God Continues to Surprise us in China #GivingTuesday2023

Crossing Borders started operations in 2003 in China. This mission field was our sole focus for many years and continues to be an area of increasing importance. We consider it a great miracle that we are able to continue our work there despite the fact that, in recent years, it seemed as if we would have to cease our operations altogether. China has given us opportunities to help hundreds of North Korean refugees in dire need. We have introduced the gospel to North Koreans who have never heard the name of Jesus Christ, fostered their growth in God, and, for some, witnessed them pass into glory.

This year, North Korean refugee Miriam passed away quietly in China. She had no official identification. She left no assets for her children. She had no rights, no one to call if she was being abused or taken advantage of. To China, it was as if she didn’t exist. And though the world around her did not acknowledge her, we know that she held immense value as a person created in the image of God.

Crossing Borders has been ministering to Miriam and the North Koreans who live near her for almost 10 years. It was God’s providence that our pastor was riding a bus, heard some women speaking in Korean with a North Korean accent, and offered to bring help to them in their village. Through this initial, God-ordained meeting, hundreds have come to know the Lord. The ministry God seeded with one simple conversation on a bus continues to this day with regular church gatherings, retreats for refugee women and their families, providing much needed medical treatments,  and, at times, financial assistance to support those in dire need.

Though our work is illegal in China, Crossing Borders has been able to safely and effectively operate in China for over 20 years. To this day, China does not acknowledge North Korean refugees within their borders. The only time that they do is when North Koreans are  arrested and repatriated back to North Korea. China recently  repatriated a large number of North Koreans who were either captured or stuck in China during the pandemic. Under Xi Jinping’s reign, China has become more and more hostile to the work of outsiders like Crossing Borders.

Every Christian aid worker that we know has been forced to leave the country and never allowed to return. The same is true for our own missionaries who lived and served in China for over 10 years. Though they were never caught by the Chinese government, the current laws and their tracking abilities have made it impossible for them to return to China.

Our future in China seemed bleak. It appeared that we were out of options but God provided a way for us to continue. God continues to surprise us and remind us that he loves North Korean refugees more than we ever will.

We are so thankful for our opportunity to continue our work in China and to bring hope to North Korean refugees like Miriam.

Will you consider a generous gift this Giving Tuesday to help provide refuge to North Korean refugees in China who desperately need it?

How Ellie (엘리) Found Refuge #GivingTuesday2023

In the fall of 2022 we welcomed another refugee into Elim House. We call her “Ellie.” Ellie moved to South Korea in 2005 and scratched out a living as a restaurant worker. Her husband became abusive as a result of a mental illness, according to Ellie. She was so miserable that she attempted suicide. Finally, she asked around if there was any other place for her to live.

“I don’t want to divorce him. I just need a break,” she told our staff when she first arrived at our women’s shelter. Elim House was the resting place she needed. According to Ellie, her husband had psychological problems and was delusional. She also shared  that her husband’s brother had severe mental health issues, which was the cause of his death in North Korea.

As a part of the daily rhythms at Elim House, Ellie began doing Bible studies with our social workers. Ellie’s curiosity about Christianity grew and she even wondered why she didn’t consider the Bible more seriously in the past. Her daughter had previously become a Christian and Ellie was exposed to Christianity but was not convinced.

After spending three months at Elim House and receiving counseling, Ellie’s heart softened. She said that Elim House is like going to her mother’s home, a place where she felt safe. During the week, she would read the Bible with our social worker. She was fascinated by the book of Proverbs and said that it felt like every line was written for her. One Sunday she decided that she wanted to follow Christ and that she wanted to be baptized.

North Koreans like Ellie carry with them a tremendous amount of trauma from their difficult lives in South Korea but also from their time in China, where most have been sold, and their time in North Korea. Ellie carried this trauma into Elim House.

She shared a story about a public execution she saw in person. Often, public executions in North Korea were mandatory viewing. One man was caught with a Bible. Later, a cross was found hanging in his basement. The man’s last words were, "God saved me, not Kim Il Sung.” He barely got his last words out before he was shot dead.

The temporary separation from his wife made Ellie’s husband reconsider how he had treated her. She told us that he was willing to do anything to have her back, even go to counseling. She decided to give their marriage another try. And through most of 2023, it seemed as if they were doing well.

Ellie attended our summer retreat and her life seemed stable. When she came back in September for our Chuseok retreat,it was then that we saw the weight of her marriage on her. She was sad and broken. Shortly after the retreat, Ellie told our social worker that her husband asked for a divorce. She longed for the days when she lived at Elim House and has even considered moving back temporarily.

She is currently going through the legal process of divorce in South Korea. She and her husband are dividing up their assets and her heart is broken. Elim House was a short time in Ellie’s life. It became a place of rest for her amidst the tumult of her life. But most importantly, it was a place where she had a true encounter with the Lord. Though she came to find temporary refuge from her difficult marriage, she found her true refuge in God. Though the circumstances of her life are materially no different from when she first came through our doors, the radical transformation God did in her heart will carry her through the difficulties of her divorce.

This holiday season, please consider making a contribution to this work. Not only will you be providing physical refuge, you will also be providing a platform to share about spiritual refuge in Christ.

Julianne's Respite and Community #GivingTuesday2023

Julianne (center) at Elim House.

Julianne was urgently admitted into Elim House this past July after learning that her husband had committed suicide. She was 41 years old and had been married for about a year.

She came from an affluent family in North Korea. Her father was a high ranking executive and her mother traveled frequently to China for business. Julianne had traveled alone to China during the 2022 Beijing Olympics but due to tightening of Chinese borders, she was unable to return home. Having enough money to get herself to Thailand, she was able to defect to South Korea by way of Bangkok. This defection was both unplanned and unexpected, and it still makes her miss her family and home in North Korea. Julianne’s face lights up and her voice gets excited when she speaks of her home.

Once in Korea, she fell victim to financial fraud, was betrayed by several different men, and experienced much hardship. Julianne was with her husband for three years before they married, which was against the wishes of her in-laws. Her husband had foreign business in Cambodia that had failed recently. After the business closed, they didn't leave their house much over the course of a year, which was extremely trying. She needed to get out and wanted to be alone so she took a solo trip for ten days. Julianne said she intentionally ignored her husband’s calls while on this trip. Her husband was known to be anxious, often thinking she might abandon him and run away. He also became violent when Julianne broached the subject of breaking up. It was during her time away that her husband took his own life. She said they had lived through and endured much hardship together but she never suspected it would end this way.

Julianne believed that if she had returned earlier, her husband would not have died. She says that her husband's death was her fault and that she didn’t think she could go on living with the agony he left her by ending his own life. To make matters worse, her in-laws refused to let her be a part of the funeral because they had always been against their marriage.

We learned that Julianne had regularly listened to sermons and worship music with her husband as he came from a Christian family. Julianne joined our regular Sunday worship services at Elim House during her time with us. Upon arriving at Elim House, Julianne suffered with insomnia, chest pains, lack of energy, no appetite and constantly feeling lethargic. The other women living at Elim House when Julianne arrived cooked for her, spent time hearing her story and encouraged her. Within a couple of weeks, she had found enough stability and strength to go inquire with government agencies about getting emergency financial assistance and even began to look for how she might support herself.

Women like Julianne serve as a reminder that Jesus is our only refuge in times of trouble. We are so thankful for the folks who referred Julianne to Elim House during her turmoil. She was able to find respite and community during her stay with us. Julianne moved out just three short weeks after arriving. Her time with us was brief but we continually pray that the seeds of hope planted in her will be watered by others and that she will one day find her rest in Jesus.

Would you consider partnering with us this Giving Tuesday to help more North Korean refugees who struggle to find help and hope?

Restore More: Spiritually

In the beginning

Kelly at Elim House.

Kelly had never heard of Jesus prior to arriving at Elim House this fall. She is 58 years old and in all of her time in North Korea nor in China, where she lived for almost 20 years, she had never heard of Christianity. Upon arriving at Hanawon, South Korea’s reeducation facility for new refugees, North Korean defectors are required to include their religious beliefs in the documentation. Kelly has been a buddhist for a while but wasn’t sure what “religion” even meant as she filled out her forms.

Hanawon is a government organization and is not affiliated with any specific religion. Volunteers from various faiths are allowed to visit and hold services on weekends for North Korean refugees. Since becoming aware of this topic of religions, Kelly had been very curious about what all of the other options were aside from buddhism. No one had told her about Jesus or the gospel message even in the four years she has been a South Korean resident.

 About a month into her stay with us at Elim House, our missionaries brought a bible and hymn book to Kelly and led her in a time of worship. They read from Genesis 1:1 and talked about how God created the world. Never having been confronted with an alternative to the theory that man had evolved from  monkeys, Kelly was highly engaged as they read through the rest of the first chapter of Genesis.

Kelly’s Buddhist calendar.

Escaping North Korea

Kelly fled North Korea in 1998. Her family started feeling the impact of starvation in 1994 and within four years, it had become a widespread devastation. As all the members of her family foraged and scoured for food, Kelly had to walk over dead bodies on the road. The government was unable to clean up the dead bodies quickly because the famine caused so much death, she said. But starvation made the North Korean people numb to constant death. Kelly and her youngest sister eventually decided to cross the river into China to escape the famine.

Kelly was 36 years old and her sister was 24 when they entered China. It broke her heart to be sold and separated from her sister. Kelly’s face was covered in sadness when she told us that she was also raped by a broker several times.

“Like everyone else,” she said.

Suffering

During the time Kelly was married to a disabled Chinese man who bought her, she worked in the Harbin area where winter temperatures dropped to -25 F. She did hard manual labor cutting down and hauling big trees. She became pregnant but she didn’t want to have a child at that time because she had to focus all of her strength on work to support her family. She ended up having an abortion at a nearby rural hospital, which led to complications that required more surgeries. After some time, Kelly went to have her appendix removed at a bigger urban hospital and was told by the doctors that it was a miracle that she was still alive. The doctors at the rural hospital had caused a lot of damage to her internal organs.

As our missionaries spent more time and heard more of Kelly’s stories, they realized that not one part of her body is normal anymore due to the amount of suffering she endured.  When her daughter was in high school, she urged Kelly to leave China for South Korea so she could stop living a life filled with so much pain and agony. Her daughter had read online that her mom would be able to receive free medical care and surgeries if she made it to South Korea. Kelly’s daughter is the only reason why she was able to leave China and make it safely to South Korea.

Kelly sharing a meal with Elim House caretakers.

Good News

After their first session of worshipping together, our missionaries asked Kelly about her thoughts on the hymns they sang. While sheepishly sharing about being tone deaf, Kelly said she was glad she was able to follow along and expressed that the words were good for her heart. Kelly appeared very receptive when she had a chance to hear the gospel message from the missionaries and seemed to wonder why no one had ever told her this before.

John wrote in 1 John 1:15 “This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.” It is fairly common to see a darkness in North Korean refugees. What a joy it is when we have the opportunity to proclaim the good news and see God’s light begin to penetrate the layers of darkness built up over years of hardship and suffering.

Restore More

“Restore More” is our focus for this Giving Tuesday. Through Elim House, our aim is to restore more North Korean women in 2022, physically, emotionally and spiritually. Jesus said in John 10:10 “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” He is the hope of restoration for all of the North Korean refugee women we encounter. Our goal is to raise $45,000 towards meeting the physical, emotional and spiritual needs of more North Korean women and their children living in South Korea who may never otherwise hear the good news of Jesus and his call to put their hope in Him.

Restore More: Emotionally

Eunice (right) playing games with other Elim House residents.

Crossing the Yalu River

Eunice is 30 years old and recently left Elim House after we helped her secure a new apartment, one that her assailant would not know about. She came to us at the end of 2020 with a history of emotional and sexual trauma. She arrived in China in the summer of 2015 after claiming to fall asleep on the North Korea side of the Yalu River and waking up while being rescued by an elderly woman on China’s side of the river. She told us about being trapped in a relationship with a Chinese man for several years. This man kept her locked in the house out of fear of her running away. Eunice was forced to have sex with him regularly and became pregant but later miscarried after being physically abused by the same man.

She met a missionary who paid to get her safely to South Korea by way of Thailand. Eunice doesn’t clearly recall how she got to Thailand or how long she was there. She suffered from frequent nightmares. She was also exposed to the gospel during her time in Thailand. The constant nightmares even drove Eunice to pray for God to end her life. Much of what she shared with us about her time was disjointed but there was no suspicion by our team that she was intentionally being deceitful. Similar to many other North Korean refugees we’ve helped, it pointed to the severity of trauma she had lived through.

Arriving at Elim House

Upon graduating from Hanawon in 2018, she was able to reconnect with her missionary benefactor to whom she was eternally grateful for getting her to South Korea. To her shock, he had changed into a completely different person and had even left the church, by the time they met face-to-face. He turned from being a father figure to Eunice to a sexual predator, assaulting her for close to a year. She became pregnant and ultimately had an abortion. The thought of having his baby was more than she could bear. She was afraid, angry, couldn’t keep her mind focused, had thoughts of suicide and eventually called a police woman who had helped her in the past. This is how Eunice was ultimately referred to Elim House.

Imagine a lifetime of oppression, sexual, physical and emotional abuse further compounded by having to adapt to a completely foreign and the fast-paced culture of South Korea. Her age may be 30 but Eunice's cognitive level and her maturity do not reflect her age. She is quick to blame her forgetfulness to shirk responsibilities and has a tough time navigating through stressful situations.

Hana Foundation’s annual Settlement Survey of North Korean Refugees in South Korea from 2020 reported again that North Korean refugees living in South Korea experience suicidal impulses at a rate that is more than double that of South Korean natives, 13 percent and 5.2 percent respectively. This rate increased almost 5 percent from 2019 to 2020 for North Korean refugees.

Whether the respondent experienced any suicidal impulse

Looking deeper into the data shows that 14.4 percent of North Korean refugee women experienced suicidal impulses, which is 70 percent more than that of North Korean men (8.5 percent). The leading reason cited by refugee women is “physical or mental illness or disorder” at 30 percent.

Experience of and reasons for any suicidal impulse

Rescue from Loss

But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. Galatians 4:4-5

The word “redeem” came up during a Bible study of Galatians 4:4-5, which was a foriegn concept to our Elim House residents, including Eunice. As the Holy Spirit worked in their hearts, they were able to relate it to their experience of being sold to Chinese men as forced brides, like slaves. Their eyes lit up as they made this connection and they completely froze. The women understood the weight of enslavement more than most people because of their painful past experiences. The Greek word for “redeem” used in Galatians 4:5 can be translated as “ransom or rescue from loss”. It was amazing to see the idea click in the minds of these women who at that moment knew exactly what it meant to be redeemed.

Like most Elim House residents, Eunice was scheduled to meet regularly with a therapist who specializes in counseling North Korean refugees. Though she’s living on her own now, we pray that Eunice will continue her counseling and work towards healing the painful wounds of her past. Eunice’s story is a tragic example of how great the emotional damage is for many North Koreans who have walked in her same shoes.

Eunice at her new apartment.

Restore More

“Restore More” is our focus for this Giving Tuesday. Through Elim House, our aim is to restore more North Korean women in 2022, physically, emotionally and spiritually. Isaiah 26:3 says “You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you.” This is our continued prayer for women who have suffered as Eunice did. Our goal is to raise $45,000 this Giving Tuesday so that we can help meet the physical, emotional and spiritual needs of more North Korean women and their children living in South Korea who may never otherwise experience the perfect and healing peace of God and to put their trust in Him.

Restore More: Physically

Kristine having a meal with other refugees at Elim House.

Kristine came to Elim House with the physical markings of abuse: bruises and scars. She ran away from her husband who was regularly beating her and her two teenage boys. This man refused counseling and held her boys hostage so that he could receive government benefits, which left deep psychological wounds in her boys as confirmed by a counselor.

Kristine, like 80 percent of North Korean refugees like her, was also sold in China’s expansive sex trade.

A study published in April 2021 by School of Social Welfare at Yonsei University, “showed that victims of human trafficking and sexual assault during their journey to South Korea were at a greater risk of intimate partner violence (IPV) in South Korea.” This study analyzed a sample of adult North Korean refugee women to better understand the “possible link between or co-occurrence of acts of sexual violence (SV) and intimate partner violence (IPV) perpetrated against NK refugee women.” This field of research is relatively nascent and we’re encouraged to see more work starting in this area.

Physical Abuse

Many Elim House residents are victims of intimate partner violence, some coming to us severely beaten and bruised. During her time at Elim House, Kristine was brutally attacked by her partner when she unexpectedly ran into him while dropping off her boys at his apartment. Based on the study cited above and knowing that 80 percent of the refugee women in China have been trafficked, it is both sad yet not surprising to encounter such a high percentage of North Korean women who have been subjected to violence and abuse.

Sexual Abuse

Eunice came to Elim House in December 2020 to flee from a man who had sexually assaulted her over the course of a year. He was also the same man who had helped pay for her escape from China to Korea and was someone she looked to as her benefactor and father-figure. After confronting him, Eunice needed temporary shelter while making arrangements with government aid organizations to help her find a new apartment, one that this man would not know about. She was with us for almost six months and during her time at Elim House, we were able to connect her to counseling services to address the trauma she had lived through.

Kristine during a special midnight worship.

Housing Insecurity

Kelly, who came to us in October, works as a janitor at a local library. She was homeless and had secretly been sleeping at her place of work, constantly in fear of being found out and fired. Unfortunately, this is not an uncommon occurrence among North Korean refugees who might arrive at Elim House after finishing their stay at government run facilities or halfway homes after being released from prison.

We’re happy to share that within the first few weeks of her stay at Elim House, Kelly has started the process to get own apartment. There are many more steps ahead of her with the need to provide the right documents to get the assistance she needs. If all goes well, she may have her own place in about eight months.

Financial Insecurity

Kristine, who came to meet and trust Jesus during her time at Elim House, was faced with financial harassment and a lawsuit from people with whom she did business with in South Korea. She was sued by someone whom she employed at one point that had later taken advantage of her small business. He was reported to the police and spent time in jail as a result. However, upon release, he sued Kristine to be compensated for his termination (which is standard practice in Korea) and the court sided with the employee. Like many refugees in South Korea, Kristine earns a living performing unskilled work at local small businesses, which makes it difficult to climb out of large amounts of debt.

Types of Jobs

Even North Korean refugees who aren’t experiencing constant financial duress feel a sense of financial insecurity, mainly driven by the desire to have more money. A few of our residents have corroborated that North Korean women in South Korea are recruited by people in the US with offers of temporary and traveler’s visas to work in America. They’re lured with opportunities to make six-figures in a few months working in the sex trade. Because most of these women were sold from North Korea to Chinese men or families, the sad reality is that they don’t think much about their involvement in prostitution, especially it it means the prospect of making a small fortune.

Kristine (second from left) at an outing with refugees and caretakers.

Restore More

“Restore More” is our focus for this Giving Tuesday. Through Elim House, our aim is to restore more North Korean women in 2022, physically, emotionally and spiritually. Paul reminds us in Colossians 3:12 that we are “God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved” and that we bear the image of our creator (3:9).

Our goal is to raise $45,000 this Giving Tuesday which will cover Elim House operations for six months. We are prepared to house and serve up to 40 North Korean refugee women in crisis in 2022. Will you help us meet the physical, emotional and spiritual needs of more North Korean women and their children living in South Korea who may never otherwise be confronted by the love of Christ and comprehend their inherent value.

Raise Them Up from Isolation: Breaking Free from Social Confinement

Not Welcomed

Safety for refugees in China is to minimize contact. The majority do not have family in China. Neighbors can’t be trusted. The police are a threat to their livelihood. As a result, North Koreans in China stay confined to their homes.

North Koreans living in China not only bear the stigma of living as a refugee, they live in a country that is foreign and hostile to them. There is no protection by the Chinese government for refugees, even for those who fled an oppressive country like North Korea. Rather, the government encourages the reporting, arresting and repatriating of refugees back to Kim Jong Un’s regime. North Koreans in China are a stateless people and not welcomed.

Trafficked

Most escapees from North Korea are women who once served as the primary breadwinner of their households. They sought China as an opportunity to earn money to send back to their families to survive or pay for passage out of North Korea. But en route to their own escape, many fall victim to trafficking by opportunistic brokers at the Chinese border. North Korean women are deceived by would-be “good Samaritans” only to be trafficked to Chinese men and families. Many are abused during and after their sale. These women will bear these scars and shame for the rest of their lives. Social confinement is their means of hiding the past.

Impoverished

The other driving force behind their social isolation is poverty. As we covered in the first part of our education series, trafficked North Korean refugees alack access and opportunity in China and most live in poverty. Poverty is generally known to drive down confidence and participation, especially in women and girls. Those struggling with poverty self-isolate as a way to avoid judgement from others.

The confluence of these forces makes isolation the only option for many North Korean refugees.

Restoration

We seek the restoration of refugees and their children in our work.

Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. - Galatians 6:2

The apostle Paul encourages those in the church to carry each other's burdens. Life is already taxing for North Korean refugees. Imagine how much greater the burden when they have to shoulder it on their own. 

Underground churches and field workers in our China network welcome refugees with refuge and rest. Most have been conned, abused or neglected. Many have lived completely void of social interaction. When introduced and integrated into communities of other North Koreans refugees who speak the same language and have walked a similar road, emotional healing begins in many refugees. Life is meant to be lived together and isolation can be a silent killer.

Self worth

One’s self esteem is sourced both from internal (abilities, performance of good deeds, independence) and external (peer approval, contribution to those around us) factors. Barred from access and opportunity, it is difficult for any person to maintain a sense of self worth. Unable to escape this stigma, many refugees and their children we encounter live each day burdened with guilt, shame and bouts of depression.

We may take for granted opportunities to work or access to education. These are privileges we wish we could provide for all of our refugees and their families. While turning that into a reality in China is generally difficult, we have seen refugees and their children thrive when given access to school and work opportunities.

Who you say I am

Access and community are both crucial to North Koreans living in China. As important as these may be for refugees to fight poverty and isolation, there is greater work to be done in their souls.

 ”Instead of your shame there shall be a double portion; 
instead of dishonor they shall rejoice in their lot; 
therefore in their land they shall possess a double portion; 
they shall have everlasting joy. 
Isaiah 61:7

These are promises God made to the Jews returning out of captivity. These same promises, through grace, extend to all followers of Jesus today. This is the greatest good we can pray for for North Korean refugees and their children. We pray that by calling upon the name of Jesus, He would replace their shame and dishonor with peace and everlasting joy! How great our God is and how true His promises.

Please pray for North Koreans living in China under these conditions. Would you also pray about providing education for our refugees and their children through our upcoming Giving Tuesday campaign?

China’s Hukou System: Perpetuating the Cycle of Poverty

Without outside help, the hukou system locks North Korean refugees and their children in generational cycles of poverty. Learn more from the infographic below and see how you can help end this cycle on Giving Tuesday.

This Giving Tuesday, we want to help break the cycle of poverty for many North Korean refugees and their children in China.

Raise Them Up Through Education: Breaking the Cycle of Poverty

Our hearts yearn to help North Korean refugees and their families. Some take the precarious journey to southeast Asia for a chance at asylum in South Korea. However, most will choose to stay and live in China, where access is limited. Through education, we want to empower refugees and their children to break out of poverty SO THAT the next generation might do far more and reach many more North Koreans than we are able to do as foreigners. 

Education is the focus of this Giving Tuesday

Cycle of poverty as described by World Vision:

“The cycle of poverty begins when a child is born into a poor family. These families often have limited or no resources to create opportunities to advance themselves, which leaves them stuck in the poverty trap.”

This is the unfortunate predicament many North Korean refugees find themselves in while surviving in China. The problem is both geographic and legal. It is almost impossible to break out of without outside intervention.

No rights, no access

Most refugees are women who have been trafficked and sold into Chinese families or to Chinese men as wives. They usually end up in rural areas married to men who work as farmers. Many refugees in Crossing Borders’ network are forced to marry men with significant disabilities. By law, refugees do not have the right to work, and more importantly, working in a public setting exposes them to arrest and repatriation into North Korea. But out of necessity, some women work for cash in small restaurants and farms. These are not people of financial means.

Geographic challenges

Rapid urbanization in China grew its urban population from 30% (of China’s total population) in 1994 to double that (60%) in 2019. Mass internal migration has caused income disparity that continues to grow today. While urban areas gain more access and advantages, rural areas of China receive diminishing education resources (ie. less qualified teachers) and offer fewer economic opportunities. As urban migration has grown in the past few decades, more and more rural primary schools have also been forced to close.

Hukou status

The hukou system is China’s governmental household registration system. Chinese citizens have either urban or rural hukou and, as expected, urban hukou generally provides more public service and welfare than rural hukou. According to the website China Briefing, “those holding rural hukou are distributed arable land for their livelihood while urban hukou holders have access to government jobs, subsidized housing, education, and healthcare.”

Hukou is also inherited, meaning the child of rural hukou parents will inherit the same status. One’s hukou status also determines access to schools. Parents who choose to move to cities for work often leave their children in their rural hometowns with relatives because urban schools prioritize children with urban hukou. This has long term implications into college and the future of their careers. The hukou system creates a massive chasm between the urban and the rural. 

See more on our Hukou system infographic

Teach young people

“to give prudence to the simple, knowledge and discretion to the youth” - Proverbs 1:4

Proverbs speaks to the benefits of teaching and passing wisdom to the younger generation. They need knowledge, discipline and to become knowledgeable of both the divine things and worldly things. This is Crossing Borders’ desire for these  people and an integral part of our mission to sow into the children of North Korean refugees. We want to prepare them for better access in China through education and for eternity with the Gospel.

To have a fighting chance at a better education, Crossing Borders currently provides for children of refugees to get educated in cities with better schools, which is often far from their parents. We also provide access to tutors and school supplies for many others. By God’s grace and with your support, several kids are currently attending college in China.

Akin to many Asian education systems, the objective of pre-college education is to score well on the college entrance exam, known as gaokao in China. But rural students must far outperform their urban counterparts as urban universities heavily prioritize urban hukou students. Whether they stay in their rural hometowns or aspire for urban schools, these children face a constant uphill battle due to their rural hukou status.

Learning a trade

Technical training is another means for both refugees and their children to earn a living and become self sufficient. When college is not an option, children often desire to receive technical training at trade schools or via an apprenticeship. This, too, requires money, access to schools and mentors. We have heard from refugees who want to sell street food or make money cutting hair but don’t know where or how to receive the necessary training. Crossing Borders provides financial aid to give refugees and their children technical training from trusted resources.

The children of rural China already have a tall mountain to climb. At a greater disadvantage, the children of North Korean refugees with rural hukou are destined to continue the cycle of poverty they grow up in.  Without help, North Korean refugees are not able to provide opportunities for their children to break the cycle. And without ongoing support for their kids through college or trade school, the cycle of poverty will persist for generations.

This is why we feel like God placed education on our hearts for Giving Tuesday. We want to empower refugees to earn a living and their children to have the tools and opportunities to break out of the cycle of poverty. May God’s provision and grace give them that chance.

this campaign to financially support education will go live on Giving Tuesday, December 1 and run through December 31.

Our goal is to raise $24,000, which will fund education for the next two years.

Please pray for North Koreans living in China under these conditions. Would you also pray about providing education for our refugees and their children?

Learn more about the crippling effect of China’s hukou system in our latest infographic:

A Thanksgiving Wish from Our Executive Director

A group of North Korean women and their children prepare a meal for us during one of our visits.

The following post was written by our Executive Director, Dan Chung.

I had a meal with a family who narrowly escaped North Korea as the authorities attempted to arrest them about eight years ago. In the rush to flee, they had to make the difficult decision to leave their youngest daughter behind. The three sat with me in a restaurant, father, mother and oldest daughter. None of them could eat because they were wracked with worry and guilt.

Crossing Borders has sat with North Koreans going through the worst of circumstances. Over the years I’ve learned to stay quiet and speak only when asked.

People sometimes ask me if I have trouble celebrating when I've witnessed so much sadness in the world. They’ve asked if events we host should be so ‘fun’ when the purpose is to remember those who have suffered so much.

My answer lies at the heart of the season we are about to celebrate: Thanksgiving. For through the simple act of giving thanks, we acknowledge the brokenness in this world but we also remember how blessed we are.

The first American Thanksgiving took place in 1621 in a time of immense difficulty for the Pilgrims, who had just landed on American shores one year prior.

“So, in some way, that day of Thanksgiving is also coming out of mourning,” said Kathleen Donegan, author of “Seasons of Misery: Catastrophe and Colonial Settlement in Early America.” “But we don’t think about the loss, we think about the abundance.”

Donegan is correct. When we think about Thanksgiving, we often think of the copious food and drink at the table. But the holiday was born out of sorrow and hardship.

Some of the most grateful people I have ever met are North Korean women. Women who have been robbed of everything they held precious: their families, their freedoms and their dignity. And yet, in the midst of these sorrows, they are joyful. They joke around, do impressions of each other and even their Dear Leader, sing and play games like little children. It is truly a sight to behold.

They are thankful not despite their circumstances but rather their circumstances drive them to focus on the good. From these women I am reminded that we can be truly thankful when we realize how fragile our circumstances are.

So when we feast this Thanksgiving, I hope we don’t push the uncomfortable thought of North Korean refugees and other suffering out of mind. This can only lead to guilt. I hope we hold them in our hearts so that we can truly remember how blessed we are.