For decades, North Koreans reportedly hid beneath blankets with forbidden radios, quietly listening as sermons and hymns crossed one of the world’s most heavily guarded borders.
Those broadcasts came from Far East Broadcasting Company-Korea, a Christian radio network now celebrating 70 years of carrying the gospel into places traditional missionaries could not reach, according to a recent report by Christian Daily International.
FEBC-Korea marked the milestone Wednesday at its headquarters in Seoul, reviewing a ministry built around what Korean churches call the “Northern Mission.” The mission focused on sharing the gospel with people in North Korea and other communist nations where sending missionaries was impossible during the Cold War.
The broadcaster said its AM signal travels farther at night, allowing its programs to reach all of North Korea, northeastern China and parts of Siberia. Christians who later escaped North Korea reportedly confirmed that people secretly kept radios and listened “with blankets pulled over their heads.”
After China began implementing economic reforms during the late 1970s, the station received tens of thousands of letters each year from listeners abroad, according to FEBC-Korea. The letters included handwritten messages from ethnic Koreans in China and listeners in Siberia.
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American missionary Tom Watson founded the station, which began broadcasting from Incheon on Dec. 23, 1956. A second operation launched on Jeju Island in 1973 after the U.S.-based Far East Broadcasting Company moved a transmitter there from Okinawa, Japan.
The Seoul and Jeju stations later merged, and FEBC-Korea now operates 15 stations and 14 relay stations across South Korea. Its programming is broadcast in Korean, Chinese, Japanese and Russian.
As media habits change, FEBC-Korea President Maeng Ju-wan said the ministry is also expanding through YouTube and smartphone applications. Its central mission, however, remains unchanged.
“In an era when the pain of division caused by the Korean War has passed 70 years and the gulf of distrust and disconnection is deepening, FEBC-Korea’s northward broadcasts continue, unchanged, to cross the armistice line and shine into every corner of the northern land,” Maeng said, according to Christian Daily Korea.
He compared the ministry’s beginning to a flame that refused to go out.
“Just as a small flame kindled in the darkness in 1956 has today become a great lighthouse illuminating the nation, the airwaves of hope proclaimed by FEBC-Korea will be the most powerful spiritual energy hastening the dawn of a coming unified Republic of Korea,” Maeng said.
James Lasher, a seasoned writer and editor at Charisma Media, combines faith and storytelling with a journalism background from Otterbein University and ministry experience in Guatemala and at the LA Dream Center. A Marine Corps and Air Force veteran, he is the author of The Revelation of Jesus: A Common Man’s Commentary and a contributor to Charisma magazine. For interviews and media inquiries, please contact [email protected].
