In the past three days 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. God used her to convert five prisoners. 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.
Hea Woo and her secret fellowship were never discovered. All six of them survived the camp. Just once, a short time for before Hea Woo was to be released, she was almost caught. “I was allowed to work alone. So I could sing softly, but in my enthusiasm it got louder. A nearby guard heard me singing and ordered me in. He was very upset. ‘What did you sing?’ he kept asking. I told him it was a political song. He said he heard something else. ‘You could not hear correctly,’ I answered. ‘I was far away.’ He let me go, only giving me a sentence of going one day without food, but I noticed that he was still very suspicious. Each time he noticed me, he looked intently at me. I got afraid and I asked God if He could please take the guard away from me. Ten days later, I saw the guard running out of his barrack, vomiting. Later I heard he had to go to the hospital for two months. He would not trouble me anymore. Only a few days later, I was released.”
God kept her alive in the North Korean gulag. Hea Woo is still very grateful for that. She prayed if she could go to South Korea. Her son had already arrived there and hired various brokers to get his mother to the south as well. “I am so happy here,” Hea Woo repeats. “I am not rich compared to most people here, but I have Jesus in my heart. He is the Shepherd of Psalm 23, the psalm of my life. I meditated on it every day in labor camp. Maybe I was in prison. It did not matter. The situation I was in had no impact on who Jesus is. He is my Shepherd. I felt peaceful despite the circumstances. Even though I was in the valley of death, I did not fear anything. God comforted me every day. A few times in a very special way: when God literally spoke to me and told me I was His beloved daughter. I just knew that God was preparing a table for me. He would bless me and glorify me. Maybe in this life, maybe in the next. It did and does not matter. I will dwell with him forever.”
Hea Woo and her secret fellowship were never discovered. All six of them survived the camp. Just once, a short time for before Hea Woo was to be released, she was almost caught. “I was allowed to work alone. So I could sing softly, but in my enthusiasm it got louder. A nearby guard heard me singing and ordered me in. He was very upset. ‘What did you sing?’ he kept asking. I told him it was a political song. He said he heard something else. ‘You could not hear correctly,’ I answered. ‘I was far away.’ He let me go, only giving me a sentence of going one day without food, but I noticed that he was still very suspicious. Each time he noticed me, he looked intently at me. I got afraid and I asked God if He could please take the guard away from me. Ten days later, I saw the guard running out of his barrack, vomiting. Later I heard he had to go to the hospital for two months. He would not trouble me anymore. Only a few days later, I was released.”
God kept her alive in the North Korean gulag. Hea Woo is still very grateful for that. She prayed if she could go to South Korea. Her son had already arrived there and hired various brokers to get his mother to the south as well. “I am so happy here,” Hea Woo repeats. “I am not rich compared to most people here, but I have Jesus in my heart. He is the Shepherd of Psalm 23, the psalm of my life. I meditated on it every day in labor camp. Maybe I was in prison. It did not matter. The situation I was in had no impact on who Jesus is. He is my Shepherd. I felt peaceful despite the circumstances. Even though I was in the valley of death, I did not fear anything. God comforted me every day. A few times in a very special way: when God literally spoke to me and told me I was His beloved daughter. I just knew that God was preparing a table for me. He would bless me and glorify me. Maybe in this life, maybe in the next. It did and does not matter. I will dwell with him forever.”
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