In 2002, I spent four days in North Korea. I presume the CIA has been watching me ever since. How I got there is still a small mystery.

Thanks to my friend Ari Rocklin in Canada, I attended a meeting in California to learn more about ‘tentmakers’. These are missionaries who follow Paul’s example, making their own income while being missionaries with real jobs in countries where traditional missionaries cannot go. I became a huge fan of such mission strategy and the courageous people who go.

My conduit for North Korea was Michael, a young Canadian businessman. He and his Swiss partners had permits to legally work in North Korea. They primarily operated a goat farm. NK permitted foreigners who were not from their enemies (Americans and South Koreans) to apply for a business permit. Deep down, they knew they needed help for their devastated economy. No one suspects Canadians or Swiss of being missionaries.

I flew to Beijing with my friend Earl Mullins, caught a plane for a city near the northern border of North Korea, near Russia. The two-hour drive from the Chinese airport to the NK border was somewhat stressful. After all, this was still Communist China. But when we arrived at the NK border, the adventure was just getting started.

Michael was not there to meet us. Instead, we were greeted by a North Korean government agent - the NK equivalent of a KGB agent. We were delayed at the border for a couple of hours because somehow they believed from the paperwork that Earl was a female. He was clearly a bearded and red-headed American male. It took an anxious two hours to clear up the problem, and off we went. Our fifty-mile journey to a city whose name is forgotten was on dirt roads. That was the moment we realized that North Korea was poor. Dirt poor. They may have a nuclear bomb, but they have no roads. I stopped believing the propaganda that they were a major threat. If they couldn’t blacktop a road into their country, how could they build a bomb to wipe out America, or even Seoul?

Our KGB man stayed with us non-stop for the next four days. We were the only patrons at a small hotel where it felt like our agent was sleeping outside our door. We presumed our room was bugged so we were careful about what we said. In fact, I joked later that I talked into a flower-pot- “I never did like George Bush”. Just kidding, Mr. President.

This was all possible because Michael had cooked up a plausible story about me. I was president of CBMC (Christian Business Men’s Committee). Michael must have told them that he was inviting me to visit because I was a big-shot in the business world who wanted to help North Korea. He may have told them we were partners, and that as the ‘President” of a world-wide “committee”, I could benefit NK. He had played loose with the facts for sure.

Earl and Tim meeting with North Korean officials.

Michael had arranged a meeting with regional government officials, discussing potato processing machinery that was sorely needed in the impoverished region of northern North Korea. I am still not sure if Michael hoped I really could help or not. Anyway, I found myself backed into a corner, pretending to this NK official that I would work on finding machinery for his potatoes!

We met other undercover missionaries. A lovely couple from Australia had been living there for a year, teaching English in a school. They seemed thrilled to have some new friends from America. They whispered quite often. and just like us, a government agent was always present in their school and accompanied them at all times. They explained quietly that their apartment was bugged and that NK was quite serious about making sure the dreaded “J” word and “C” word were never used. Jesus Christ was the enemy of the state.

Our friend Michael wanted us to visit a bread factory. We were introduced to a young man who seemed to be in charge. Our government agent was with us, of course, but not watching closely. When it seemed safe for a moment, the foreman (seen here) pulled out a typical flip calendar with pictures of North Korea. Inside the back cover was a picture of Jesus. He smiled, pointed to the picture of Jesus, and then pointed to his own heart. His smile will never be forgotten. Michael later told me that the factory had been established as a secretive mission through a Korean church in Houston, Texas.

The official atheism of NK is especially sad since the capital Pyongyong was once known as the “Jerusalem of the East”. Indeed, South Korea is now the most Christian nation in the world because believers from North Korea fled south when the Communists took over the northern kingdom. The prayer mountains of south Korea are filled with people whose parents and grandparents are from the North.

Someone gave me a book while I was there which detailed a sad story. The original Communist dictator, Kim Il-sung, took control of the north in 1950. His own father had been a radical Communist, but his mother was a God-fearing Presbyterian lady. In his teens, he had to make a decision- follow his father into the rebel army, or follow his mother’s ways of devotion to Jesus Christ. He followed his father, and one of his main reasons was Boring Sermons. He was totally serious, stating that he might have stayed with the church if the sermons had not been so boring!

Decades of Communism and misery might have been stopped if a pastor’s sermons had not been so boring to a Korean teenager. Kim Il-sung went on to become the world’s most authoritarian dictator. When he died in 1994, he was replaced by his hand-picked and revered son, Kim Jong-Il, who was still in power when we were there in 2002.

Giant pictures of both father and son were pasted everywhere. Most people wore buttons with the great leaders’ pictures on their shirts. Most buildings had images of these two despots, who were worshipped as god-like deities. In December 2011, Kim Jong-il died and after an internal family battle for power, young Kim Jong-un took the evil reins.

So, what lessons were learned?

#1 - This whole episode, and especially the Bread Man, proved to me that God has His witnesses everywhere. God has a plan to reach impossible mission fields like North Korea. We don’t see what God is doing, but He has it all under control

#2 - Missionaries who have ‘real jobs’ are the best. In fact, I realized that I was such a missionary, even though my mission-field of Kentucky’s courtrooms was not as exotic as real ‘tentmakers’ who move to dangerous places like Tunisia, or Saudi Arabia, or North Korea.

While tentmaking is the only strategy for nations like North Korea, it is by far the best strategy for places where traditional missionaries are perfectly legal, but not appreciated. For example, all of Western Europe. Or even Massachusetts or Maine or Oregon for that matter.

Imagine if you went to France as a traditional missionary. When asked why you are there, you respond with a smile that you are a missionary or pastor (in a pretty bad French accent). The locals would have no idea what you’re even talking about. There is more credibility if you can tell neighbors that you work for Coca Cola or teach in a university. Your workplace would be your primary mission field. And no one would suspect a thing. You don’t just ‘do missions’ there. You live there and let your light shine in the darkness of a secular culture.

To make the point even stronger, imagine a stranger shows up in your USA neighborhood. You meet him somewhere, perhaps a grocery store or golf course, or maybe he even knocks on your door as a friendly gesture. You ask why he is living in your city. “Oh, I am a missionary.” No matter who you are, a voice in your head would be turned off and likely discount everything he says. A missionary for who or what? Mormon? Or 7th Day Adventist? Or Muslim? Or Jehovah’s Witness? Or some cultish name like the Sons of God, or the Children of Jonestown? Or in some ways even worse, some brand you actually have no problem with- like a Methodist or Baptist or Catholic or Presbyterian?

But what if the neighbor’s answer is simply, “Oh, I teach at the local college.” Or, I work for Coca-Cola”, or “I own a small tech company and can live anywhere I want, and this city has been a dream for me for years.” You get it…… A real job with a real purpose to be there provides a logical answer to all the skeptic’s questions.

This has always been true in skeptical post-Christian nations like France or Belgium or Germany. Even Scotland and England. Traditional missionaries have failed (spiritually speaking) by the thousands in western Europe. They start a small church and try their best to get people to attend but the failure rate is astounding.

#3 - But alas, what if the nation is so inherently atheist and corrupt, like North Korea, that even though you can safely live there, no religious speech is allowed. Even secret meetings (like a quiet house church) are dangerous for both the tentmaking missionary and the locals. So… what’s the point of going if you cannot preach and speak and testify?

A recent story from my friend David Thomas helps. He met a lady who went to North Korea as such a missionary but had to practice what she called “speechless evangelism.” Perhaps you’ve heard sermons making the point that ‘prayer is enough’. In fact, you may have heard such things from me. But do we really believe this is possible? Is it okay to say nothing- just be speechless?

This sweet lady (name unknown) says a resounding Yes. Her strategy was to engage people as their friend. And while in the presence of her friends, she would silently pray the whole time. She prayed. Period. That’s it. Speechless evangelism.

Prayer was indeed enough.

So……. a real job. Real friendship. Real prayers. Undercover tentmaking missionaries. This is a formula for anyone in the world.

Perhaps you don’t think of yourself as a missionary. If you go to work every day, you should!