“Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds; tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.” (Deuteronomy 11:18-20)
When Teaching Your Children Could Cost You Everything
Ji Ho’s father was taken when she was young. She never really understood why, only that one day he was there, and the next he was gone. “I’ve realised that’s why my father was taken – they saw he had a Lord that was bigger than our country’s leaders,” Ji Ho now says. In North Korea, teaching your children about Jesus isn’t just dangerous – it’s often a death sentence. (Open Doors)
The government requires that all North Koreans act as informants, and children are taught to spy on their parents from a young age. (Voice of the Martyrs Canada) Teachers even enlisted their pupils to spy on their parents for signs of religious activity. (VOM Radio) Imagine trying to raise your children in the faith while knowing they could be the ones who inadvertently turn you in. One innocent comment at school, one overheard prayer, one question about why Mommy closes her eyes when she talks to someone they can’t see—and the entire family could be sent to a labor camp.
According to Open Doors USA, life for Christians in North Korea is “a constant cauldron of pressure; capture or death is only a mistake away.” Parents often hide their faith from their children, with worship done “as secretly as possible.” Think about that for a moment – parents hiding their faith from their own children because the risk is too great. (Open Doors)
Yet somehow, incredibly, faith still passes from generation to generation.
The Stump Believers
Based on his experience, a North Korean defector named Illyong describes a group of Christians in North Korea, known as “Stump Believers.” Stump Believers are faithful believers who have been Christians since before the regime’s establishment and continue to secretly pass down their faith to their children. (Persecution.org)
Before Korea was divided, Pyongyang was known as “the Jerusalem of the East” with over 2,000 churches. When Kim Il-sung took power and established the oppressive Juche ideology, which requires worship of the Kim family, Christians faced a choice: renounce their faith or go underground. Those who chose the latter became known as “Stump Believers.”
Like a tree cut down to its stump that continues to send up new shoots, these believers have quietly, carefully, dangerously passed their faith to their children for three generations now. Stump believers continue to secretly preach the gospel to their children to this day.
But how do you teach Deuteronomy 11:18-20 when you can’t “talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road”? When you can’t “write them on the doorframes of your houses”? When the very act of teaching could result in your entire family – parents, children, and even grandchildren – being classified as “hostile” and sent to labor camps?
The Impossible Task of Faithful Parents
According to messages sent from North Korean believers, their main concern is how they can pass on their Christian faith to their children, the next generation of the North Korean church. “But it’s hard – North Koreans have been taught to hate Christianity their whole lives. They are officially taught that Christians, especially pastors and missionaries, are spies or enemies. Christians are targeted, and must be rooted out and eradicated in North Korea.”
North Korean parents face an unimaginable challenge. To share such precious truth with a child is to be vulnerable to the child making a slip in front of friends or teachers. The consequences are disastrous. The family members of reported Christians are also targeted, including children. The youngest recorded detainee was two years old at the time of arrest. Two years old – a toddler arrested and imprisoned because someone in the family believed in Jesus!
Yet these parents persist. They teach in whispers. They teach through example more than words. They pray silently with their eyes open. In North Korea, faith is often passed down within families, with parents secretly teaching their children about Christianity. This quiet evangelism allows Christianity to survive in a country without open worship. (The Interim)
When the Bible Is Too Dangerous to Own
Owning a Bible or even portions of Scripture is extremely risky in North Korea. Nevertheless, bold Christians work to bring God’s Word to the North Korean people, few of whom have ever had access to Scripture because of the regime’s unceasing efforts to restrict access. Most of North Korea’s underground Christians have found that memorization is the safest way to preserve God’s Word. (Coeur d’Alene Press)
Parents can’t hand their children a Bible to read. They can’t put up Scripture verses on the refrigerator. They can’t play Christian music or watch VeggieTales. Everything must be hidden, memorized, internalized. And then, when the moment is right and the child is old enough to understand the gravity of what’s being shared, parents must somehow communicate: “This is worth dying for.”
Ji Ho experienced this herself. After her father was taken, she began listening to secret Christian radio broadcasts from outside North Korea. “I’d come home, exhausted from the work in the fields, my heart still hurting at the loss of my father, and I’d think about the poem I’d heard on the radio: ‘The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want’.” Through these broadcasts, she began to understand what her father had died for.
Supernatural Courage for Dangerous Faith
“I know that it would be dangerous to tell anyone about Jesus,” says Ji Ho. “Our leaders don’t want us to worship anyone or anything besides them.” Yet despite this terrible cost, she continues to follow Jesus. And one day, if God grants her children, she will face the same impossible choice her father did, whether to teach them about Jesus, knowing it could cost them everything.
This is where your prayer becomes vital. These parents need an anointed ability to teach God’s Word in purity and power. They need supernatural wisdom to know when and how to share their faith with their children. They need courage to pass on a dangerous faith. And they need God to protect their children’s hearts and minds.
Despite this terrible cost, more and more North Koreans are encountering Jesus and deciding to follow Him. Even in this desperate situation, the church is growing. God is doing something miraculous in the hardest place on earth to be a Christian.
Beyond North Korea
North Korea represents the extreme end of the persecution spectrum, but Christian parents in many other nations face similar challenges. In Iran, parents must be careful what they teach their children about Jesus, knowing that schools actively work to indoctrinate children in Islamic ideology and report families showing signs of conversion. In parts of India, Christian parents face violence from Hindu nationalists if their children are seen carrying Bibles or attending church. In China, children under 18 are often banned from attending church, forcing parents to disciple them entirely at home.
In Somalia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and dozens of other countries, Christian parents wrestle with how to raise their children in the faith while protecting them from persecution. They must teach them to be “wise as serpents and innocent as doves” – to know when to speak and when to remain silent, how to live boldly for Christ while not drawing unnecessary attention.
The Power of Generational Faith
What’s remarkable is that despite all these obstacles, faith continues to pass from generation to generation. Despite severe persecution, the Bible has become known in North Korean markets as a “book of blessings” Children who grow up watching their parents risk everything for Jesus learn that Christ is worth more than safety, more than comfort, more than life itself.
These children are being raised with a clarity of purpose that most Western children never experience. They understand from a young age that following Jesus has a cost. They see their parents model courage and vision. They witness firsthand what it means to treasure God’s Word above all else.
Ji Ho says, “I’ll continue to learn more about Jesus and how I can follow Him more closely.” This young woman, who lost her father to persecution, who lives in constant danger, who cannot openly worship or own a Bible – she’s choosing to continue in faith. That’s the fruit of faithful parenting in the darkest places.
Our Part in Their Story
When we pray for Christian parents in persecuted lands, we’re asking God to do the supernatural. We’re asking Him to give them wisdom beyond human capability, courage beyond natural strength, and anointing beyond normal teaching ability. We’re asking Him to protect children from fear, to give them understanding beyond their years, and to develop in them an unwavering commitment to God and His Word.
These prayers matter. God hears them. And He uses them to strengthen parents who are doing the hardest job in the world, raising children to follow Jesus in places where that choice could cost them their lives.
Organizations like Open Doors and Voice of the Martyrs work to support these families through secret radio broadcasts that disciple believers, through smuggled Bibles and Christian materials, through food and medicine distributed via underground networks. Daily broadcasts include Scripture reading, Bible studies and more. They help disciple and encourage the underground church in North Korea, while sometimes also being the first time someone hears the name of Jesus at all.
But ultimately, it’s parents – faithful, courageous, Spirit-empowered parents – who are ensuring the next generation knows Jesus. They’re living out Deuteronomy 11:18-20 in the most dangerous way possible, and their faithfulness is bearing fruit.
A Challenge for All Parents
If you’re a parent reading this, let these stories challenge you. Can your children see that Jesus is the most important thing in your life? Are you teaching them God’s Word “when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up”? Would they know what you believe if everything comfortable and safe were stripped away?
North Korean parents would give anything for the freedom you have to openly teach your children about Jesus. Don’t waste it. Use it. Treasure it. And pray fervently for those who don’t have it.
Dear Lord, Father to every child, we pray for Christian parents around the world who are faithfully teaching their children Your Word under threat of persecution. Give them supernatural wisdom to know when and how to share their faith. Empower them to model lives of courage and vision. Grant them an anointed ability to teach Your Word in purity and power. We pray for the children growing up in these dark lands – give them supernatural courage and understanding. Develop in them an unwavering commitment to You and Your Word. May they one day rejoice in a ministry of their own, carrying the torch of faith to the next generation. In Jesus’ victorious name, Amen.
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Blogs about today’s persecuted church:
A Month of Prayers for the Persecuted Church – 31 prayers based on Scripture
Standing with Our Persecuted Brothers and Sisters – a short, simple reminder that we Christians are all one in Christ, called to love and support each other
When the Bible Becomes Precious – sometimes we forget the value of the Treasure we see every day
Never Alone: God’s Presence in the Prison Cell – Petr Jasek proves Hebrews 13:5, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.”
One Body, Many Members: When the Church Suffers Together – reporting on an occasion when the Church stood together in prayer to support a member of our Body
The God of All Comfort: When Martyrdom Leaves Families Behind – in some dark lands, spiritual warfare can be fatal
Passing the Torch: Teaching Faith in the World’s Darkest Places – teaching children about God is risky in North Korea, maybe even a capital crime
Water for a Thirsty Soul: The Desperate Hunger for God’s Word – stories of hope and joy when Bibles reach believers eager to read God’s Word
Here are links to my blog indexes, so please click one and keep reading!
My Books, Workbooks, and Fun Books
Knowing the Unknowable One
Opening the Treasure Chest
Walking Heart-to-Heart with God
Walking Heart-to-Heart with Each Other
Fighting the Good Fight of Faith
Christian Mysteries: Why I Love Them!
List of Some Nonfiction Books You Don’t Want to Miss
Index of Assorted Topics