Worship leader penned these lyrics for North Korea in exact spot Trump walked on

A worship leader celebrated President Trump‘s historic meeting with Kim Jong Un Sunday as a “prophecy fulfilled” in the country that he described as the “darkest, hardest” place in the world for Christians.

Sean Feucht, penned lyrics for his song “Finish What You Started (Song for North Korea),” which was released in 2012 as part of an album called ‘Songs For Nations,” in the exact spot on the Korean Demilitarized Zone where Trump and Kim embraced before their 50-minute meeting — their third — in pursuit of peace. The song calls for peace and hope.

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Through his non-profit, Light A Candle Project, the Bethel Music singer/songwriter goes into some of the most heavily persecuted areas for Christians worldwide and has seen incredible things happen. But he told Fox News he “never imagined that the song would come true.”

Sean Feucht, Bethel Music worship leader and founder of Light A Candle Foundation, wrote lyrics for a song for North Korea in the same spot President Trump embraced Kim Jong Un on soil in the Hermit Kingdom.

Sean Feucht, Bethel Music worship leader and founder of Light A Candle Foundation, wrote lyrics for a song for North Korea in the same spot President Trump embraced Kim Jong Un on soil in the Hermit Kingdom. (Courtesy of Sean Feucht)

“Oh my God you can do anything, Oh my God Nothing is too hard for you,” Feucht wrote these words from the North Korean side of the DMZ eight years ago.

He shared an image on Instagram with his 97,000 followers of his blue guitar case in the exact spot where Trump and Kim walked Sunday, the first time a sitting president walked into the Hermit Kingdom.

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“Oftentimes we have no idea how God can use our simple songs and prayers to change history,” he added. “Long ways to go still but celebrating small steps (or giant leaps) today!”

South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in said “President Trump is the maker of peace in the Korean Peninsula” in announcing the Trump-Kim meeting.

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“I never expected to meet you at this place,” Kim, who appeared overjoyed in the moment, told Trump through an interpreter.

“I was proud to step over the line,” Trump told Kim later, inside the Freedom House on the South Korea side, according to the Associated Press. “It is a great day for the world.”

Christians around the world have been praying for peace on the Korean Peninsula, especially for believers in South Korea, one of whom told Feucht she is still singing his song regularly in prayer meetings for North Korea.

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North Korean defectors describe situations of life back home, where they quietly sing Christian hymns every Sunday while someone is on alert for informers. Another cowered under a blanket or in the toilet to pray, and another detailed a fellow prison inmate who’d been severely beaten for refusing to renounce her Christian faith.

And while this is a sign of hope to many, Open Doors USA told Fox News in February that Christian persecution was “worsening” in the nation where God is virtually outlawed and Kim is treated as a deity.

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Feucht believes what his song says about God: “You’re faithful to the end. You will finish what you started.”

 

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Bills to Decriminalize Prostitution Are Introduced. Is New York Ready?

New York took a significant step toward expanding the national conversation about sex and crime when a collection of lawmakers on Monday introduced bills to decriminalize prostitution.

Described as the first decriminalization bills ever in the state, and the most comprehensive decriminalization effort ever initiated in the United States, the bills expand upon recent attempts in several other states and the District of Columbia.

If passed, the bills would allow paid sex between consenting adults — decriminalizing both the buying and the selling of sex, as well as promotion of prostitution — while maintaining prohibitions on trafficking, coercion and sexual abuse of minors.

There is no assurance that the measures will pass anytime soon; the legislative session is scheduled to end next Wednesday, and Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has not endorsed the effort.

The legislation introduced in Albany makes clear that the sponsors view centuries of criminalizing prostitution as failed public policy that has done far more harm than good, driving it “into the shadows in an underground illegal environment where sex workers face increased violence, abuse and exploitation, and are more vulnerable to trafficking.” The bills would also allow for those convicted of prostitution-related offenses to potentially vacate such convictions.

Such arguments echo those made by some of those who have worked in the sex trade, several of whom expressed satisfactionthat their concerns were finally being heard by state politicians.

“I’ve been waiting for this day for 30 years,” said Cecilia Gentili, a transgender woman who did sex work and is now a member of Decrim NY, the coalition behind the decriminalization push in New York.

“We are trying to change the lives of many New Yorkers who have historically been criminalized for using their bodies to survive. And it’s time we change that.

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In some ways, the push to decriminalize came about as a result of last fall’s Democratic wins in the State Legislature. The bill’s two sponsors in the State Senate were both newly elected in November: Senator Jessica Ramos, a Democrat from Queens, and Senator Julia Salazar, a Brooklyn Democrat, whose campaign for office last year included an endorsement of decriminalization.

Ms. Salazar said she had been impressed by how rapidly decriminalization has become more mainstream to discuss, both nationally and in New York, where Democrats unseated eight Republican incumbents in the Senate in November.

“It’s only been in the last several months that this issue got more attention and has gained more popular support,” Ms. Salazar said, adding, however, that “it took years of sex workers fighting, having to face stigma, discrimination and abuse in trying to advocate for their rights.”

The idea has long had a prominent supporter in the Assembly in Albany, where the health committee chairman, Richard N. Gottfried, argued that “trying to stop sex work between consenting adults should not be the business of the criminal justice system.”

“It has not worked in a couple of thousand years,” he said. “And requiring sex workers to work in an underground, illegal environment, promotes abuse and exploitation.”

Prostitution is legal only in a few counties in Nevada, and few supporters believe any state will soon fully decriminalize prostitution.

Opponents of the decriminalization movement say that efforts such as the one being undertaken in New York are misguided, arguing that full decriminalization will create a demand that encourages underground sex trafficking.

Sonia Ossorio, president of the New York City chapter of the National Organization for Women, said the decriminalization effort, if successful, would effectively set up a new industry and give legitimacy to existing brothels and pimps.

“Pimps would now just be promoters,” she said, adding “you can’t protect the exploited by protecting the exploiters.” Like some other opponents of full legalization, Ms. Ossorio said she supports a form of partial decriminalization known as the “Nordic model,” which emphasizes the prosecution of people who buy sex, but not the prostitutes themselves.

“It is the wise policy solution,” said Dorchen A. Leidholdt, the director of Sanctuary for Families legal center and a chairwoman of the New York State Anti-Trafficking Coalition, saying such modified plan would “shrink demand, shrink the market and shrink the industry.”

Full decriminalization, however, would be a “public-policy disaster for New York” that would “increase the size of this predatory industry,” Ms. Leidholdt said.

“And prostitution is always predatory,” she added.

Mr. Cuomo’s record on liberalizing once-forbidden activities is somewhat uneven: He has recently backed legalizing marijuana, for example, not long after calling it a “gateway drug.” He expanded gambling in the state, but has balked at backing mobile sports betting.

And on Tuesday, he said he had not read the decriminalization bill and had no opinion on it yet. “This is going to be a controversial issue,” said Mr. Cuomo, a third-term Democrat.

But for activists like Ms. Gentili, after years of waiting to have their issue taken seriously, now is the time to demand action from their lawmakers.

“Are we really progressive or are we not?” asked Ms. Gentili. “I guess we are about to find out.”

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