To Our Supporters, from Kenneth Bae

Dear beloved brothers and sisters,

 

Greetings! We’ve returned from “Nehemiah Healing Trip”, along with North Korean refugee sisters, who have recently graduated from Hanawon (Hanawon is the Settlement Support Center for North Korean Refugees.). “I want to see the ocean”; a single phrase from a sister who had grown up at the beach but haven’t seen the ocean during the last 10 years living in China, touched my heart. Though it was a short 2-day trip, we were blessed with such precious time of healing and being united as one body one heart. 

Sharing our hearts together, we became like life-long friends. From living without freedom in North Korea and China, their first taste of freedom on this trip brought healing and new birth. 

And our sincere gentle care and love softened the walls of their hearts. We invite you to the next healing trips and healing camps. Befriend our fellow North Korean refugees. 

 

From July 27th to August 4th, we will be holding our annual Nehemiah English Reunification Camp at University of the Nations Jeju Campus. With the main theme ‘Return to God, Return to One Korea’, there will be celebration of hoping for reunification of North and South Korea, together with North Koreans, South Koreans and brothers and sisters from all around the world. 

It will also be a special first taste of accomplishing God’s kingdom dreams and hope. We hope for the day of our Korean peninsula returning to God, being healed and born again as one nation and reunifying through the gospel and spiritual renewal. We hope for the day of God’s heart spreading out to 25 million North Koreans in great suffering. 

Please pray for healing and recovery through the unification of North Korean refugee students and friends from both South Korea and around the world. We humbly ask for volunteer support and entrusting your children at the camp. 

 

We are planning to establish Nehemiah Community Center in the region where many North Korean refugees live in. Through English education, computer education, afterschool learning, care, consulting and etc, we hope to help support and heal North Korean refugees both physically and spiritually. Please pray for the center to be a great instrument for their rehabilitation. The community center will be a place of refuge and love, where North Korean refugees could come at any time. It will play the role of a cornerstone for spiritual growth in Jesus. For establishment of the center, we have begun fundraising. We are calling for ‘Nehemiah Community Center Founders’ to help support with 1,000 won daily, 30,000 won monthly. Please join us and take part in founding the community center. We hope for you to be together with us in becoming family with the refugees, healing and growing in Christ through the center. 

 

God bless you. Thank you.

Sincerely,

 

Kenneth Bae

 

 

 

NGI NEWS

 

Nehemiah North Korea Missions Academy

"It looks like the North Korean mission is about to happen!"

6 weeks have already passed since the start of the Nehemiah North Korean Missions Academy (NKMA) last March 24, a school founded to make professional North Korea missionary. 

Past 6 weeks, NKMA conducted  spiritual trainings for the future missionary. At our 3rd seminar, students from the Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry (BSSM) specially visited NKMA for their short term mission trip. One student from the NKMA said, "Through this school, I could feel the love of God towards North Korea." YoungRan Kim, one of the students at the NKMA also said, "It feels like the North Korean mission that seemed vague is now starting to open." 

NKMA, a program to make 300 'Nehemiah Missionary' who will devote to build up North Korea after the reunification, will be until June 9. 

After the 7th week, students will not only learn from the lectures, but also participate serving North Korean defectors. 

We hope to see many more North Korean missionaries through this academy.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Help North Korean Citizens Directly

Rice and Bible to North Koreans

Continuing from last March to mid-April, ocean currents flowed to the North from the South. Around 30 people from NGI and other places gathered very early in the morning to head to the west side ocean.2 days before the current started to change its flow, we made a plastic bottle filled with rice, bible, 1 USD, and hadwritten letters. And on April 17, when the current changed the flow, we passed 400 sets of the bottles at the West Sea, hoping the bottles will be delivered to the North.

 

 

As a part of the 'Help North Korean Citizens Directly', NGI is sending rice and bible to the North.Eventhough it's a small amount, hoping the gift will benefit both spiritually and physically, we are sending  plastic bottles filled with 9-days amount of rice, hand-sized bible, 1 USD, and hadwritten letters. We've been informed that with 1USD, people can purchase 1.5kg amount of rice from North Korean markets. 

continuously pray for the ministry. 

 

 

NK Refugees Resettlement Support

* NGI 2 Day Healing Trip with North Korean Refugees

“I really want to go to the beach. The East Sea is the same here as it is where I used to live in Chungjin, North Korea.”

 

There are people who have risked their lives in escape of a land void of the basic freedom to move from place to place to come to a land of freedom of movement.

On April 30th NGI left for a 2-day healing trip in Gangwon Do with North Korean refugees who wanted so much to see the ocean. It seemed God was pleased to see us there as he blessed us with warm sunlight and a cool breeze.

As we headed for Seokcho the NK refugees opened up. They shared about their life of suppression and struggle in North Korea, the journey through China on the way to South Korea, and how they were heart-wrenchingly forced to say farewell to family.

Among those who attended was Youngsook Choi (alias, 46yrs) and her eight year old son who was born in China. The 6 year old daughter of one of our NGI ministers also came along and the two children became fast friends, playing together throughout the trip. It warmed our hearts to see a picture of future unification as the children laughed together. Our hearts opened more and more to each other as we enjoyed the sandy beach, stared into the sunset, and fellowshipped over snacks late into the night. 

 

Some of the North Korean Refugee women who participated are not yet believers but by the end of the trip they all realized they had experienced the love of God as well as restoration of body and spirit. Their faces all looked brighter as we left for home. We ask that you pray with us for these North Korean sisters, that they would follow God wherever he leads them.

 

 

 

Nehemiah One Million Prayer Petition Campaign & Nehemiah Prayer Gathering

 

As of this month over 1,500 prayer warriors have signed and committed to pray for the people of North Korea. Words cannot express what an encouragement it is to us to have each of these strong prayer warriors from all around the globe embracing and praying for North Korea.

And We gather together every Tuesday night at 7:30pm to pray for North Korea at Nehemiah Prayer Gathering. We hope to see you all there.

 

 

 

Nehemiah English Reunification Camp 2018 (NERC)

Nehemiah English Reunification Camp 2018 in Jeju Island is waiting for you!

Nehemiah English Reunification Camp 2018 will be held for 7 days from July 29 to August 4 at University of the Nations, Jeju Island Campus. We look forward to North and South Korean students and international volunteers gathering this summer on Jeju to experience future reunification. We are recruiting North and South Korean middle school to university age students as camp participants as well as native-English-speaker and Korean volunteers as camp staff. For more detailed information please refer to the 'Nehemiah English Reunification Camp, Register Here' page on NGI's website.

* NGI Volunteer Interview_ Sister Kim YungRan

 

"People said I'm a response to prayers, but on the contrary NGI is a response to my prayers!"

 

Q. Please introduce yourself!
Kim YungRan (Kim, hereafter): Hello, I'm a volunteer who teaches English to North Korean refugee sisters at NGI, Kim YungRan.

Q. How did you know NGI?
Kim: It would be a long story to tell. (Laugh)
Um... First of all I'm a normal young man who goes to Oryun church in Seoul. One day at a Friday all-night service, my lead pastor said that the fall of the Berlin wall was triggered by the prayer meeting started in East Germany. This prayer which started by a pastor and several youths, had grown exponentially in population through getting anointed by the Holy Spirit, and the quantity of the prayer was fulfilled. When the South and the North (refugees) pray together the 38th parallel wall will be fallen, and we should pray for it.

Therefore since 3 years ago I suggested to my North Korean refugee friends and volunteering group to pray this together, but there's no pastor to lead this prayer meeting, so it didn't work well.

Then one day, Pastor Kenneth Bae came to our Oryun church for a testimony rally. And then I knew about Nehemiah prayer meeting. Last year December, on the day I went to Nehemiah prayer meeting as a first time, when Pastor Kenneth Bae told the story that the Berlin wall was fallen by prayers, I realized that the Lord led me to that prayer meeting and I was so delighted.

Q. Do you have any reason to apply to NGI as a volunteer?
I participated in Nehemiah prayer meeting continuously, and God gave me a calling. He let me keep hearing from around me that, 'we hope you to work together to help North Korean refugee friends.' However I kept refusing this guidance. Still, God continually gave me the word that 'I want you to lay down your work now and do my work.' In this situation God told me, 'Move by yourself first to participate in the work to serve North Korean refugees.' So I thought to serve as a NGI volunteer and applied to it.

Q. What kinds of work do you do as the voluntary service, and do you have any feelings about it?
Kim : Every Tuesday and Friday, at NGI office I do volunteer work to teach English to North Korean refugee teenagers and college students. I heard that Sunny(NGI Director) said, "I have prayed for a volunteer who teaches English to North Korean refugees like this, and Yungran sister is the answer to my prayer," and I was overjoyed. Even in the office I am the only volunteer and all others are the staff, but I've never felt like I would be an outsider. For last 3 years while I met and served one North Korean refugee friend one-to-one and felt a lot that I was lonely, I thought that 'I wish that I would have a community to do this together.' At NGI, the more I work with the members, the familiar we are just like a family, and at some point the word 'NGI family' sticked to my mouth. Indeed NGI family is the response to my prayer. (Laugh.)

Q. Do you have any wish at NGI hereafter as a volunteer?
I heard from the friends in person, who have settled in South Korea for about 10 years, that the period of 1~2 years after getting out of Hanawon is so important. (Hanawon is the Settlement Support Center for North Korean Refugees in South Korea.) They all said as one that "The first person we met is so important." "Depend on whom I met as the first person after getting out of Hanawon, my life in South Korea would be different, I think." So what I hope is that NGI would be like the hub to meet the prepared people of God, for the North Korean refugees who have been 1~2 years after getting out of Hanawon. Also that this would be the place to provide them the fundamental education for their lives, such as about how to use computers and English.

 

 

 

 

 

 

NK Now

 

Peace and prosperity in North Korea hangs on nuclear disarmament and sincerity

The Inter-Korean Summit, held in the peace village, Panmunjom, on April 27, 2018, grabbed the attention of the Korean Peninsula and the global community. Kim Jung Eun crossed the DMZ from North Korea into South Korea for the first time and shook hands with President Moon Jae In. The scene of this handshake was broadcast live in South Korea and worldwide. They declared that there would denuclearization and a peace agreement. With the declaration of denuclearization as the jumping off point, North and South agreed to major measures such as developing relations between the nations and economic cooperation.  The Inter-Korea Summit set a valuable foundation for the coming North Korea-US Summit. Nuclear disarmament is an essential condition for the Korean Peninsula denuclearization and peace agreement; and will also be the focus of the upcoming North Korea-US Summit.

The North Korean authorities have been upholding a strategy of declaring the need for the nuclear program to spur economic development. As North Korea refused to denuclearize, the worldwide community upheld economic sanctions and economic development has become impossible. It would be a foolish act if NK used the Inter-Korean Summit to maintain a system in dire crisis; an economy in shreds and severe food shortages. If NK plans to use the North Korea-US Summit to uphold the current nuclear program, all efforts would have gone to waste. It would not be too far fetched to question if many are being fooled by a false atmosphere of peace while North Korea is using the summit to trick the global community into lowering economic sanctions.

South Korea, the global community and the North Korean people are hoping that denuclearization will lead to peace and prosperity. They are desperate for North and South Korea to boldly join hands, see the economy flourish and the people of North Korea’s lives improve. We must not let go of hope for NK’s economy to develop and for peace on the Korean Peninsula. Kim Jung Eun must show through his actions that he has firm resolution and sincerity for abandoning efforts to become a nuclear power.

There must be immediate nuclear disarmament. All nuclear weapons and equipment, storage and enrichment facilities, processing and testing facilities, and missile launching facilities currently in operation must receive a verifiable inspection and then be completely dissolved. The most important element in the coming North Korea-US Summit will be Kim Jung Eun’s sincerity. If Kim only participated in the summit as a political stunt to facilitate the maintenance of the nuclear program, he must realize South Korea’s and the global community’s desire for peace and make a bold decision. If he does, the global community will lift economic sanctions and the Korean Peninsula can usher in a new generation of denuclearization and peace.

Nehemiah Global Initiative (NGI) Ministry Development Team Leader Joseph Kim (defected in 2008)