SOLIDARITY AND WITNESS IN NORTH KOREA

A Message From Dr. Randolph Nugent

For more than a year United Methodists, through the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR), have been sending food and blankets to North Korea to help ease the hardship caused by the drought and then flooding that has devastated the country's crops and caused a famine.

Dr. Randolph Nugent, general secretary of the General Board of Global Ministries (GBGM), recently traveled to Pyongyang, North Korea with a United Methodist delegation that included Board President Bishop Dan Solomon, Board Members Jerry Williams, president of South Central Jurisdiction United Methodist Women and Jane Bucher, finance chairperson for Women's Division, and GBGM Executive Michael Hahm.

The delegation did not visit any of the sites where food and supplies sent by the United Methodist Church and other donors from around the world are being distributed. Instead, they worshiped with the members of the small Christian community there and visited a seminary. Here is a message from Dr. Nugent about the visit:

We went to North Korea to be in solidarity with the Christian community there and to witness as followers of Jesus Christ.

When we were invited to worship with the Bonzsu congregation in Pyongyang we knew the service would be both beautiful and moving, but we were surprised--and delighted--when Bishop Solomon was invited to the pulpit to preach to the congregation.

There were about 200 persons assembled for the worship service. When Bishop Solomon preached it was the first time an American had preached from that pulpit since the Korean War. That they would relinquish the pulpit so that the witness of a United Methodist bishop would be the words that broke a decades-long silence made the moment even more significant for us and, I believe, for the North Koreans. The spirit of God and a spirit of unity were so great in that church as we worshiped together that it seemed only fitting that we end the service singing "Blest Be the Tie That Binds."

And that wasn't the only significant moment. We were there to witness for God, which we did, and we found that there were others whose discipleship may have been strengthened even more by our witness.

We met with a group of seminary students. Bishop Solomon had a supply of small crosses he always carries with him. One of the students asked if she could have the crosses. "I want to evangelize," she explained. Bishop Solomon gave her every one of the crosses and I, in turn, took off the cross he had given me and handed it to her.

I cannot imagine a stronger statement of faith and discipleship than that simple gesture of hers in asking for the crosses. So clear was she about the fact that she wanted to evangelize, to bring the word to more people that the moment took on even more power and beauty for all of us.

As I added my cross to the those that Bishop Solomon had given her, I was swept with a profound appreciation of just how important this trip was. By visiting there, by witnessing, by sharing worship with God's people in North Korea, we had reinforced the faith and moved evangelization another step forward.

Of all the things we saw in North Korea and all the things we didn't see, I think this was the moment that crystalized for me just why we were there in the first place and why we must go back to North Korea and to other places where we have not been before to celebrate God's presence on earth.

January 24, 1998