A Prayer Campaign for North Korean Refugees and Orphans

Sex trafficking. Abuse. Hopelessness. Abandonment. The struggles of North Korean refugees and orphans are well documented on this blog. When we share this information with people who hear it for the first time, the reaction is almost always shock and horror. This year, we want to equip people to do something about these modern-day atrocities. You will be seeing more ways you can actively participate in the health and well-being of North Korean refugees in China on our website and communications this year.

The first thing we want to do is equip you to pray for North Korean refugees in our new program, #Pray40NK, which will coincide with Lent.

The reason why we are calling people to pray is because we believe it is the most practical way that people can get involved. We believe in an all-powerful God who can change any situation according to His will. Prayer is the most effective and powerful first step to substantive change.

In our prayer guide, you will find a daily prayer item coupled with a Bible verse to meditate on. It is our hope that this will bring powerful change in the lives of many and also to bless you in your life.

Many of us on staff have been a part of this ministry for over a decade. We can all say that we have received exponentially more than we have given. We hope you will experience the same measure of blessing as you pray.

You can download the guide here. You can also follow us on Instagram (@crossingbordersnk) for daily reminders. Thank you!

Rebounding, Part 3 - North Korean Refugee's Story

In the early 2000s, it was estimated that the number of North Korean refugees in China could be anywhere from 100,000 to 300,000 individuals. Today, a conservative estimate stands around 30,000 to 60,000 people while others continue to state that at least 200,000 North Korean refugees and their family members hide illegally in China. North Korean refugees still have no rights in China. There are still systematic raids carried out by the Chinese police targeting North Korean refugees, their children, and the people who help them.

This past summer China expatriated about 1,000 missionaries who worked along the Chinese-Korean border.

“The sweep along the frontier is believed to be aimed at closing off support to North Koreans who flee persecution and poverty in their homeland,” Reuters reported in August.

The constant scrutiny and raids carried out by the Chinese government along with the diminishing population of ethnic Koreans in China has left the region ill-equipped to handle the slow but steady drip of North Korean refugees into the country.

"Mrs. Jo" came into China from North Korea when this drip of North Korean refugees fleeing the country was better described as a pouring of North Korean refugees during the Great North Korean Famine of the 1990s. She was introduced to one of Crossing Borders’ missionaries in 2012 and began receiving help in 2013.

The transformation we have seen in her is astonishing. Of the $40 she receives in aid from Crossing Borders per month, she tithes half to contribute to her church and to charities.

Her back is still not straight and her inner wounds have not fully healed, yet her smile is bright. She spends most of her days working on the nearby mountain to find herbs and mushrooms to sell at her local market.

Recently, there was a dispute between two other North Korean refugees at Mrs. Jo’s church. One of them left the church vowing never to return. Mrs. Jo called the one who left and from the Bible, instructed her about why it is important for her to return. The two women made peace and both are attending the church again, receiving life-sustaining aid from Crossing Borders.

Mrs. Jo’s husband recently returned from South Korea after 10 years. They are living together and happy, she said.

“I’m living a life of thankfulness,” she said.

Think for a moment how remarkable this statement is. A woman who lost everything in the North Korean famine and sold as a commodity in China twice, is saying that her life is full of thankfulness.

This is why Crossing Borders exists, to show the compassion of Christ to North Korean refugees, the widows and orphans of North Korea. We have made a difference in the lives of thousands of people and we want to continue and expand and grow.

For all the calls to give and posts we make online, we hope that just a fraction of those who find out about us will be compelled to give out of the thankfulness in their hearts.

As many of us close out the year and perhaps take account of the good and the bad, it is our hope that we place these occurrences in a broader context. Perhaps we can use the example of Mrs. Jo to remind ourselves of how blessed we are and that, even at our lowest of lows, we can sing a song with sincere thanksgiving in our hearts.

When peace, like a river, attendeth my way, When sorrows like sea billows roll; Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say, It is well, it is well with my soul.

To Stay or Leave - North Korean Refugee in China

You’re starving. You’re about to be arrested in North Korea for something that you wouldn’t give a second thought to in the free country. So you run. You walk through the night to elude the police. Avoid contact with people during the day. You’re tired. You’re starving. You wade across a river and make it to China.

But when North Koreans cross into China, they are not in the clear. They are often in danger and need assistance.

This is what is happening now to a North Korean refugee we are in contact with. She is a young woman who we will call “Soon Me.”

Soon Me went to China when she was in her teens. Her mother was sold to a Chinese man so Soon Me was left on her own to find safety and work. She picked up Mandarin quickly and started working at local restaurants as a waitress. For years she has lived like this. She works hard and stays in touch with her mom.

Recently, her step-father visited the restaurant she is working in and revealed to the owners where she was from for reasons unclear to us. He demanded the owners pay him to keep quiet.

It is illegal to help to a North Korean refugee in China. You can be jailed for giving a North Korean a meal. But now Soon Me is outed. She cannot work anymore and she is afraid to leave her house.

These are the issues North Korean refugees face on a daily basis in China. Even the possibility of someone revealing their identity can send fear through them. Soon Me is looking for safety.

Crossing Borders is working with her to see what her best option is. We can move her to another city or we can send her through the Underground Railroad that will take her to Southeast Asia where she will be granted refugee status and where she will be able to move to many free countries throughout the world.

The consequences for either of these options are daunting.

If she stays, she will live under a cloud of fear. Perhaps her father-in-law can find her and threaten her and the people who are helping her. Perhaps someone else will find out the truth and she will have to run again. She will most likely have to cut off ties to her mother.

If she takes the Underground Railroad, she might be caught, arrested and sent back to a North Korean prison camp where she will be tortured and even executed. Also, there are many unsavory people who operate as mercenaries on the Underground Railroad. Soon Me can be mistreated along the way. She could get on an operator’s nerves and be left behind with no one to help.

These are just a few of the daunting consequences we have to consider with Soon Me before we move her.

Over the past 11 years we have helped people like Soon Me who were in predicaments like these and take extra precautions to mitigate the dangers. Many North Koreans around the world have found freedom and many more receive life-sustaining aid through our partnerships with donors.

Please pray for us as we make our next decision with Soon me. There are no perfect answers, only perfect peace through Christ.

**Update**

A couple months ago, we connected Soon Me with another organization who has a vast amount of experience on the Modern Day Underground Railroad. The Underground Railroad stretches from Northeast China to Southeast Asia and has delivered many North Korean refugees safely out of China so they can start new lives in countries such as South Korea and the US.

Soon Me was instructed to meet a Underground Railroad guide in a public place and when she did, she told us that she was mistreated and was again in hiding.

She made it to one of our workers one day to seek help and after staying with her for a couple weeks, she again left, this time in the middle of the night. She only left a note saying she was thankful for our help and would contact us soon.

She has not contacted us and we do not know where she is. Our field worker said that she didn't seem unhappy or that Soon Me expressed any desire to leave.

The lives and motivations of North Korean refugees are complicated. Crossing Borders helps them if they want help but don't press them. They are in fear. Often times their fears are unfounded but we respect that this is how they are.

North Koreans grow up under a cloud of scrutiny. They can be punished for expressing their feelings. So it is often difficult to read them.

It is likely Soon Me has moved to another city in China and has started a new life. She has our phone numbers and we have expressed to her that we will always be there if she needs help but for now, she's gone.

It is sad to think about the tens of thousands of North Koreans who, like Soon Me, are living on the run with no plans for their future and living day to day. They carry with them the pain of leaving their homelands and the suffering of entering a country who does not welcome them.

Crossing Borders exists to help people like Soon Me, this generation of North Koreans who are starving, hurt and lost. Though we have helped thousands find safety in China and freedom outside of China, it is stories like Soon Me that affect us the most. Our doors will always be open for her and our phones always on.

North Korean Orphans: Lice and Other Curious Transactions

“Meena,” a North Korean orphan we support in our Second Wave program, came to English Camp this year with a short, boyish haircut. This was surprising to many of us because her personal style has always been very girly with lots of pastels and frills. She has had long hair for several years. We later found out that she had lice. Her caretakers think that she contracted it from school. She had to cut her hair just before camp started.

At English Camp, our annual, four-day retreat where we take many of the children in our programs out of the city and into the wilderness, 10-year-old Meena slept next to her counselor, a woman from the US.

After the team arrived back to the US, her counselor noticed little insects in her hair. She realized that she had contracted lice from little, sweet Meena. The counselor had to cut her hair too.

This exchange of lice expresses the beauty of our organization. Not only do we want to feed, shelter and pay for our children’s education, we want to love them intimately and try our best to provide the care that their parents would.

Meena’s mother was sold to her Chinese husband as the effects of the Great North Korean famine were still wreaking havoc on the country. In 2003, her mother fled her country illegally and was sold to the highest bidder. Their child, Meena, was born stateless. China did not recognize her as a citizen because of her mother’s status and North Korea did not recognize her because she was born in China.

When Meena was an infant, her mother escaped her life of enslavement and shortly after, Meena’s father left town to find work. This left Meena in the care of her aunt, who contracted an unknown disease that left half her body paralyzed in 2010.

There was no one to take care of her.

Crossing Borders took Meena in and has cared for her for about four years. During this time she has experienced the love and affection of her caretakers, a local pastor and his wife.

Our organization aims to love and care for North Korean orphans like Meena. We take pains to ensure that she grows up in an environment filled with love and affection. Like our mission statement says, we aim to “show the compassion of Christ to North Koreans and their children in China.” That is exactly what we are doing for Meena.

Every child has their moments of pain, times when they act out. This deeply wounded population of North Korean orphans have many scars from their past. Our people are there for these children to absorb their pain in exchange for love. We believe that this is what it means to show to compassion of Christ to these people.

Isaiah 53:5 says that Jesus “was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.”

Just like the loving counselor who took on lice so that Meena could have someone to sleep next to at night, we believe that Christ has done the same for us a million times over.

When asked if she would do it all over again, knowing she would contract lice, our counselor did not hesitate to say, “Yes.”

Our caretakers do the same, daily. Our missionaries have given up a comfortable life in the West for close to a decade. Our staff and volunteers have given up their time, prayers, sweat and tears to make sure this organization is running.

At the heart of Crossing Borders is an attitude of sacrifice to show this love to the people we help.

North Korean Mothers, Chinese Fathers: Caught in the Middle

“Amy,” a North Korean mother who lives in the U.S., has not seen her daughter, who lives in China, in over a decade. Amy’s ex-husband purchased her at the height of the Great North Korean Famine in the early 2000s, when she had arrived in China as a North Korean refugee. She fled China and chose to make her home in America. Amy lives in the Midwest, has a steady job and has remarried.

We recently met Amy in Chicago. She had an odd request: To obtain guardianship over her daughter from her ex-husband’s family and so they could be reunited in the U.S.

Amy’s ex-husband’s family will not grant her request unless she promises to help her husband get a work visa and a job in the U.S., a request that is impossible for Amy to fulfill because she and her ex-husband are not legally married. Amy is also scared that, if her husband comes to the U.S., he might harm her. Crossing Borders told her that we couldn’t help because it is outside the scope of our mission.

Half-North Korean children such as Amy's daughter are often in the middle of disputes that they have little to do with. Many North Korean children in the care of Crossing Borders are in similar predicaments.

Kyung Min, a teenage boy who has been in our care since 2009, has a North Korean mother who fled China for South Korea. Kyung Min’s caretakers say that his mother “lives to get revenge on his father’s family” because she was abused after they purchased her as a forced bride. She often uses Kyung Min to slight his father’s family by making promises to them, then reneging or by sending messages to the family through Kyung Min.

This has gone on for over five years. And though Kyung Min’s caretakers have tried to shield him from this ongoing battle, he is entering into adolescence and is more aware that he is at the center of an ongoing dispute. It is hard for him to not have seen his mother in years, but to realize that much of her contact with him has been to manipulate him to hurt his father's family is a difficult matter for Kyung Min to cope with as he matures.

The lives of these children and their relationships with their North Korean mothers are complex. To say that we have put systems and rules in place to tackle all their issues is foolish. The best we can do is make sure our workers on the ground have been engaging with our children’s every need. We can say that our current workers truly love our children and that they make sure every hair on their head is in place and every problem they have is attended to.

Crossing Borders cares more about people than systems. As we continue to grow, we want to make sure we don’t lose this.

Please pray for us as we deal with diverse and complicated matters in families of Chinese fathers, lost children, distant North Korean mothers. Pray for our caretakers who deal with these problems day in and day out. And pray for our children, who are trying to make sense of their complex situations.

Director's Notes: Usefulness of Suffering

The following post was written by Crossing Borders' Executive Director, Dan Chung and was originally posted in 2014. The story has been updated to reflect the changes in the life of the North Korean orphan he references.  

At the age of eight, I began a dark stretch in my life. I started to have night terrors. Every night through my early teens, I would be caught in a terrible dream where I was running from some terrifying, unseen force. This dream would manifest itself into reality. Each night I would get out of bed screaming and run around my house and sometimes my neighborhood.

Some mornings I would awake to find myself sleeping on the curb.

As a result I was afraid of sleep and would do anything to delay the inevitable. And to this day, I have trouble falling asleep, even as I lay exhausted in bed.

But in some intangible way, this small bit of suffering has laid the foundations for my life as an adult. The pain, which was deep and seemingly unending, drives my work as executive director of Crossing Borders today. As I’ve sat and listened to a countless number of resilient North Korean refugees tell me their stories since 2003, my heart still breaks. And I know that it is in part because of the small quantum of pain I experienced as a child.

Today half-North Korean orphans in Northeast China experience a much greater pain. I saw it in the eyes of "Haneul," a North Korean orphan we helped. Haneul and her family have told us her story. 

Standing out on the streets, a wandering North Korean orphan was crying and looking for anyone to help her. Haneul was six-years-old.

Her North Korean mother fled China through the Underground Railroad and cut off all communication to the people she knew in China, even her daughter and her husband, who purchased her in 2001. Haneul's father left for South Korea to find his wife and to find work.

He would send money back to a friend in China, who was taking care of Haneul. But after a while the money stopped and he was never heard from again. Some say he died. Some say he moved to a different country. No one knows for sure.

Shortly after her father’s money stopped, Haneul was abandoned in the middle of a busy city by her guardians.

She wandered around and somehow found her uncle, a poor Chinese man. He took his niece in. He has a half-North Korean daughter, who is a little younger than Haneul. He too had a wife who he purchased. She left him after their daughter was born. He is poor. He has worked odd jobs here and there but nothing permanent. And he has no idea how to take care of these two girls.

In early 2014, when I visited Haneul at her uncle’s house, She was living in squalor. The soot from the coal that locals burn underground to heat their homes was caked her skin. She was shivering and had a runny nose. There were pans with crusted ramen noodles on the floor of their small living space.

Some experts say that North Korean orphans in China number in the tens-of-thousands. Though many have family who care for them, most live in abject poverty. Some wander the streets looking through bins for trash they can sell. Most long for their mothers who have either taken the Underground Railroad and have found greener pastures or have been captured by the Chinese police, sent back to North Korea and have never been heard from again. All North Korean orphans suffer in some way, shape or form at a young age.

David Brooks of the New York Times published an article titled “What Suffering Does.” It is an interesting reminder about how suffering can be used to bring meaning and purpose in a person’s life.

He says that suffering “means seeing life as a moral drama, placing the hard experiences in a moral context and trying to redeem something bad by turning it into something sacred.”

Though the North Korean orphans in our care have suffered much in their lives, we have hope that they can use this pain as a vehicle to do good. The best way we see this happening is through a vibrant relationship with Christ.

Haneul is on the path to redeeming her experiences. In 2015 she was reunited with her mother in South Korea. She goes to school and is very happy, according to our missionaries who visited her in 2016. 

As we pray for the innumerable North Korean orphans lost in China, let us remember the importance of suffering, that the deeper it is, the more capacity people have to redeem it. It is our hope that these children can take the deep reservoir of their experiences and unleash it back into the world to transform it.

North Korean Defectors: Update on Bo-ah

We informed you earlier this year that a North Korean refugee, “Bo-ah,” was sent off on the Underground Railroad and was well on her way to freedom. Recently, she contacted Crossing Borders and said that she made it to South Korea. She has been through re-education training at South Korea’s school for refugees, Hanawon. Now she is living in Seoul with another North Korean defector. Bo-ah crossed several borders, traversed rivers, climbed mountains and traveled in danger to make it to South Korea. She said that she felt our prayers as she fought her way to freedom.

Bo-ah’s struggles aren’t complete, though she has made it to South Korea. South Korea is now home to more than 25,000 North Korean defectors and many find it difficult to adjust to the modern lifestyle and capitalist society.

Seoul can be overwhelming for the former people of North Korea, people from a country that lives in relative simplicity compared to their southern counterpart. Some North Koreans even share that they are startled by their appliances, which can speak to them. Others are disoriented by the lights. North Korea, with its lack of electricity, becomes pitch black at night.

Though Bo-ah tells us that she is doing fine, she has shared some significant barriers she now has in South Korea. First, because her education in North Korea was only through the third grade. Second, she still longs to reunite with her family.

Just ten years ago, when a North Korean moved to South Korea, it was like they were saying goodbye to your family forever. Today, this is not the case. Through couriers that operate in China and North Korea, defectors like Bo-ah can send messages, money and other items to their remaining relatives.

Andrei Lankov, one of the world’s most respected scholars on North Korea, wrote that 49 percent of all North Korean defectors send money back home through illegal channels. Many send money to get their families out of the country.

Though Bo-ah would like to purchase freedom for her family, she doesn’t have the means nor does she have the education to get a higher-paying job to pay for it.

Until then, she chips away at her studies hoping that one day she will be reunited with her family. Please pray for Bo-ah and the thousands of other refugees who long to see their loved-ones again. Pray for her as she goes to school and church that she would find hope in Christ, despite the sadness of missing her family.

Director's Notes: Rapunzel and North Korea

The following post was written by Crossing Borders' Executive Director: For the past year the animated film “Tangled” has been on heavy rotation in my house. It’s Disney’s take on the classic fairy tale, “Rapunzel.” My daughter has really latched onto the story and the songs. If you’re not familiar with the movie, it’s about a girl with magic hair who was kidnapped by a witch when she was a baby. The witch locks her up in a tower and raises her to think there is nothing outside her tower but suffering and pain. Rapunzel escapes, finds love and lives happily ever after.

After about the fifth time watching it, I began to study the film. I analyzed the plot, I picked out bad dialogue and I found holes in the story.

“A woman is locked up in a tower by an evil witch her whole life and she shows no signs of PTSD?” I asked my four-year-old, who wasn’t listening.

Around the eighth time watching it I began drawing parallels between Rapunzel and the North Korean people. Like Rapunzel, North Koreans have been trapped in their own “tower.” But instead of a witch controlling the information that comes in from the outside, it’s a government with a strong army.

North Koreans have no access to the Internet. Their phone network is completely cut off from the rest of the world. It is outlawed for them to watch television shows from the outside (the punishment can be time in their brutal system of labor camps) or listen to songs the regime deems threatening (almost every song that is not originated in North Korea). If someone hears you speak ill of the government, you could be reported, sent to a prison camp and maybe executed.

We have shared on this blog about our North Korean refugee Ae Young, whose job in North Korea was to teach her people about Juche, North Korea’s ideological construct or, as some people have called it, their religion. Even after fleeing out of North Korea for food and seeing the truth and prosperity of the outside world, she still maintained that the North Korean regime had built the greatest government on earth, that all they needed was food.

It was only after two years that she acknowledged North Korea wasn’t the best. She simply said, “They need God.”

After years of captivity, North Koreans, like Rapunzel, are hungry for the outside world.

Rapunzel was starving to see the world outside her tower. She was starving to see the lights of the nearby town, which lit up on her birthday.

Today, North Koreans are starving for DVDs with Korean dramas, shrugging off punishment because such blackmarket items are commonplace. People are smuggling in USB drives with Korean pop music and information about the outside world. Teenagers with cell phones are exchanging files through Bluetooth with music and videos from the outside. And most significant to Crossing Borders, North Koreans are still illegally moving to and from China in search for food and freedom.

Every human has an innate sense of right and wrong, not just when they are confronted with lying or stealing but in a global sense of how the world should or should not be. Both Rapunzel and North Koreans have found a way to climb down from that tower into the truth of the real world.

For those who are willing to take the risk of stepping out into the world, Crossing Borders will be in Northeast China to greet them just over the border. Our mission is to show the compassion of Christ to them and their children with no strings attached. Please pray for us as we continue this work.

Prayer for North Korean Refugees: Safety and Terror in Life

North Korean refugees in China live in terror everyday. The bombing in Boston has reminded us in the first world that none of us are truly safe, no matter where we live. Acts of terror such as these are intended to scare us from living our everyday life. We get on a plane and we think twice. The next time we participate in or attend a marathon, we will think of Boston.

This terror is relative compared to what others go through on a daily basis. When we think of Syria or Gaza, our daily level of terror is put into perspective.

North Korean refugees in China are under constant pressure of being discovered by their neighbors, police officers or cameras, which seem to have sprouted up on every major street corner in Northeast China.

In 2009 we visited a small village in Northeast China where the police had come a month earlier to round up refugees and send them back to North Korea. The North Korean refugees lucky enough to escape were horrified. They didn’t want to stay in their homes where the police could come again in an attempt to round up refugees. But they also did not want to leave their homes where they might be caught.

“Can you please help me leave the country and go to South Korea?” one terrified woman asked us.

In 2011 China arrested and deported about 28 refugees and put the entire community in horror. The North Korean population is estimated to be around 100,000. Yonhap news reported in 2012 that a few of these refugees were publicly executed.

As we pray this week, let us remember the fear North Korean refugees face everyday. The psychological and emotional damage is stifling. Please pray that they would, through workers like our own in China, receive the peace and comfort of Christ.

Prayer for North Korean Refugees: The Underground Railroad

We have been helping “Bo-ah”, a North Korean Refugee in our Restore Life program for over five years. Late last year we sent her off on the Underground Railroad. As tensions have escalated on the Korean Peninsula, the Underground Railroad continues to quietly bring thousands of North Korean refugees to freedom each year. It is an extremely dangerous journey because, if refugees are caught, they will be sent back to a North Korean gulag to be tortured and possibly executed.

Bo-ah has vivid memories of her home in North Korea. She used to go to the mountains early in the morning with her father to chop down trees to heat their home, which was outlawed. Her teenage years were spent picking mushrooms to make money. She was constantly hungry and would often bring a cup of milk for lunch.

When Bo-ah decided to leave North Korea it was a hard decision because she knew she would be leaving her family behind. She still worries for her family.

“I wish I will be able to make some more money and send it to my family so that they can move to a better house,” she said. “I would buy them a farm in a flat area so they could get enough food for a whole year. But I don’t even know how to contact them.”

We got her a job in Northeast China, though North Korean refugees are not allowed to work in China. Her dream is to open a successful restaurant. She was paid a small wage at first but soon her paychecks became smaller, with more and more time between payments until they stopped altogether.

Eventually Bo-ah decided to leave Northeast China through the Underground Railroad through a partner organization*.

Bo-ah set off months ago and we have not heard from her. The last message we received from our partner was late last year. They told us that she successfully made it past the most difficult leg of the journey.

Please pray this week for North Korean refugees who make this difficult journey through China to Southeast Asia and eventually to South Korea or another free country. Pray that they would be invisible to the authorities and visible to those who are willing to help them. Please also pray for Bo-ah, who could be anywhere along this path. We will keep you posted about her progress.

* Crossing Borders does not help refugees navigate the Underground Railroad because our focus is to provide help for them in China.

Prayer for North Korean Orphans: Two New Children

Pictured: The front yard at the home of one of our North Korean orphans. Recently we have moved forward in our plans to expand our care for North Korean orphans in Northeast China. This is due to the overwhelming success of our Child Sponsorship Program. We can help more children because more of them are sponsored by our faithful supporters.

The children in this program have North Korean mothers who have either been captured by the Chinese police and sent back to North Korea or have fled for freedom in South Korea. We have several orphanages spread out throughout Northeast China and we also partner with schools to pay for their education and some of their living expenses.

We want you to meet a two of our North Korean orphans so you can pray for them with us:

"Juhee" is 11 years old. Her mother was arrested in China four years ago and sent back to a North Korean prison camp. Her father is in his 50s and is unable to work because he is partially paralyzed. He purchased Juhee’s mother, a North Korean refugee, in the illegal sex trade that exploded in China following the North Korean famine of the 90s. She and her father live in extreme poverty. Please pray for her as she will continue to live with her father and go to a local private school.

"Sunhee" is a teenager and her mother escaped from China to South Korea in the early 2000s. It was unclear if her mother made the dangerous journey from China to South Korea via the Underground Railroad. They hadn’t heard from Sunhee’s mother for years. If a refugee is caught fleeing to South Korea, they are treated harshly in the North Korean prison camp system. Last year Sunhee and her father received a call from Sunhee’s mother for the very first time. Her mother had indeed made it to South Korea but there was no invitation to bring Sunhee or her father to South Korea. There was no money sent. It was a call to simply say hello with no promises of another call. Please pray for Sunhee as she continues with her schooling and attempts to move forward with her life.

Crossing Borders is committed to helping as many of North Korean orphans as we possibly can. We are looking for opportunities to help more families. Please pray for these children as we try to give them hope through education and the gospel.

Prayer for North Korean Refugees: Protection

We have always known that the work that we do with Crossing Borders involves risk, danger, concerns for both the North Korean refugees we aid and those who help them. Even as our network security is scrutinized regularly for flaws, there are still ways the Chinese or North Korean governments can hack into our systems. Though we take precautions upon precautions, there are always dangers present for our workers and the North Korean refugees we support. We realize that even though each of our workers uses code names and no one knows the location of our missionaries’ homes, there are still ways to find them. None of our Chinese citizen workers has ever heard the name “Crossing Borders,” but there are still ways for them to get into terrible trouble.

No matter how many precautions we take to keep our North Korean refugees, our missionaries and our workers safe, we can never overstate the fact that our work is illegal and there are inherent risks that people take when they step off the plane in China.

It is the prayers of our supporters to God that have ultimately provided our protection. God has, in our every step, made our efforts possible. Some of these stories we have been able to share, most others would compromise the safety of our refugees or field workers. But believe us when we say that there is an army of angels that surely looks after us.

Thank you for your continued prayers. Please continue to lift us up.

Prayer for North Korean Refugees: A Testimony to the Power of Prayer

In the middle of the night the Chinese Police barged into a room where our missionaries were meeting with two North Korean refugees. There was a Bible open in front of them and it was clear what was going on. This was the first time anything like this had ever happened to Crossing Borders workers. Our missionary couple was taken aback. The wife was sitting with the North Korean refugee women. When the police came in the husband was off in a corner of the room, watching television. Immediately the wife whispered in English, “Don’t turn around.”

He stayed still while the TV blared on.

For a reason unknown to us, Chinese authorities punish male missionaries more harshly than female missionaries. The government punishes couples with even more cruelty.

When I think of this story I am reminded of Acts 12, when Peter was imprisoned and the church began to pray.

“So Peter was kept in prison, but the church was earnestly praying to God for him.” – Acts 12:5

As the church prayed, Peter was met by an angel, was escorted out of prison and showed up at the prayer meeting. So unbelievable was this that when a woman announced that Peter - the subject of their prayers - had arrived at their doorstep, nobody in attendance believed her.

As the police questioned our female missionary and the two refugees, they looked around the room. They did not see her husband watching television, who sat in plain sight. They told the women to go home and left without a huff.

That month Crossing Borders was the prayer focus of one of our closest partner churches. We didn’t know it but this church was busy praying for us.

We believe, as an organization, that prayer is an integral component to our work. Prayers fuel the effectiveness of our ministry toward North Korean refugees and protect us as we do this dangerous work.

We ask that you, the Church, would continue to pray for us knowing that it is our sovereign God who moves the hearts of refugees and eyes of policemen.

Prayers for North Korean Refugees: A Look Inside

Despite the tens of thousands of North Korean refugees that have crossed illegally into China, there are a few ways for a North Korean to visit China legally: 1. by visiting a relative, 2. by obtaining an official work visa and 3. by visiting on official state business. Recently Crossing Borders had contact with a North Korean woman who was visiting her relatives in China. We will call her “Lee-hae.”

We interviewed her at a house of one of our local field workers. She was skinny. She rarely looked up at the interviewer. She cried when speaking about her children. It was striking that, despite her legal status in China, her situation was no less desperate than the hundreds of North Korean refugees we’ve met with “illegal” status.

She was able to give insight into the current situation in North Korea and why things are still miserable there, despite recent attempts at reform.

Lee-hae said that the food situation in North Korea is still desperate. Many aid organizations that have access to the country say that the situation is as bad, if not worse than the famine of the 1990s.

“In the city people can eat once or twice a day but on the farm there is nothing to eat because the government takes all of the harvest for the military,” Lee-hae told us.

She lives in a small town near the border and often sees balloons flying in from South Korea with pamphlets and sometimes small morsels of food. The government orders the pamphlets and food to be thrown away. They say that the food is poisonous. But Lee-hae was so hungry that she ate it anyway.

Despite her troubles in North Korea, Lee-hae said that she would continue to go back and forth to China because she doesn’t want to abandon her husband.

If given a chance, this is what most North Koreans would do. They would go back and forth from China to North Korea to eat and then return to their homes to be with their friends and family. This is precisely what is happening today, except the overwhelming majority of the estimated 100,000 North Korean refugees do so illegally and are at risk of being captured, tortured and even executed because they are hungry and have the wherewithal to do something about it.

But despite the dire situation there are glimmers of hope. On one of Lee-hae’s legal trips to China, she became a Christian.

“When I heard the Gospel first time I could not believe it because I was very afraid of the North Korean government,” she said, sobbing.

Crossing Borders will continue to be a contact point for North Koreans and North Korean refugees in Northeast China. We will share our faith with them and hope that some, like Lee-hae will bring the gospel home.

We believe that we have both sowed and reaped seeds of the underground church inside North Korea over the past 10 years. Please pray that we would be able to effectively minister to North Korean refugees and the North Korean people and that someday our work will create true, lasting change inside the country.

Prayer for North Korean Refugees: Being Illegal

Today members of the US Senate proposed a bill that would eventually lead to provisions for many illegal immigrants to be granted citizenship. President Obama will supposedly follow suit with his own plan tomorrow. While immigration has been a hot topic on Capitol Hill for the last 10 years, North Korean refugees have lived in constant fear with no hope for any reform. Though China signed the UN Refugee Convention in 1951, they have not fully abided by it.

A cornerstone to this Convention is the concept of non-refoulement, which guarantees that the host country will not send a refugee back to their home country. China has been forcibly repatriating North Korean refugees since the late ‘90s.

This has lead to devastating consequences for North Korean refugees seeking food and freedom in China. We minister to children who have witnessed their mothers being hauled away by the police. We cry with the women who have been sold to abusive husbands and treated like livestock by their families. We hid in a closet with a half-North Korean, half-Chinese child because the police were actively searching for North Korean refugees in 2006. We held the hands of North Korean refugees as they traversed rough terrain on the Asian Underground Railroad in search for freedom.

The reason Crossing Borders exists is to help North Korean refugees who are in fear of forced repatriation. If China was abiding by the 1951 Convention, there would be little need for our help. But this is what the church is built for, to provide justice for those who cannot attain it for themselves.

Please pray this week for this dark situation and the people trapped in it. And please continue to pray for Crossing Borders and groups like us that we may continue to provide shelter for those in need.

Prayer for North Korean Refugees: Refugees and Families

Last week we shared about North Korean refugee women who reject their families in China after experiencing life in South Korea. Though we are seeing more and more women abandon their families, a majority of these women still have an overwhelming desire to be reunited with them. Here is one of their stories: “Saenah” came to China as a North Korean refugee in 2001 and was sold to her husband shortly thereafter. She gave birth to twin girls whom she loved. But she and her family suffered in a cycle of poverty and debt that they could not escape.

In 2006 Saenah and her husband left the girls at a Crossing Borders orphanage to find work in Shanghai. But they could not find any meaningful work.

Desperate, the couple went to a fortuneteller who, according to Saenah, didn’t have any answers for them. Out of options, they turned to the church and began to pray night and day for an answer.

At the church they met someone who told Saenah that she could go to a South Korean consulate and find freedom in South Korea. So that’s what they did.

The husband and wife went to a consulate in a nearby town where Saenah and a group of refugees would try to sneak in. Saenah’s husband would watch from a nearby café.

Chinese guards are placed strategically around the South Korean consulate in China, keeping a lookout for any North Korean refugees who might attempt entry. The group of North Korean refugees with Saenah passed through the outside gates of the South Korean consulate while exterior guards made their rounds. Watching from the café, Saenah’s husband thought she was safe. But there was a guard inside the facility.

As a last ditch resort, the women had brought hot chili powder to throw in the eyes of the guards. When they opened the door to the consulate, a guard was waiting there for them. Panicked, the others scattered and the guard quickly cornered Saenah.

In desperation, Saenah reached into her pocket and threw a fistful of chili powder at the guard's eyes. While he was distracted, she made it into the consulate.

Saenah believed that she was almost free. What she did not know was that the Chinese government had a tape of her throwing chili at the guard. This made it difficult for her to gain exit out of China. Saenah waited for three years. People came and left but she, alone, was stuck in the South Korean consulate.

When the time came, Saenah was allowed to board a plane to South Korea. The first thing she did was call her husband, who had given up hope of ever seeing his wife again.

Saenah sent for her husband first, then came and got her twin girls from Crossing Borders. They are living happily in South Korea now.

Family is a complicated topic when it comes to North Korean refugee women who were sold into forced marriages. Some husbands treat their wives well. Others treat them like livestock. Most are somewhere in between.

We do not make decisions for women in these marriages on whether they should flee or stay in China. But we do make sure that the North Korean refugees in our care make sound decisions and that they know the risks of escaping to South Korea.

As we pray this week for these families of North Korean refugees and their children, let us pray for families like Saenah’s who have suffered so much. Our hope is that somehow, they can stay together and live happily with one another in Christ.

Prayer for North Korean Orphans: Repeated Rejection

It’s a typical story. A North Korean refugee woman flees from China for South Korea. She works, saves and sends for her half-North Korean, half-Chinese child and her Chinese husband. The story should end happily but it often doesn’t. Many North Korean refugees who escape to South Korea and are changed by the fast and glamorous lifestyle. Women soon view their husbands in China as backwards and provincial and begin relationships with South Korean men who have a decided economic advantage over their Chinese counterparts.

“Sang” is an North Korean orphan in our Second Wave program. His mother fled China about four years ago. She, like so many North Korean refugees, sent for her son and husband who purchased her in the early 2000s. But it didn’t end up well for Sang. When Sang and her father arrived in South Korea, her mother was transformed into a busy Seoulite. She had a new life with more money and more opportunity. According to Sang’s father, they were both ignored in South Korea and eventually the father and son moved back to their simple life in China. Sang’s mother hasn’t called or sent money in years.

One of the contributing factors to this trend has been South Korea’s gender imbalance. In the 1980s, when ultrasound technology was more common, South Korea’s gender balance was one of the worst in Asia, according to a study by the World Bank. So egregious was this imbalance that the South Korean government banned doctors from revealing the gender of babies in 1987, according to this article by the New York Times.

Haneul, another one of our North Korean orphans, experienced a similar fate. Her mother, a North Korean refugee, went to Seoul and sent for her father. They planned to send for Haneul but, while her father was in South Korea, her mother was wooed by a South Korean man. Her father returned to China in shame and returned to work on his farm in Northeast China.

Chinese men who purchase North Korean refugee women are often the lowest on the economic spectrum. These men have little to offer Chinese women as far as looks and money. This is why many have to go to the human trafficking market to purchase a North Korean woman. So for these men to compete with rich South Korean men for the affections of their wives is challenging.

For the North Korean orphans under Crossing Borders’ care, this is a second forced separation from their mothers and a second rejection. Many of them feel rejected and abandoned twice over.

Please pray this week for North Korean orphans, who often bare the brunt of the emotional wounds from this situation. Also pray for these families to somehow reunite and become whole again. Until they do, Crossing Borders will continue to fill the gap and nurture them.

Prayer for Work with North Korean Refugees: Words to Speak

In our line of work, Crossing Borders has had the opportunity to hear many stories from North Korean refugees face-to-face. Some of these stories shared around dinner tables and in circles of conversation are so heart-wrenching that, after the refugees are done, there is a deafening silence that follows. For some of us on the American staff, sometimes there is nothing to say. In times, we have let this silence remain until someone refills the water or until the check comes at the restaurant.

Fortunately, our missionaries have a gift in comforting and wise words, and have aided us in many a meeting with North Korean refugees in China.

There is a gift that some people have which can only be explained as spiritual. Some people’s words, given at the right moment with just the right tone, can be a salve for those who are hurting or a scalpel for those who need to change.

What do you say to a child who is living with the regret of accidentally turning her mother in to the police? What can be said to a woman who has lost her child to traffickers? Or a man who is dying from a sickness that cannot be healed in Northeast China?

There is no manual for this but there is the Holy Spirit, who can give us these words.

Please pray with us this week as we continue to minister to North Korean refugees who need help and healing. Please pray for God’s presence to be felt in every encounter we have with our refugees and orphans and that we would be given the right words to speak.

Prayer for North Korean Refugees: Faith in Fear

Crossing Borders' work was recently mentioned in FOX Files, as North Korean refugees in our care were interviewed on the news network. Today, we would like to share more about the life of this refugee. In Jesus' ministry, a man, whose daughter was close to death, approached Jesus with an urgent request for the Son of God to enter into his home and heal his ailing daughter. Jesus obliged and followed the man to his home. When they arrived it was too late. She was dead.

In a house full of mourning, Jesus entered with hope. He went to her room and raised her from the dead.

This account in Mark 5 is stunning on many levels. When someone said it was too late, Jesus responded, “Do not fear, only believe.”

We have seen the desperation and fear of so many North Korean refugees in Northeast China.

Crossing Borders staff once met with a family of four North Korean refugees who had only a few hours to flee from the North Korean police. In a rash decision, they decided it was best if the youngest, still in elementary school, was left behind in North Korea. They were afraid that she would slow the family down and that they would all be caught, sent to a prison camp and never emerge.

Our staff spoke with the family in a restaurant in Northeast China. It had been months since they had last seen their daughter and they couldn’t bring themselves to eat the enormous spread of food our staff had ordered for them.

Soon after, Crossing Borders decided to send for their daughter through a network of brokers and smugglers in North Korea. But her fate was uncertain. She could easily be caught by the police and sent to a prison camp where she would be held hostage. She could have been sold in China as a sex slave if caught by one of the many networks of smugglers who traffic North Korean refugees. She could get injured and die on her journey through the North Korean wilderness.

Through her journey, Crossing Borders held to the words of Jesus. “Do not fear, only believe.”

It took weeks of waiting but finally, the family was reunited. It was through moments of utter desperation that the family came to believe in the saving hope of Jesus. He was their only hope.

Once reunited, the family of four made another journey. This time, together, they trekked through China into Southeast Asia, where they were able to receive refugee status. From here, they travelled to South Korea and gained safe entrance. When the family arrived in Seoul they thought their journey of suffering had ended. But their youngest daughter, after the struggle and toil they had suffered to be together as a family, contracted H1N1 and died shortly after the completion of their journey.

Many say that North Korean refugees in China are rice Christians. Critics say they only act like Christians to receive aid. But at least for this family, this was not the case. In their utter devastation they turned to God and began rebuilding their lives.

Together, with Crossing Borders, they leaned on the words of Jesus.“Do not fear, only believe.”

As we go about our week, let us remember that God is near to the broken hearted. He meets those in desperate need. He has sustained Crossing Borders for 10 years with little trouble from the Chinese authorities, we believe, to minister to the North Korean refugees in fear. We hope that with your help, we can continue to work to share the words of Christ with them. "Do not fear, only believe."

Prayer for North Korean Orphans: Hugs and Kisses

For the fortunate, hugs and kisses are a normal part of life. Many of us grew up with them showed on us by loved ones. It is how we show love and caring to our kids. They are even a part of our greetings. But for many of the North Korean orphans in our Second Wave orphanages, expressions of affection are a rare luxury. This summer, the North Korean orphans supported by Crossing Borders participated in an English camp, which was run by volunteers serving alongside us. One boy went home to his father after camp. His father told us that his son cried for three days afterwards. When asked why, we learned that one of the woman volunteers hugged his son so much and it reminded him of his mother, who is currently serving time in a North Korean gulag.

Another girl once told us during the camp that sometimes she lays in bed at night hugging herself, crying, thinking about her mother.

If there was a way for us to send e-hugs to the children in our care, we would. But for now, we encourage our caretakers, missionaries and visitors to hug and kiss these children as much as they can.

But of course, there is a greater solution still that we all pray for, remembering the innumerable North Korean orphans living day to day in China without the love of their parents. We pray fervently that God would envelop the children of North Korea with His Fatherly love, and that He would send more harvest workers to provide for them in His affection.