our eyes fell closed. But we had to stay awake and pay attention or we would be punished.”
09.30 pm - Counting of the prisoners.
10.00 pm - Go to bed.
Asked what the worst event was during her stay in the camp, she remains silent. Then she says: “I could not tell you. Every day was like torture. I often had to think about God’s plagues for Egypt. Being in this concentration camp felt like undergoing all those ten plagues at the same time. People were dying and their corpses were burnt. The guards scattered the ashes over the road. We walked that road every day and each time I thought: one day the other prisoners will walk over me.”
Then comes a strong statement. “Despite everything, I remained faithful to God. I want you to write that down. I remained faithful and God helped me survive. Not only that, He gave me a heart to evangelize other prisoners. Frankly, I was too scared to do it. I wanted to live. How could God ask me to tell the other prisoners about Jesus? I would die if they caught me. God persisted. He showed me which prisoners I should approach. He gave me a feeling: ‘That person. Tell Him.’ So I went to the person and told him or her what is in Acts 16:3, that people have to believe in Jesus and that they and their households will be saved. It was an encouraging message for those prisoners, who walked on the edge of death each day. They were easily converted. Not only because of what I said. They saw the Spirit working in me. Sometimes I gave some of the little rice I got to others. When people were sick, I went to them and helped them with washing their clothes.”
And so a secret fellowship of Christians came into existence. “I tried to teach them the things I knew. Maybe that was not much and I did not have a Bible to read from. I could only share what I knew and the verses I remembered. On Sundays and on Christmas day, we would gather in secret places, like the restroom. There we would have a short worship meeting. I taught them hymns and we sang softly (Hea Woo whispers). All five of us survived the camp, because we looked after each other. We did not get into trouble despite our secret meetings.”
Read tomorrow the last episode of Hea Woo’s story about how Psalm 23 kept her alive.
The guards took Hea Woo to a barrack she had to share with fifty other women. The beds were side by side. Every day had the same monotonous rhythm, she explains:
05.00 am - Wake up
05.30 am - Roll call in the barracks. “We lined up with our heads bowed until we were all accounted for. Then there was some time to wash ourselves.”
06.00 am - Breakfast. “We cued up again and slowly moved through the barrack where the food was distributed. This took a lot of time. We got only a small cup full of rice. Maybe about 2 or 3 spoons in total.”
08.00 am - “March to outside the camp, to the country side, where we had to do agricultural work. Until lunch time there was no break. Prisoners have no right to rest.”
12.00 am - “To the camp, lunch, walk back to the fields. About the same amount of food as during breakfast and dinner.”
02.00 pm - Back to work.
06.00 pm - Walk back to the camp and criticism session. “We had to criticize each other and ourselves about the things that we did wrong that day. After that: ‘dinner’.”
08.00 pm - Ideological training. “The hardest part of the day. We were hungry and weary. Our eyes fell closed. But we had to stay awake and pay attention or we would be punished.”
09.30 pm - Counting of the prisoners.
10.00 pm - Go to bed.
Asked what the worst event was during her stay in the camp, she remains silent. Then she says: “I could not tell you. Every day was like torture. I often had to think about God’s plagues for Egypt. Being in this concentration camp felt like undergoing all those ten plagues at the same time. People were dying and their corpses were burnt. The guards scattered the ashes over the road. We walked that road every day and each time I thought: one day the other prisoners will walk over me.”
Then comes a strong statement. “Despite everything, I remained faithful to God. I want you to write that down. I remained faithful and God helped me survive. Not only that, He gave me a heart to evangelize other prisoners. Frankly, I was too scared to do it. I wanted to live. How could God ask me to tell the other prisoners about Jesus? I would die if they caught me. God persisted. He showed me which prisoners I should approach. He gave me a feeling: ‘That person. Tell Him.’ So I went to the person and told him or her what is in Acts 16:3, that people have to believe in Jesus and that they and their households will be saved. It was an encouraging message for those prisoners, who walked on the edge of death each day. They were easily converted. Not only because of what I said. They saw the Spirit working in me. Sometimes I gave some of the little rice I got to others. When people were sick, I went to them and helped them with washing their clothes.”
And so a secret fellowship of Christians came into existence. “I tried to teach them the things I knew. Maybe that was not much and I did not have a Bible to read from. I could only share what I knew and the verses I remembered. On Sundays and on Christmas day, we would gather in secret places, like the restroom. There we would have a short worship meeting. I taught them hymns and we sang softly (Hea Woo whispers). All five of us survived the camp, because we looked after each other. We did not get into trouble despite our secret meetings.”
Read tomorrow the last episode of Hea Woo’s story about how Psalm 23 kept her alive.
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