Billy Graham's groundbreaking work in North Korea
The body of the Rev. Billy Graham is being moved from Washington to North Carolina, where the beloved American preacher will be buried Friday.
Graham was the fourth private U.S. citizen to lie in honor at the U.S. Capitol.
He earned the honor by preaching to hundreds of millions of people over his 99 years. He also prayed with U.S. presidents dating back to Harry Truman.
Graham’s impact was felt far beyond the U.S. and religious circles. At the close of the Cold War he gained rare access to North Korea, and even helped shape U.S. policy.
He drew the kinds of crowds in Asia usually reserved for a pope, famously preaching to more than 1 million people in South Korea in 1973.
But there’s another story, one largely untold, of Graham’s groundbreaking work in the secretive state of North Korea.
“Love one another!” Graham told the congregation during his tour through Seoul, which made headlines in Pyongyang, the North Korean capital.
"The North Korean response was, ‘The witch doctor from America came and performed a witch act,’" said Billy Kim, Graham's translator in Seoul.
Two decades later, the anti-communist Graham was invited to Pyongyang, becoming an honored guest of North Korea’s late president Kim Il Sung.
The nation was reeling from the collapse of the Soviet Union, and looking to improve ties with the U.S.
Graham brought a private message from President George H.W. Bush - and a Bible for the North Korean leader.
"My wife went to school in North Korea. That was one of the reasons that we could get in and talk to the leaders - that made it possible for us to go," Graham said.
Ruth Graham’s parents were Christian missionaries in Pyongyang, a city once called the “Jerusalem of the East.”
Today, possessing a Bible there can lead to criminal charges.
Graham was the first foreigner ever to preach at Pyongyang’s Bongsu Church, one of a handful of Christian foreign churches in North Korea, which human rights and religious groups accuse of being a state propagandist.
Graham made two trips to North Korea, one in 1992 and the second in 1994. Afterwards he helped shape U.S. policy by offering insights on the nation to U.S. presidents and international peacemakers.
"And I said, ‘Jimmy, what they're looking for is a friend,'" Graham said.
Graham paved the way for other Americans and aid workers to visit the nation, including Graham’s son, Franklin, whose Samaritan’s Purse charity provided badly needed aid.
In South Korea, Graham’s popularity helped make the Myung Sung megachurch in Seoul the largest Presbyterian church in the world, with a weekly attendance of around 100,000 people.
"We certainly believe that we need to follow the legacy of Billy Graham," senior pastor Kim Sam-Whan said. "What he did in North Korea really pushed us to go to the people who are suffering."
Graham never realized his dream of bringing Christianity to the North Korean masses, but he did crack open the door of a closed society, allowing aid and perhaps faith to trickle in.
Copyright 2018 CNN. All rights reserved.
Пікірлер: 14
I thank God for Billy Graham and the legacy he left. Jesus IS the way, the life and the truth; whomever believes in Him shall have everlasting life. Thank you dear God for Jesus and sending us a preacher to remind us how loving and powerful you are.
But if a wicked man turns from all his sins which he has committed, keeps all My statutes, and does what is lawful and right, he shall surely live; he shall not die.
Kim Il Sung was raised a Presbiterian, his grandfather was a minister.
Jesus is With us
billy graham just does it
@timedrifter117
Жыл бұрын
no the spirit dose
✝️✝️🕊️✝️✝️✝️🕊️✝️You can never stop JESUS no matter how much power you have ✝️✝️✝️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️✝️✝️✝️✝️
Brother Branham and Billy Graham oh how wonderful it was
North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (abbreviated as DPRK or DPR Korea), is a sovereign state in East Asia constituting the northern part of the Korean Peninsula. Officially, its territory consists of the whole Korean Peninsula and its adjacent islands. Pyongyang is the nation's capital and largest city. To the north and northwest, the country is bordered by China and by Russia along the Amnok (known as the Yalu in China) and Tumen rivers; it is bordered to the south by South Korea, with the heavily fortified Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) separating the two. Nevertheless, North Korea, like its southern counterpart, claims to be the legitimate government of the entire peninsula. In 1910, Korea was annexed by Japan. After the Japanese surrender at the end of World War II in 1945, Korea was divided into two zones, with the north occupied by the Soviets and the south occupied by the Americans. Negotiations on reunification failed, and in 1948, separate governments were formed: the socialist Democratic People's Republic of Korea in the north, and the capitalist Republic of Korea in the south. An invasion initiated by North Korea led to the Korean War (1950-1953). The Korean Armistice Agreement brought about a ceasefire, but no peace treaty was signed. North Korea officially describes itself as a self-reliant, socialist state and formally holds elections. Various media outlets have called it Stalinist, particularly noting the elaborate cult of personality around Kim Il-sung and his family. The Workers' Party of Korea (WPK), led by a member of the ruling family, holds power in the state and leads the Democratic Front for the Reunification of the Fatherland of which all political officers are required to be members. Juche, an ideology of national self-reliance, was introduced into the constitution in 1972. The means of production are owned by the state through state-run enterprises and collectivized farms. Most services such as healthcare, education, housing and food production are subsidized or state-funded. From 1994 to 1998, North Korea suffered a famine that resulted in the deaths of between 240,000 and 420,000 people, and the country continues to struggle with food production. A sizeable amount of the population is thought to suffer from malnutrition, parasite infestations and food and waterborne diseases. North Korea follows Songun, or "military-first" policy. It is the country with the highest number of military and paramilitary personnel, with a total of 9,495,000 active, reserve and paramilitary personnel. Its active duty army of 1.21 million is the fourth largest in the world, after China, the United States and India. It possesses nuclear weapons. North Korea is an atheist state with no official religion, and public religion is discouraged or persecuted. Both North Korea and South Korea became members of the United Nations in 1991. International organizations have assessed that human rights violations in North Korea have no parallel in the contemporary world. North Korea operates re-education and prison camps, akin to the gulag prisons of the Soviet Union. The concentration camps are used to segregate those seen as enemies of the state and punish them for alleged political misdemeanours, or alleged misdemeanours of relatives as part of the "3 generations of punishment" policy instigated by state founder Kim Il-sung. Prisoners are frequently subject to slave labour, malnutrition, torture, human experimentation, rape, and arbitrary executions.
@reFocusZone
10 ай бұрын
Thanks for adding this summary info 👍
Interestingly, samaritan's purse to northern korea was funded mostly by Koreans living in the states.