In their book The Privilege of Persecution, Carl Moeller and David Hegg tell the following story about a courageous believer who has helped their ministry (Open Doors USA) smuggle Bibles and commentaries into North Korea.

The Yalu and Tumen Rivers form a naturally meandering boundary between The People's Republic of China and The Democratic People's Republic of North Korea …. Night and day, soldiers from both armies stare vigilantly at each other through high-powered field glasses as they control traffic in and out of their respective countries. Those approaching the Chinese checkpoints find that travel moves at a snail's pace, for each is high risk and high security, and very few people are allowed to cross the heavily fortified border regularly. Behind the Korean border, the situation is not much different. There are checkpoints everywhere. Traveling inside North Korea is almost impossible.

But one man does go around the country. To those of us in the West, he is known only as "The Traveler." He is one of the persons who helps distribute goods inside North Korea. Despite the ever-present danger of exposure, The Traveler remains an unpretentious and simple man. He looks more like a blue-collar factory worker than the Korean James Bond, but that's one of the keys to his success. He's adept at blending in, remaining both vigilant and decisive.

It's a matter of survival.

He has served Open Doors for years, and yet we don't even know his real name. We never will. The fewer people who know it, the better, for if his secret work on behalf of God's people were ever to be discovered, it would mean a brutal death sentence for him.

When [our] leaders spoke to him, we asked him what the church in North Korea prays for. This ostensibly emotionless man who puts his life on the line every day—often for people he's never even met living in cities he's never visited—began to weep.

He told of a church movement that has remained underground ever since the fifties. In order to wipe Christianity from the face of the land, Kim II-sung's soldiers herded entire congregations into the streets and ran them over with bulldozers. Thousands of men, women, and children—nearly all of them North Korean citizens—were literally crushed to death, their remains … used to line roadbeds throughout the surrounding cities.

Today, under Kim's son Kim Jon-il, there are [around] 240,000 believers, direct descendants of those who were left behind …. [These] North Korean believers are prayerfully focused on one purpose: to be in place and fulfill God's will for their lives. Their prayer is a prayer for liberation, for lifting of the darkness, for a possibility to reopen the churches of their ancestors, and for reconciliation ….

So despite the dangers, The Traveler continues to [risk his life in order to] equip believers with commentaries, Bibles, radio resources, training, and encouragement to keep them focused on the Lord.