Reseach Paper

Christian Persecution
“Fear and faith cannot exist within my heart at the same time. When we live by faith, trusting the Lord moment by moment, fear has no room in the heart.” This is a quote from John Short, a Christian detained in North Korea. Christian persecution has been going on for thousands of years. Roman emperors were the first to persecute Christians, one of the cruelest was Nero. Today, North Korea is the worst country to live in if you are a Christian, they are doing everything to get the religion of Christianity out of their country. We can help with these people that are being persecuted for their faith. Christians have been persecuted every day for the past two thousand years, and right now North Korea is #1 on the World Watch List (a list that tracks and rates where Christian persecution is worst in the world), but we can help these Christians by doing some simple things.
Nero, the Roman’s cruelest emperor, killed thousands of Christians in his time. He wanted to kill the Christians because many people heard about Jesus and they grew interested in him and they wanted to know more, but Nero wanted them to pay attention to him not Jesus. So he tried to make Christians go away but instead he grew the population. Nero set a city on fire and blamed it on the Christians, the Christians that were arrested were killed. Nero would have night parties and would hang the Christians on crosses and set them on fire for illumination for his parties. He constantly wanted attention, during his parties he would ride on his chariot naked. Nero was an evil man, but since he was the emperor no one could stop him from doing these things to the Christians. Roman emperors wanted to persecute Christians because they wanted themselves to be worshiped and not God. Emperors were all about themselves not others.
North Korea has been #1 on the World Watch List for the past 14 years. Kim Jong-un is North Korea’s supreme leader. He is totally against Christianity. He wants everyone worshiping him, just like the Roman emperors, and if they get caught they will be arrested, imprisoned, and later killed. It is illegal for you to be a Christian in North Korea. Christians who live there are in a dangerous situation, they can’t tell their spouses or children about their faith, nor can they pray with their eyes closed. Christians who do try to escape from North Korea have to give up everything, they risk their lives. Like one person named Ae-cha, her husband had already been killed for his faith and she decided to flee. She made it to the border on an icy cold night. A iced over river was between her and her freedom. She decided to cross but she fell in and less than a minute later she passed out. Suddenly, she woke up with a jolt and miraculously found herself on the other side! Freedom! She was one of 300,000-500,000 Christians living in North Korea. We don’t know exactly how many Christians are there because North Korea is such a restricted country they have very little information coming in or out of it. Another story is about John Short, an Australian missionary. In 2014, he went to tour Pyongyang, a city in North Korea, to spread the word of Christ. The next day after police came to his room to question him about what he was doing in North Korea, they arrested him in and put him in prison. He was very recently released on March 3, 2017.
There are many ways people are helping with Christian persecution in North Korea. People will put Bibles inside balloons, attach a GPS and direct where to land the balloon for the right people to grab it and hide them. Another way is that people smuggle Bibles into the country through trucks with tarps over them. People are constantly giving food, medicine, clothes, and Bibles. Missionaries are going on “vacations” to North Korea, but instead they go to underground churches and preach about Jesus while they are there. People are risking their lives to spread the word of God.
Christians have been persecuted every day for the past two thousand years, and right now North Korea is #1 on the World Watch List, but we can help these Christians by doing some simple things. We can give food, medicine, Bibles, and clothes to the places that will distribute these things to the people who are being persecuted and need these things. We can visit the website www.opendoorsusa.org and they will tell you more ways to help there. We can send letters of encouragement to those who need it. We can also donate money and the right people will put it toward the right places. One of the biggest ways to help is to pray. Praying to God is a powerful way for us to communicate our longings for persecution to end to God. God hears us and we have to trust God’s sovereign ways.

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