When I visited Visit to Jeon-Gok Countryside Church, the first thing I noticed was its vegetable garden—tomatoes, lettuce, sweet potatoes and some really tall sunflowers. This is not the sort of thing I would find at a church in North America. There were about 20 people spread around the church sanctuary according to COVID-19 restrictions. And though there were few people in attendance, they sang enthusiastically, and the pianist played expertly— something else that is rare in small churches in the US. But the most unusual part was the location of the little church—near the Demilitarized Zone separating North and South Korea. Before I transferred to the Northern Asia-Pacific Division (NSD) as treasurer, many people in North America asked me: “Aren’t you afraid to live so close to North Korea?” I responded confidently that I wasn’t because whenever I asked that question to Koreans, they shrugged it off and said there wasn’t anything to be concerned about.
Elder Joel Tompkins is looking at North Korea through a telescope. Across the river is North Korea
But even though South Korean Adventists are not concerned about a North Korean threat, they have a much bigger worry—that North Koreans do not yet know about Jesus Christ and the Bible. My visit to Jeon-Gok Countryside Church with NSD Communication director Byun SeongJun, who was also my translator, was part of a larger prayer effort to galvanize church members to pray earnestly for the doors to open to North Korea to spread the gospel.
During my sermon, I asked for those in the congregation to raise their hands if they could remember before the separation of Korea. Several hands raised. And as we held a special time of prayer for North Korea a member talked about the time the countries separated and about the violence he had witnessed including to his own relatives.
