Pray for our North Korean brothers and sisters

Kim Jong Il, the communist dictator of North Korea, died over the weekend. His death, and the succession of his youngest son to power, has prompted guesses on what this will mean for the people who suffer under probably the most repressive and cruel regime in the world. Kim and his father before him ruled over the people of North Korea for a combined 63 years.

North Korea is uniformly considered the most closed country in the world to outsiders. The information that has come out of that country provides a glimpse of horrible suffering by much of the population. While the Kim family, the military and the elites have benefited and/or lived extravagantly, most of the people have endured the consequences of a severe famine for more than 15 years.

In addition, any failure to revere their dictator can result in a person's imprisonment in a labor camp. His family members also can be imprisoned as well. These are wretched places marked by extreme forms of torture and execution. The most severe forms of punishment are meted out to Christians, according to reports from refugees. Of the estimated 200,000 political and religious prisoners in North Korea, from 50,000 to 70,000 are Christians, according to Open Doors, which serves the persecuted church around the world.

Open Doors has ranked North Korea as the world's foremost persecutor of Christians for nine consecutive years. Despite the persecution, the church has grown to about 400,000 Christians in a country of 20 million people, Open Doors estimates.

While the person who is its main Christian contact in North Korea does not expect the persecution to decrease under a new dictator, Open Doors is asking followers of Christ to pray for their brothers and sisters in that country during this time of transition. Certainly, we desire our kinsmen's suffering to be alleviated, but we also can pray for a God-glorifying endurance by the believers and for a wider door of opportunity for the spread of the gospel of Jesus.