Back from Asia

Hello everyone!

It has been a long few months but I am back in Kansas City now! There is so much to share about my time in China and North Korea.  I will try and summarize my time there and share with you my love for these places.  For safety of the people we served, I can't put names of people or some pictures up on the internet.  If you want to know more about what God is doing in Northeast China and NK, I can show you in person or email you on a protected network (VPN).  After one person blogged about the underground church and NK refugee work, some of the missionaries and locals were arrested in China and imprisoned.  So seeing as their lives and the work they are doing for the gospel are so important to me, I would rather protect them if that's ok.

Part of my team leaving Kona for Beijing

Our team left Kona at the end of March and headed for Beijing first.  Our main reason for spending 10 days there was to get oriented for our time in NK by a man who has been there many times and has his green card.  He heads to Pyongyang often and is known by the government there as "the one who never bows down" to the idol of Kim Il Sung.  I was shocked by the faith and total surrender of the missionaries I met.  They risk their lives to carry the love of Jesus to China and nk.  If you have any idea of what is going on in nk you will know that this is true.  They fear any western influence.  While we were in Beijing we visited a few orphanages and underground churches.  We got to pray with the believers and fellowship with them, give our testimonies, and treat them medically as best as we could.  When I decided to go to China/nk I knew I wouldn't be able to do formal medical work or run clinics without getting into some trouble with the communist gov't.  So we got our medicine into the country and treated people that we visited.   Refugees from nk cannot go to the doctor in China or they will be sent back to their country and placed in repatriotism camps or killed, so we gave medicine and visited many that were in need of care.

The beautiful Great Wall of China

eating some Korean cuisine with my Brazilian friend Talitha

praying with some underground church members

orphanage

orphanage

Chinese guards at the Forbidden City

We left Beijing for Yanji around April 7th.  Yanji is a cold city more northeast than Beijing.  It is about 2 hours from the border of nk and closer to Mongolia and Russia as well.  This is a very strategic city in its location.  Many missionaries live here and are trying to run businesses here so they can remain in China and reach nk.  This community is unlike anything I have ever seen and I was so blessed by their unity with one another.  They are all focusing on different businesses that will help the needy in nk and they are all for one another in support.  For example, there is a trading company that gives boots to children in nk, another company that makes sanitary napkins for the women there who suffer from infections, a medical doctor who is teaching in one of the universities in nk who has had tremendous favor with the local gov't and been able to travel around their country setting up quality clinics.  All of these people want to ulimately live inside nk and show the love of Christ to the people while also taking care of their needs. 

Yanji, China

Border of DPRK at Tumen River

Yambien University of Science and Technology in Yanji, China

Plans to get into NK using business as a cover

Pyongyang, NK was once known as the Jeruselem of the East, they had revival in 1912

Chinese delicacies

Baekdu Mountain, border of China/NK

working at Bokchi hospital

Chinese kids in an underground church

James 2:14-17- "What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him?  If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you says to them, "depart in peace, be warmed and filled," but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead."

I saw this verse personified in the missionaries I met in China.  They gave up their lives and comforts of the western world to live in another culture and learn the languages.  They are raising their children in the knowledge of the state of the nations they are in and around.  It is a reality that I knew nothing about as a child.  They have no ability to parade what they are doing on the internet for support for protection.  Their humility and obedience was provoking to me.  I hope to one day live my life in that way of serving God.  I hope to one day be a longterm missionary assimilating into another culture and fighting for others destiny in Christ.  I don't believe living here in the US and working as a nurse and loving those around me is better or worse than living in another country and taking the gospel of Christ across cultural barriers, but I know my heart is most alive as I encounter the presence of God in other places and cultures and I know my destiny and calling lies in longterm missions.  That is the reason I went into the medical field, to get into countries easily.

In Yanji, we visited orphanages, undergound churches, international churches, old folks homes, taught english, and visited with many missionaries to encourage and pray for them.  I also worked in a local welfare hospital a few times and experienced what local nursing is like in China...which was interesting :) I taught on "Pediatric nursing and having a servants heart" in a local university's nursing school.  This is the number 1 nursing school in China and the graduates receive licensing in America, Korea, and China.  They teach in English and all the professors are missionaries who raise support to teach there.  We also went to another hospital and met with a doctor who moved to China after coming and seeing so much need with NK refugees who have no access to health care.  We got a chance to pray and prophecy over many missionaries there.  AT the undergound churches we gave our testimonies, sang, and fellowshipped with believers there.  These places people are sooo grateful to meet together and they go through so much to get together.  The worship is so precious.  The believers so loyal to word of God and so hungry to know more it.  I was so struck by the difference between the American church and their churches.  They don't care about programs or ministries, they just care about spreading the gospel and sending missionaries to Muslim nations.  They don't care about buildings, they just find a safe place they can meet and go for it.  They don't care about weird philosophy or theology, they worry about the salvation of souls and discipleship.  I absolutely loved it and I believe this is more what the end time church will look like.  There is so much more that I would love to share about this experience.

We left Yanji and headed on a 5 hour drive to the city of Rajin, NK.  When we crossed the border, the first thing I noticed was the lack of trees on the beautiful mountains.  It was very cold and the roads were in the process of being made, so much of the trip was very bumpy and on the cliffs of mountains.  We drove to a port city that is open to tourism.  I noticed a large tower in the middle of the city right next to our hotel.  This tower shouted propaganda messages until 11pm nightly. There was also a giant screen on our hotel which was surprising to me as I was told much of NK has no electricity.  Our hotel had hot water one hour a day. All our hotel rooms were bugged.  We had 4 Korean agents with us 24hrs a day and their job was to minimize our contact with any local normal people.  Most of the people we came into contact with were a part of the communist party.  The gov't there only allows those who are most loyal and committed to their ideology to come into contact with foreigners.  They don't want any of their people to become "westernized" in any way.  At first I was very intimidated by this, but after a few days I really grew to love the North Korean people and even our agents.  We got really close to them and at the end, they had tears in their eyes as we left and told us, "we didn't know you had such sweet souls."  While we were there we went to a kindergarden performance, a foreign language school, the marketplace, a goat farm, and more.  I am very aware that our country is hated by them. They are taught from birth that we are the Imperialist country.  I also know that we did a lot to them in the Korean War and we are also taught that they are the "axis of evil."  I have found that many horrible things happen there.  There are also beautiful, untouched people there.  They opened their hearts to us and received us.  I left their country and spent the next few days crying at different times thinking about how these agents bring so many foreigners to the border and they can't ever leave their own country.  I loved my time there especially at the goat farm.  Our team had such unity there and we saw that God has not forsaken Korea, and His heart is for their reunification as well.  Just as His heart for us is to be unified with Him through His spirit.  There is much more to also share about this place.  I feel privileged to have been able to go and share the love of Jesus with this untouched people group.  I will share some pictures from here as well for you to see what DPRK (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) is like. 

Kindergarten performance

The children tried to not make eye contact with us and we were not to touch them

Speaking English to the Foreign Language School students

Foreign Language School

Worshipping Jesus at the goat farmers house

Goat farm

Playing piano and worshipping at the goat farmers house

freeeeeezing!

Sambon Harbor with 2 of our DPRK agents (2nd to the right and female in the blue coat)

view of Rajin from mountain

view of Rajin from mountain

We then spent a few days in Seoul, South Korea.  We visited the DMZ (De-Militarized Zone).  This area is the most heavily guarded border in the world.  It is located between North and South Korea, also known as the 38th parallel.  There are 1 million land mines in place here that the US gov't put in place to protect the South from invasion.  We saw many Koreans here placing their ribbons of reunification on the wall there and I saw some crying, as I am sure they have family there they have not seen in a long time.  The South has a bell present there that they will ring when the two countries are unified again.  They long for this...as I am sure we would if our country was torn in two and we had family on one side that we had not seen in a very long time.  I was very sad to see this place. 

Leaving Yanji, China

Re-Unification Bell at the DMZ in South Korea. 

Freedom Bridge that connects North and South Korea,  it was rebuilt in 1953 to exchange POW's

Ribbons placed on the wall for those family members still in the North

First Bible translated into Korean before the Korean War

Missionary Nurse to Korea in the 1800's

Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord

Missionary children who died in Korea

We also visited the missionaries gavesites who came to Korea long ago.  Most of them were Americans and they had all died there and some even were beheaded.  My heart was stirred by seeing missionaries and their children's gravesites who had given their lives to bring the gospel to an unknown people group.  I realized that this is what I want to spend my life on.  To know God and make Him known in all the nations, wherever He places me.  I believe He is calling me into full time missions.  I loved being with YWAM so much and loved the culture of sending out missionaries all over the world as one body.  I am back home in KC praying and seeking God on when and where to go into full time missions.  My heart was most alive and I was most happy serving God in this way.  This is what I was created for.  I know I have a gift for other cultures and languages.  I fell in love with the Korean people, their language, and even the food :)  I want to use this and my nursing giftings to go into all the world and preach the good news. 

Mark 16:15-"..Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation."

Thanks for reading, sorry it took so long to write a blog, china blocks facebook and blogging websites so I had no access to this.  I will write another blog shortly on my time overall in Kona and the things God showed me and did in me as well. Thanks so much for your support and prayers.  Going to North Korea was a scary risk for me and I knew there was a possibility of not making it out but God is faithful and He wanted to show me all He is doing in that country and how much He loves it.  They really need christians to try and move there and start businesses that their government can't say no to.  Please join me in continuing to pray for this country.  My heart has so expanded to this people group, I hope to go back soon, or go back more longterm.  :)