A group of activists is sending messages of hope, faith, and freedom to the people suffering under the dictatorship of Kim Jong Un in North Korea, where Christmas is banned and religious beliefs are strictly forbidden.
While Christmas is a bonanza in the West, North Korea is an atheist state where almost nobody even knows what Christmas.
For North Koreans, the government, Kim Jong-un, and his family function as gods under the brutal ‘Juche’ system.
Other religious figures or beliefs are banned to prevent its citizenry’s loyalty to the Kim family and the communist regime’s stranglehold on information assures North Koreans have no awareness of outside culture. State-controlled churches primarily exist for sightseeing tourists.
Christians can be sent to concentration camps or tortured to death if they are caught praying.
In 2016, South Korea lit up a sixty-foot-tall Christmas tree on its side of the demilitarized zone, a border on the Korean peninsula that demarcates North Korea from South Korea, to show solidarity with North Koreans who are forced to conceal their religious beliefs. The North Korean government threatened to shoot it down, claiming the Christmas tree constituted “psychological warfare.”
Kim Jong Un mandated all citizens to pay tribute to his grandmother’s birthday on December 24, to further impede the nation’s acknowledgment of Christmas.
In 2017, Kim Jong-un prohibited “gatherings that involve alcohol and singing,” outlawing festivity allowing people in the hermit kingdom to celebrate anything other than the North Korean government and leaders.
The North Korean Freedom Coalition launched bottles filled with flash drives celebrating the holiday, including Bible passages, into the Yellow Sea, in the hope the currents will carry them to the shores of the North Korean peninsula.
Also packed in each bottle is rice to feed a family for a week, a US one-dollar bill.
A Christmas message included in the bottles says in part, “Christmas, which is celebrated all over the world on December 25th, marks the day when Jesus was born…Many of your ancestors also believed in Jesus. IN fact, in 1907, in Pyongyang, there were so many Christians who believed in Jesus that Pyongyang became known as a Holy City. But when Kim II Sung came to power, he wanted North Koreans to worship him as a god, and not the one true God. So, he killed many Christian leaders, sent others to political prison camps, or banished them. He did all he could to kill the followers of Jesus Christ…”
The effort the group calls “Operation Truth” is “modeled after the Berlin Airlift, to get critical help to the starving people of North Korea,” Suzanne Scholte, chair of the Washington, DC organization, told Fox News. “We should be doing everything we can to get information into North Korea by land, by sea, and by air.”
“We must communicate to the people in power in Pyongyang that they have friends and allies in Korea and America, who have only one desire for them: to share with the benefits of a free people, to give them a life of home instead of despair. Those in leadership positions in the DPRK regime wake up in the morning with only two choices in their lives: being slaves devoted to Kim Jong Un or death and their families’ deaths. That is why so many began escaping -not just for food, but for freedom, for a better life.”
On Saturday, the group launched the bottles into the sea for the 17th time in December.
Nine North Korean escapees are among those launching the messages back to their impoverished homeland.
As Fox News reports:
The flash drives also contain North Korean music, changing the lyrics from worshiping Kim Jong Un to worshiping God. They also play K-Pop songs, the Books of Matthew and Mark, as well as recorded messages from several members of Congress touting freedom for the North Korean people. Among those who recorded messages were Senators Jim Risch and Tim Kaine, as well as Congressmen Michael McCaul and Gregory Meeks.
Scholte’s group and the Defense Forum Foundation also help operate Free North Korea Radio, a station that broadcasts news and information into North Korea. Its director, Kim Song Min, escaped in 1997, and despite attempts by the dictatorship to jam its programming, the station has broadcast on shortwave and on the internet.
“I would like to express my gratitude to the Americans for standing with us to help us reach the people of North Korea with the truth about America and South Korea,” [Scholte] said.
The post Christmas Is Banned In North Korea, Escapees Challenge ‘Godless’ Dictator With Gifts, Bibles, Food And Messages Of Hope appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.