North Korea and South Korea

I had a strange dream this morning during the first hour of daylight when I was still lying in bed, trying to melt back into the covers and forget that it was Monday. (For better or worse, that time of day seems to be when odd dreams happen to me.) In my dream, I sneaked across the border into North Korea. It wasn't very hard. All I had to do was speak perfect Korean and wear a ski mask so that people in Pyongyang (the North Korean capital city) wouldn't notice that I was white. I saw Kim Jong Il in the center of the city and even bumped up against him a bit. He seemed skinnier in person than his photographs showed, but I attributed that to the fact that he'd been suffering from health problems. I looked around at all the people in the square. It was sunny, and things didn't look too bad in the sun. In fact, the architecture was pretty impressive. I wondered where all the starving people were. And then I woke up.

I think North Korea has been on my mind because I visited the DMZ (de-militarized zone) with Melissa recently. And in reality, the border isn't really that easy to cross: it's the most heavily armored border in the world. There are minefields and guards and wire all over the place.

I toured the Joint Security Area, which is the only area of the DMZ where North Korean and South Korean soldiers stand face-to-face. There's a cement strip going through the Joint Security Area that divides area where the North Korean and South Korean soldiers are permitted to stand. It just looks a little bit like a small curb along the road, but it marks the territory. There is a row of small buildings that are used for military negotiations and talks between the two sides. These buildings stand on top of the line, and they are marked by color to denote which building belongs to which country.

We went inside one of the buildings as part of the tour. There is a line down the center of a polished table in the middle of the room. One side is South Korea; the other side is North Korea. I stood on the north side. So geographically at least, I guess I can say that I really was in North Korea.

The whole experience seemed rather surreal. North Korean soldiers came up to the building and peered in the windows at us. And from the opposite side, we could see a group of soldiers with a man on the balcony of the main North Korean building. He had a camera and was taking pictures of us. So while the people in our group stared and photographed the communists, they stared and photographed the capitalists. I wonder which family's photo album I'll show up in someday.

Until recently, there were a few special travel spots that were open to tourists in North Korea. Visitors were monitored the entire time, and they were only allowed in certain areas, but a few months after I arrived in Korea, the tours shut down because North Korean soldiers shot a South Korean tourist in the back. She died.

The Gaesong Industrial Complex (a joint venture project between the Koreas, located in North Korea) was also shut down due to tensions between the two governments. With the current South Korean administration, the relationship between North and South Korea is at the lowest point it's been in the past few years.

It seems strange for me to think sometimes that I am living in a divided country. I am just 30 kilometers away from the most isolated and secretive nation on the globe, yet it seems so far removed from daily life. But there are people who are in concentration camps. There are people who are starving and dying. And they are starving and dying without being allowed to talk about or worship God.

I know a North Korean refugee who lives in Seoul. He doesn't talk about his story. He came through China; one of his parents died when he was younger, but the remainder of his family still lives in the north. I don't know much beyond that. But we hang out with friends and eat kimchi jigae together every once in awhile. And I think that's okay.

I thought of this friend when I visited the DMZ and saw the North Korean soldiers. I only felt pity for them. I wasn't scared. I wasn't repulsed. And if there is anything remarkable about these men, I'm convinced that it's their humanness.

A few months ago, I joined a prayer movement in Seoul. There is a group of people from various English-speaking congregations across the city who come together to pray for the people of Korea—both North and South. And they look forward to the day when the prayer meeting will be held in Pyongyang.

People are praying for a revival on this peninsula that will spread above the 38th parallel. Reunification may or may not happen, and it may or may not happen in the way that people expect, but I have a strong feeling that God is preparing this place for something special. He is preparing the hearts of people here and in North Korea. And Koreans have hungry hearts.

And so I'm praying. This country must be ready so that when God opens the border, the gospel can move north. I want to watch that happen during my life. And I want to visit Pyongyang for real...not just in a dream.