Eric Foley, founder of Christian organization Seoul USA, is launching Bibles and other Christian materials into North Korea.
Foley says he and his team typically send balloons over the border by night, operating from a muddy field sometime between May and October. Conditions are best, he explains, during a “rain storm or really bad weather because of the currents.”
In North Korea most citizens are forced to adhere to the Juche ideology, a religion that mixes aspects of Marxism with worship of the late “Great Leader” Kim Il Sung and his family. It’s an ideology that Eric Foley describes as “a warped version of Christianity.”
“With North Korea being a closed country, distribution of unapproved literature is a capital offense,” Foley writes on the website for Seoul USA. “Distribution via land couriers is highly dangerous and the liability for those caught doing so often results in death or forced labor … and it’s even worse for those carrying Christian literature like tracts or Bibles. So we launch large hydrogen balloons into North Korea carrying the Christian message.”
Foley says the team prays before launching the balloons.
“Every time we fill up one of these balloons, we hold it and we pray together in English, North Korean and South Korean,” he says. “We pray loudly and always with tears.”
Publication Date: November 19, 2013.
