Source:         www.assistnews.net

Date:            September 20, 2007

By Michael Ireland
Chief Correspondent, ASSIST News Service

ORANGE COUNTY, CALIFORNIA (ANS) -- Norm and Cher Nelson of Compassion Ventures and Compassion Radio are a well-traveled couple in their mission to be 'spies for hope.' They have been to Iran several times and recently returned from North Korea.

Dan Wooding interviews Norm and Cher Nelson.

In an interview with international journalist Dan Wooding on his Front Page Radio show, to be broadcast this Sunday (Sept 23) on KWVE 107.9 FM and the following weekend in the UK and South Africa, as well as being shown on Wooding's new Safe World's IPTV show called Front Page with Dan Wooding, the Nelsons explained how their ministry reaches out to some of the most dangerous places on earth.

Wooding introduced his guests by saying: "Now where we live in Orange County is not particularly dangerous, but they are constantly going into war zones, places that we shouldn't go into. Norm you particularly seem to specialize in going to some of the worst places on earth. We've been to Gaza together we've been in gun battles there in Hebron. But you've been to Iran several times I've never been to Iran. Tell us a little bit about what on earth is going on there?"

"Well, Iran I refer to as a break through country. Iran is identified with Iraq and with North Korea as part of (President Bush's) so called Axis of Evil," said Norm.

"We like to go to places like that because a lot of people don't like to go to those places. But what we know that a lot of other people don't know is that God is there in those places and God is at work. And one of the things we do in our ministry is we travel as, and we use this phrase advisedly, we travel as 'spies for hope.' That is, we go looking with what we hope are sanctified imaginations and praying that the Lord will reveal to us areas that He's working in these really difficult countries. We go in and we are able to perceive where God is at work, things that He's doing that really in some instances you wouldn't believe could be happening but they are."

Wooding pointed out that the Nelsons got involved with some debate with some Muslim leaders there, to which Norm replied: "Well actually it wasn't a debate, it was a very friendly exchange between Christian and Muslim scholars. This event was sponsored by the Iranian organization The Institute for Interfaith Dialog and it was held at one of the Iranian think tanks. It was on television there in Tehran and we had the opportunity to share our faith as these Muslim scholars as you know in Iran shared their particular brand of Islam and we had a wonderful exchange of views, an opportunity to clarify some issues and to agree to disagree on some others. So it was a really positive and wonderful experience. I enjoyed it."

Wooding said: "There are people who are listening saying 'I could never go to Iran it's too dangerous.' Did you feel under any danger when you were there?"

Norm responded: "I never felt under any threat, any danger at all. We'd been to Iran on two other occasions doing humanitarian work. We responded to that terrible earthquake that happened several years ago in the city of Bam in the south-eastern part of Iran where forty-thousand people were killed within forty-five seconds. A terrible earthquake hit that city in the middle of the night: people were sleeping and they tend to be in clay homes, clay buildings without much in the way of support and these houses literally collapsed on people while they were sleeping. So we had an opportunity to go there and provide assistance to them to one of the villages that had been terribly devastated by that earthquake. So we've had some positive experiences in Iran."

The Nelsons have just been to one of the strangest places on earth: North Korea, "the hermit kingdom." Wooding asked Norm's wife, Cher, if she could you paint a picture of the capital, Pyongyang? "What were your views of it?"

Cher Nelson told Wooding that, unfortunately, people in America tend to think of it as nothing but streets filled with goosestepping soldiers, "and that happens only on occasions where some national event is happening and Kim Jong Il has ordered some kind of parade or event.

"It's a very striking capital, huge buildings beautifully done, wide, wide boulevards much wider than anything we have here. But on those wide boulevards you see nothing but buses to transport people and a very few government vehicles," she said.

Norm and Cher Nelson travel to some of the world's most difficult countries as 'Spies for Hope.

"Now there are more cars this time than we've seen before. But still I think you could stand in the middle of a boulevard and within an hour count maybe twenty vehicles going by you. The streets are empty of people, empty of cars, and (it's an) eerie thing to drive around because there's no life. But at the same time they show you spectacular things (such as) the children that are studying at the music centers, exquisite musicians. You see sports competitions, you see demonstrations of arts that are just overwhelming. I mean, we don't do anything like that here.

But your life is decided from the time you're born. And from the time you're six months old you're taken care of by the state and they determine what you will learn, where you will go, how you will study and what you will be."

Wooding asked Cher Nelson if she got any feeling for the type of lives women are leading?

"Well this time we got a particularly vivid look at that type. We'd seen before women working in the fields and when a truck went by loaded with grain sacks there was a hole in one small grain sack there was this little trail of grain going down the middle of the road (and) women rushing out of the fields just trying to scoop up these little grains to have some food.

"We've seen the hardship. This time we happened to be there (and) when I travel with Norm it's mostly in conjunction with Compassion Radio, which is our broadcast. Norm also does the inter-religious dialogs and the peace and reconciliation things, but I don't normally go along because I hold the fort down at home. But when we're there for Compassion Radio I go and we were able to see what people were pressed into during the floods.

"Now, while we were there, they had the worst flooding that they've had in forty years. We've seen the results of some of the floods before which were extremely serious. But we saw women, children, army men, prisoners, old men (all) working beside the roads trying to hold back the embankments that were crumbling (and) trying to rebuild the roads with metal cups -- they were scooping the mud with small hand tools and taking off their head scarves and trying to plaster that against the mud that was flowing to hold it back. No utensils, no trucks, no machinery and, of course, we were told the people had volunteered to do this but everyone that we passed had this great loyalty because there was no other soul around except those that were working on trying to hold back the destruction.

"But being there at that time and having told our minders what we'd done before, we had brought in cargo containers of medical supplies and food and things in the past and they were quite suspicious at first because they didn't know anybody else that had ever done that before. But after hearing that we did care and that we had contributed to their welfare before we were able to do it on the spot this time (and) to take up a collection among the small group that we had and we cleaned out every nickel and dime that we had and were able to give a reasonably good size contribution which we handed over to the minders to go to the Red Cross."

Wooding commented: "They must be really shocked because they're taught that America's out there to blow them up, and that's really extraordinary."

He then asked Norm about going to church in North Korea. "We're never quite sure whether it was a legitimate church, whether they were actors and actresses brought in for the service, and yet Pyongyang the capital had once been the Jerusalem of the East.

"Ruth graham went there, there were more Christian organizations based in Pyongyang than any other place in Asia and now it's just a few churches. I understand that Kim Jong Il just built a Russian Orthodox church there which is very bizarre. Did you get any sense of where Christianity is in North Korea today?"

Norm Nelson said the North Korean government people acknowledge the presence of ten thousand Christians in North Korea.

"We know that there are a hundred-thousand Christians being held in labor camps, so there's a real difference there in the numbers. Plus the fact that we're aware of an underground church that has existed for a lot of years in China. And the underground church tends to meet in private homes, sometimes literally underground, but they have to meet in a way that makes their meeting secretive so the government doesn't know that they're meeting," said Nelson.

"From time to time they're caught and if you're caught with Bibles, if you're caught having a religious meeting, it's very threatening to the government. Here are large numbers of people meeting together out of the control of this very controlling government and the government sees that as a threat to their security. So consequently they will arrest people and put them into labor camps and life is not good if you're put in a North Korean labor camp. So there are a lot of estimates -- no one really honestly knows for sure. But we know that it's probably up in the area of eighty to a hundred thousand Christians that are meeting together on a regular basis in secret inside of North Korea."

Nelson agreed with Wooding that they're literally risking their lives to do that.

"Absolutely, he said, adding: "So they pay a price to make a Christian commitment in that nation. It gives you no benefits, you don't get a good job because you're a believer. You know, you can't like we do in America. We go to church and one of the side benefits is that we maybe network with people and we get to know people who are in business and so on and so forth and it all kind of feeds a successful life style. Not true in North Korea: you're in all kinds of trouble if you're caught and you're a Christian and you're not part of those three registered churches that exist in Pyongyang, the capital city."

Cher Nelson commented on Wooding's question about whether they're really Christians that go to church there or whether they're paid actors.

"We've had that question too because we know that the church only meets when there are Westerners there so that they can show that they have a church and there are certain people that are assigned to be there so that the congregation is full. But at the same time we've been told that we're the only ones who've had an opportunity to sing with the choir there and to sing a quartet with two of their choir members. But then at the end of the service we all joined hands, the congregation, the choir, the clergy staff and us all the way around the auditorium and sang God Be With You Till We Meet again.

"Obviously they sang in Korean and we sang in English but I want to tell you Dan there were older people around that room with tears streaming down their faces as they sang that song and looking us straight in the eye singing God Be With You till We Meet Again. So we are in full belief, and have had this confirmed by others too, that there are many real Christians who live for the opportunity to worship together when westerners come."

Wooding mentioned that on his trip to North Korea, "It was just after the death of Kim Il Sung, the founder of North Korea, and we heard this extraordinary story that near the end of his life as he'd been raised as a Christian and then he'd gone to Moscow and had become this wild Saul instead of Paul and started persecuting Christians. But near the end of his life he was having dreams of sitting on his mother's lap and hearing about Jesus. When Billy graham went for the first time he was really shocked because Kim Il Sung said 'Mr. Graham, tell me all about Jesus.' And then he opened up television in North Korea for Billy to preach and then he went back another time and the same thing happened and Billy Graham told me that he was invited to go back a third time and this particular time he was going to go fishing with him and challenge him to give his life to Christ and he died just before the fishing trip. So he never knew whether Kim Jong Il ever did make a commitment to Christ."

Cher Nelson told Wooding that one of the churches he built, he built because of his mother's faith.

Norm said that in North Korea they literally worship Kim Il Sung. "He has the status of a god."

"They have this religion that's actually a secular philosophy as they see it. But as we look at it we can see all of the elements of religion. They call it the Chu Shai Philosophy and it's a philosophy of self reliance that people determine everything. There is no God, people make all the choices, all the decisions. Whatever happens in the world happens on the basis of human initiative and it feeds into this hermit kingdom notion because, as you know, North Korea is isolated from virtually every other country in the world and consequently it is a lonely country and the people within the country. There's a kind of loneliness about them."

Wooding wanted to know what it would be like for the North Koreans being separated from their families in south Korea and having no idea what's going on over there?

"Dan, one of the things that is really important for people to understand is that when the country, when the peninsula split apart when back at the time around the Korean War, when there became a North Korea and a South Korea, that it was divided there at the thirty-eighth parallel. People from the North escaped, they left North Korea and many of the Christians escaped into the south. We all know of the strength of the Christian church from South Korea: the leadership of the church in south Korea came from the North. It came from North Korea, and when you see Kim Il Sung square with all the goosestepping soldiers from North Korea that we see that all the time on American television whenever they talk about North Korea, you see these goosestepping soldiers. Right on that square was the great Presbyterian church which was in a sense the cathedral of the Jerusalem of Asia in Pyongyang, North Korea. It is, I think, an awesome and sobering thought to realize how quickly a nation which is identified with its Christianity and known to be so strong in faith that things can deteriorate and fall apart; and within a matter of months a nation which was to a large degree Christian can become Communist and atheistic. I think that's a lesson that we need to learn here in the United States -- not to take our faith for granted."

Wooding asked Cher Nelson if there was a highlight, someone there she was able to talk to that, was a real highlight for you her?

"This time there was. We had met this gentleman along the way -- he's connected to the government (but) I don't want to give any indication of who he was -- but I had a moment where I was away from the group waiting on the bus. The bus driver got out and was walking over to visit a friend of his and suddenly this man appeared and came in the bus and sat down in front of me. And he began to ask me first about what is an NGO? We function as an NGO -- a non-governmental organization -- when we bring humanitarian aid into places and he as inquiring about that and the conversation led to well, why do you do this?

"I wasn't sure where he was going with the conversation so I said do you really want me to tell you and he said yes. And I said well you have a book written by Kim Il Sung and you believe in the words that are written in this book very strongly, you believe that you should follow them, you believe that you have a responsibility. Well we have a book as well and you know it as our Bible. And our Kim Il Sung, who is Jesus Christ, has told us how we must live our lives if we are going to be his disciples and followers of him. And some of the things that he tells us are that we must clothe the naked, that we must feed the hungry, that we must rescue the poor, that we must visit those in prison. We have instructions that we must follow. As I had said that we have things in our book that we must do, he laughed and said 'Oh yes, love everybody.' And I said well loving is part of it but most of it is obedience and obedience to the words of Jesus just as you follow the words of Kim Il Sung.

"Well then we started to talk about his life. He had an opportunity to be out of the country in his early life because his father had business out of the country. He began to talk about the differences here and the differences there and made it clear that he did not want to continue with the work that he was assigned to do there, that he would like to do something else. And I asked him if he wanted to do it outside the country and he said 'Oh, definitely,' but there's a circumstance that's keeping him in the country and he doesn't believe that he'll ever be able to break that chain and get out.

"So I started to talk to him about hope, and it was a word that didn't seem to register with him. So I began to explain to him from scripture how Jesus offers us hope, not just hope for an eternal life, but a hope for our purpose within this life. And we talked and he said how do you do that and I said I can tell you in several brief steps and I just laid out the Gospel for him. And I said I don't know if this makes sense to you or not but I want you to remember it and continue to compare it to the words of Kim Il Sung and see whether he offers you the same hope, not just for being with him in the sky someday but for having a purpose for this life and a fulfillment in this life that you are serving and that you are making a difference in this life."

Cher explained that she asked the man if she could pray with him. "And I said may I pray with you, and the interesting thing is Dan that he was leaning over the bus seat in front of me but he immediately gave his hand to me to pray as though he knew that, that's the way we pray. And I held his hand and I just prayed that God would begin to take the few words that I had said and impress them onto his heart and begin to convict him that they were true and begin to give him a hunger to find out what else was said in our book compared to his book and that God would show himself in reality to him.

"I said you don't need anybody else to be with you, you don't need anyone else to lead you. God will reveal Himself to you; if you want to find Him, He will reveal Himself to you. I opened my eyes and looked and he had tears in his eyes and he got up and he left the bus. We were able to follow up in some vague ways afterwards as we ran into him again and we know that he was thinking. We asked him some questions and he repeated back to us some of the things than we had said. So it's one life out of all of those perishing there; but it's one life that we could affect. Who knows where it will go?"

Norm Nelson said something similar happened before in North Korea. "Every time we've been to North Korea we've had an experience like this. The last thing that we said to him when we saw him and it was not too long before we were leaving the country. I said to him 'What's the important word to remember and he looked at me and he said 'Hope.' That may not sound like a big deal in the United States, but in North Korea, wow Dan. It is an incredible breakthrough. That's what happens in North Korea, in Iran, in all kinds of difficult places: Why? because we're there? No, because Jesus Christ is there. And that's why we're 'spies for hope.'

The Nelsons were asked what would be their biggest prayer request for North Korea?

Norm replied: "My biggest prayer right now would be that God would empower the Christians who were in that nation to continue what they're doing to continue worshiping, studying the Word, praying and that He will use them to provide a breakthrough in that nation. It's not so much a political hope that we have, as a hope for a spiritual breakthrough; and we want God to strengthen His people and to protect them there."

Norm Nelson directed listeners who want to know how they can help more with North Korea or these other projects to the ministry website at:
www.compassionradio.com.