Voice of the Martyrs, 30 September 2019
North Korean underground Christians do not reveal their Christian identity even to their own children until the children reach the age of fifteen. That is because North Korean schoolteachers are responsible for getting children to inadvertently reveal that their families are Christian.
They ask questions like, “Do your parents have a special book they hide in your home? Do they sing different songs to the ones we sing in school? Do they ever bow their heads or close their eyes and mumble?” More than a few children have been the cause of their own families (including themselves) ending up in concentration camps.
One woman was about seven years old when she found a Bible in her home. Without hesitation, she knew she needed to inform the police. Her parents, underground Christian leaders, tied her up in a chair to prevent her from going out. They shared the Gospel with her, and she became a Christian rather than a government informer.
North Koreans have a saying: Whenever two or three people are gathered together, one of them is a spy. This is true even in family settings, as children are taught to spy on their parents from a young age.