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SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA – The clergy at Yoido Full Gospel Church are pretty sure that North Korea's Kim Jong Il doesn't want a host of earnest Christian missionaries coming to his country - holding prayer meetings or Bible study, singing subversive hymns like "Onward Christian Soldiers" or "Joy to the World."
But at this expansive four-building beehive of evangelicalism in downtown Seoul - the largest Christian church in Asia, if not the world - they are ready to cross into the North, if the spirit should so move.
Indeed, Korean evangelicals - a huge and influential subculture here - have already divvied up North Korea among themselves for future ministry. Like evangelicals anywhere, they are ready for the coming of the Lord. In the meantime, they are preparing for change in the North, even if the prospects seem bleak.
At Yoido's entrance, for example, one can view artists' renderings of 12 different contemporary churches and prayer-meeting complexes - all labeled with North Korean addresses. Above, a sign reads: "North Korean churches we must rebuild." Below each is the date they were first built - 1909, 1905, 1884 - and a description of where the original churches were established, usually by Methodist or Presbyterian missionaries. Worshipers are urged to donate to one of the North Korean projects.
"If the defense chairman [Kim Jong Il] will open the doors and allow freedom of religion, we are ready now to go in and construct churches," says assistant pastor Ho-Youn Jun. "We will start with a church site in south Pyongyang. We pray about this strongly. Sometimes we pray all night."
In every sermon preached by Yoido head pastor David Cho there are references to the people of the North, and reminders of their hardships. The Rev. Mr. Cho leads prayers for peace and reconciliation. But there is also a call for the liberation of God's children in the North, a Moses-echoing "Let my people go."
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