Could North Korea be Headed Towards Another Famine?

North Korea is in trouble again. And though this is not news to most people who follow the reclusive country, there are a few factors that make this situation uniquely alarming. Some believe North Korea is headed into another great famine.

Failed Five Year Plan

Five years since taking power, in May 2016, Kim Jong Un laid out a five year plan to create economic independence for North Korea. This plan came on the heels of the UN tightening sanctions in March following the North’s recent nuclear tests and focused largely on energy including the need to improve their electricity supply with higher coal output and develop domestic sources of energy, including nuclear power.

Kim Jong Un charged that the country must “solve the energy problem and place the basic industry section on the right track, and increase agricultural and light industry production to definitely improve the lives of the people.”

At a Worker’s Party meeting this January, Kim confessed that the five year plan “immensely underachieved in almost all sectors.” He laid out yet another plan to grow every industry, but like the former failed plan, it probably has no teeth.

www.kremlin.ru

Impact of COVID-19

Though Kim Jong Un’s claims of the entire nation being free of COVID-19 can’t be confirmed, the global pandemic has not left North Korea’s already fragile economy unscathed. Border closures have plummeted trade to an estimated 80-percent drop in the first 11 months of 2020 compared with the same period in 2019, according to Song Jaeguk, an analyst at the IBK Economic Research Institute in Seoul. And the suspension of international flights due to COVID-19 have completely erased the contribution of tourism revenue to the North Korean economy.

Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported in December 2020 that “the entire public transportation system across the country has been suspended since the beginning of this month under the instruction of the central government to prevent COVID-19 infections.” This was a surprising move by a country claiming to be free of the Coronavirus.

Typhoon & Flood Damage

Three powerful typhoons, Maysak and Haishen made landfall on the Korean peninsula within two weeks last September, delivering heavy rain and widespread flooding to parts of both North and South Korea. 

38 North’s damage assessment from 2020’s typhoon season is that “while weather conditions were particularly dire this year, there is currently no evidence, based on currently available information, that the overall damage was unprecedented”.

Collective impact

On their own, the challenges confronting North Korea listed above may seem unfortunately normal for the hermit kingdom. However, with the confluence of tightened UN sanctions, COVID-19 and flood damage, many estimate that North Korea is facing the most challenging situation since the great famine of the 1990s.

Kim Jong Un’s recent pledge to enhance North Korea’s nuclear capabilities and missile program will continue to increase UN scrutiny and consequences. His rejection of South Korea’s olive branch in the form of pandemic relief will likely bring the country further down their economic spiral as the spread of COVID-19 worsens this winter.

God have mercy

North Korean winters are already long and brutally cold. Food shortages are imminent given decimated trade volume and recent typhoons and flood damage. While Kim Jong Un celebrates his new promotion, we can’t help but to worry about the potential of another North Korean famine this winter.

In what is one of the bleakest periods of recent North Korean history, we seek out God’s mercy for Kim Jong Un. Lord, please open his eyes and humble him before your glory, that he may turn from his ways. Please hear the prayers of the saints in North Korea and have mercy on them. Oh Lord, would you relent from disaster so that the world may know of who you are. Amen.

North Korean Refugees Now - Part 1: Changing Economy

In our new blog series, we will explore the newest developments in the world, which affect the flow of North Korean refugees in China. If there is any silver lining to the Great North Korean Famine, it is that North Korea was forced to fundamentally change the way that it distributes goods and resources throughout the country.

The famine killed up to 3 million people and put the country in a tailspin from which it has still not recovered.

Resources during the famine were so scarce that the country had to start a PR campaign to ask its people to eat two meals a day. At the famine’s height, many were left to eat grass, tree bark, pets, and other people.

Much of the starvation in the country can be attributed to a failed distribution system. The irony of the famine is that there was food sitting in warehouses for people to eat. But distributors were afraid to go to the outer regions for fear of starting riots. They also had no incentive to distribute food because, under the old system, they would get paid regardless. So the people starved.

Amidst the chaos, North Korea allowed the economy to be privatized under heavy restrictions.

As a result, private markets popped up all over the country and distributors were paid based on the deliveries they made. Experts say that there is actually less food in North Korea today but people are not dying of starvation because of better distribution.

North Korea has said that this is a temporary solution to the country’s food problems. But the current system has remained intact for almost 20 years.

This has sparked what many have called the Jangmadang, or Black Market generation. This generation carries cell phones, styles their hair to mimic the South Korean pop stars they have seen via illegally imported DVDs, and, most importantly, have not lived through famine.

Change is also coming to the country's vast number of farmers. North Korea is making strides to incentivize farmers for greater yields. After giving their share to the government and paying their operating expenses, farmers can now share profits with their workers.

Manufacturers have also been given more leeway to operate based on market principles. They can negotiate contracts with foreign entities and also pay their employees what they wish.

All these factors have, along with beefed-up security at the border, slowed the pace of North Korean refugees spilling over into China.

But many experts say that these changes enacted by the North Korean government are not drastic enough to revive the moribund economy and to cause change.

“In the economics sphere, the regime seems to lack any real strategic vision,” Marcus Noland, of the Washington-based Peterson Institute for International Economics told the Associated Press earlier this year.

Food remains the biggest issue. There might not be a famine but much of the country is still malnourished and very hungry. All this while food aid is on the decline and experts predict a smaller harvest this year, due to an unusually dry winter.

How this will affect the flow of North Korean refugees into China is yet to be seen. Regardless, Crossing Borders will continue to work in China to give vital protection and aid to these people.

Forging Ahead: Into the Garbage - North Korean Refugee's Story

First of all, we want to thank each and every one of you who donated to Crossing Borders in 2014. We were able to take in three North Korean refugees because of the generosity of our donors in 2014. We will look to add even more people to our care this year. Here is the story of one person we took in:

Sook-hee lived with her husband and daughter in a North Korean mining town. After her husband died in an accident in North Korea, she had no means of supporting herself and her daughter. She decided to take the dangerous journey to China to find work.

Crossing Borders has never encountered a North Korean refugee who has lived in China for longer than Sook-hee. She has been in China for about 20 years, which means that she was one of the first to flee to China during the Great North Korean Famine.

Sook-hee was sold to her current husband who is severely disabled from a fishing accident. He does not have arms and is blind because of an explosion on his fishing boat. She was told her husband was severely disabled by her traffickers but was offered no alternative.

She and her husband live in Northeast China in utter poverty. They scour their city everyday looking for garbage they could exchange for money. They live on just $50 per month, which is considered extremely poor for her area. Their resources are even more stretched because they have a teenage son.

A few years ago, Sook-hee found out that her daughter in North Korea died. Her daughter was 11-years-old when Sook-hee left. She found out about her daughter’s death when she received a picture of her daughter’s famished body. Sook-hee had been saving money to bring her daughter to China.

When we first told her that we could help her, she was suspicious.

“I can’t join your church because I have no money,” she said. There is an acute distrust of Christians in her city because there have been cults and other churches in the area who have swindled money from the people there.

During our staff’s lunch meeting with her, Sook-hee was very uncomfortable and was not able to eat anything besides vegetables and rice. She repeatedly asked what she needed to do to receive the aid but we assured her that she didn’t need to do anything.

For the first time in her life, Sook-hee was being offered a helping hand. The concept was so foreign to her that she didn’t know what to do.

In addition to her abject poverty, Sook-hee, as a North Korean refugee, is an illegal immigrant of China. When she collects garbage with her husband, she has to watch out for any potential threats to both herself because of her legal status and her husband because he is blind.

We hope that, through our aid, she will be able to feel the love, security and compassion of God.

Thank you to all of you who are involved in her restoration.

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.

Rebounding, Part I - North Korean Refugee's Story

North Korean refugees have striking stories of the hardships they have endured and what their difficult lives were like in North Korea. “Mrs. Jo’s” story stands apart to many of us who have heard story after story of the suffering that has occurred amidst North Korean refugees. She lost all three of her children to starvation. But her will to survive and thrive are unlike anything we’ve seen.

North Korea suffered one of the worst famines in human history in the late ‘90s. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the country began to flounder. North Korea launched a PR campaign called “Let's eat two meals a day” in 1991 to convince its people to eat less to ease the government's burden of feeding its country. By the late ‘90s, the country was awash in starvation. It was common to see dead bodies lining the roads and piled in train stations, according to the accounts of North Korean refugees in our care. The death toll from starvation reached seven figures.

Mrs. Jo lived through these times and like many loyal citizens of the communist country, she did her best to keep the country going. In 1998, as the country was deep in the throes of the famine, she lost her 16-year-old daughter to starvation. Later the same year, her husband died of a liver disease. The hospitals did not have the medicine or manpower to treat him.

In 1999 she lost another son. Later that year her last child, a boy, wasted away in her arms as she sat on the floor of her home. He told Mrs. Jo that he wished to eat one bowl of white rice before he died.

“Yes, my son,” Mrs. Jo said. “I will go to the market and sell my shirt and buy you a bowl of rice.”

He slipped into unconsciousness and when he came to, he smiled, touched the button on her shirt and breathed his last.

Mrs. Jo hadn’t eaten in 15 days, she said. But she knew then that she had to leave her homeland or she too would perish. When she made it to a border city in North Korea, she was at the brink of death.

A boy around the age of 11 found her and bought her a bowl of noodles.

“Miss, what’s wrong?” he asked.

“I’ve been starving for so long,” Mrs. Jo said. “I want to leave.”

“My uncle lives around the border. Go there and tell him that I sent you. He will help you,” the boy said. “To get there you have to pass three military gates. If you tell them my uncle’s name they will let you pass.”

She followed this boy’s instructions and survived. Mrs. Jo was now a North Korean refugee.

Part 2 of “Rebounding” will be posted next week.

China Facts: The Fear of Refugees

To understand Crossing Borders, one must understand China. Over the past few weeks, we have been shedding light on facts about China and how they relate to North Korea and North Korean refugees. Like war, instability of any kind is a threat to China’s economic growth. During the late 90s and early 2000s, it was estimated that there were between 100,000 to 300,000 North Korean refugees in China. This is a number generated by the hundreds of thousands of North Korean refugees who fled for their lives during the Great North Korean Famine.

These refugees represent a destabilizing threat to the government. North Koreans can take jobs away from the Chinese. A large number of them could sap valuable resources away from Chinese citizens and can slow economic progress.

This is why the government takes a Zero Tolerance stance on North Korean refugees.

North Korean refugees in China are:

1. Given no rights

It is illegal for a Chinese citizen to feed a North Korean refugee. A North Korean refugee could be murdered by a Chinese citizen with no legal recourse. This is why many North Korean women have been sold to Chinese men as forced brides and prostitutes.

2. Captured

China actively seeks out North Koreans and the networks that provide help to them. Over the years, China has gone on active sweeps to arrest North Koreans for illegally entering the country.

3. Repatriated

China has arrested thousands of North Koreans and sent them back to their country where they are sentenced to forced labor and even executed. North Korean refugees in China are afraid to go outside, speak and seek help because these might all lead to them getting caught, arrested and sent back to certain torture.

In recent years the two countries have worked in concert to stem the flow of refugees across their shared border. They both have erected long, barbed-wire fences. North Korea has also made significant improvements to its border security in order to keep these refugees in ranging from increased rotation of border guards to explosives planted along the Tumen River.

With the economic leverage China has over North Korea, it is not far fetched to think that China could ease its Zero Tolerance policy toward North Koreans while maintaining its economic and military ties with the country.

Crossing Borders will continue to feed, protect and minister to these refugees until China changes their stance on North Korean refugees.

Twice a North Korean Refugee

“We never had enough firewood in the winter,” Yae Rin, a North Korean refugee in Crossing Borders' care told us. “My dad and I would go very early in the morning to the mountain and cut down a pine tree to bring home. We would have been in such big trouble if we were caught. When there was enough snow on the ground, we could take a big tree and slide it down the mountain.” Yae Rin is a young woman. She is less than five-feet-tall. She has a bright disposition and innocence about her. It’s hard to tell that she is a North Korean refugee in hiding in China. It is shocking to learn of the hardship she endured growing up in North Korea. Yae Rin crossed the border into China with nothing and subsequently had to live for years with the fear of repatriation by the Chinese government.

In North Korea, Yae Rin and her family shared a house with four other families and struggled to find enough work to eat on a regular basis. “I had to get out, so I planned to cross the border into China. I went to my friend’s house to prepare to leave but somehow my father found out and stopped me. We cried together and I went back home.” But a few days later, Yae Rin crossed the river into China. She hasn’t seen her family since she escaped.

Soon after crossing over into China, Yae Rin was found by a local Christian who took her to an underground church for safety. Countless other North Korean refugee women are trafficked into China from North Korea or found by wrongdoers and sold as wives or prostitutes. Experts estimate the number of North Korean refugees to be in the hundreds-of-thousands, those who have crossed illegally into China since the Great North Korean of the 1990s.

Yae Rin found work in China and Crossing Borders was able to help her with rent and obtain an ID so she could apply for jobs. She would find work at different restaurants, often working 7 days a week. The field staff at Crossing Borders would meet her regularly during this time for encouragement and prayer. Our missionary couple shared many hours during Yae Rin’s time off talking about her past as well as hopes for her future.

After a few years of struggle and weariness, Yae Rin felt ready to go to South Korea. The trip along the Modern Day Underground Railroad to freedom can take weeks. In addition, South Korea requires each North Korean refugee to take several months of reeducation courses before entering mainstream society. Yae Rin made the trip safely and took all the required coursework in South Korea.

This past year, our field staff who shared time caring for Yae Rin in China were able to meet her just outside a subway station soon after she got her own apartment in Seoul. They hugged and wept for a long time out on the street. They went to her new home and prayed to thank God and cried together again.

Yae Rin, now 26 and a North Korean refugee twice over, through the dangers of China and now in the modern day rush of South Korea, shared one of her first thoughts landing at Incheon airport in South Korea. “I’m finally in Korea. I don’t have to worry about hiding.”

Then while on the bus crossing the long bridge into the city in mid-winter she thought, “I wish my family could be with me now.”

Adjusting to a new life provides many challenges for North Korean refugees but Yae Rin shares that she is happy and now she finally has the freedom to fulfill some of her hopes and dreams. Today, Yae Rin is studying hard and has plans to become a nurse. She may never escape the memories of her past but maybe she feels it’s now her turn to do some healing.

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.

Prayer for North Korean Refugees: Restoration Song

North Korean Refugee Sings a Song She Wrote from Crossing Borders on Vimeo.

This is not a song one would think that a North Korean refugee would write. It is especially unexpected of a woman who has been trafficked and physically abused, a woman who has spent time in a North Korean prison camp. However, after two years in the care of Crossing Borders, having received the gospel and been ministered to by the faithful missionaries on the field, “Ok-seo,” one of the North Korean refugees a part of Restore Life program shared this personally written song with us. Ok-seo has found hope in Christ through the underground church in China.

Ok-seo was well to do in North Korea. She didn’t suffer during the Great North Korean Famine of the 1990s during which an estimated 3 million people starved to death. But when her husband took her 10-year-old son with him to be with another woman, her life took a turn for the worse.

She began selling copper taken from electrical wiring on North Korea’s sputtering electrical grid. This is a grave crime in North Korea and when caught, she was sent to prison. Ok-seo, however, said that she had been lucky. If she had be caught stealing wires going to or from the North Korean capitol of Pyongyang, she would have been executed.

When Ok-seo got out of prison, her friend who was also in the copper trade, told her that she could make $500 a month in China in a tailoring factory. But when she crossed the border she immediately realized that something was very wrong. Ok-seo had been tricked. She had stepped into the waiting hands of a human trafficking ring. Ok-seo begged her captors to sell her to someone without physical defects. Many North Korean refugee women are sold to Chinese men with disabilities. They honored her request and sold Ok-seo to a Chinese farmer who had an immense amount of debt.

Her husband and his family physically and verbally abused Ok-seo to the point where she would get severe migraines. Desperate, she turned to a neighbor, a fellow North Korean refugee who was also trafficked. This woman brought her to church.

Ok-seo said that shortly after she started attending church, her migraines went away.

Outwardly, Ok-seo's situation as a North Korean refugee has not changed. She is still struggling to find the means to survive with her family. However, her outlook on life has transformed. Ok-seo was recently given a journal from our missionaries and wrote the lyrics to the song she she shared after North Korean women in her village were sent back to North Korea. The tune is a of a traditional North Korean song.

In fear, Ok-seo has found hope. Please pray for her and the tens of thousands of North Korean refugees like her - that they would find restoration and strength in God.

*Note: Ok-seo is a part of our Refugee Rescue Fund where you can sponsor women like her in Restore Life and receive regular updates on them.

Prayer for North Korean Orphans: (Almost) Lost Generation

What happens when a generation of North Korean orphans – half Chinese, half North Korean – enter into a world of poverty, without love from a stable home, without proper identification and without a chance? Crossing Borders has had over 10 years to survey the human rights crisis impacting North Korean orphans and refugees in Northeast China. We have concluded that this population at a crossroads. One road is a path to poverty, instability and suffering. Another is the path to education and the gospel. It is a chance for this generation to become a bridge to North Korea.

The generation of North Korean orphans we support were born in the wake of the Great Famine of the 1990s and range in age from eight to 13. Their mothers fled from North Korea to search for food, medical assistance, or a better life. However, following their escape, many were captured and sold to poor Chinese men looking for wives. The orphans who we care for, born out of these forced marriages, have mothers who have left them behind. In some situations, these mothers were running for their lives from abusive husbands or Chinese authorities.

The North Korean orphans left behind have no access to education, medical care or, in the future, legal jobs. They were never granted legal identification.

There are tens of thousands of these children in the region. Estimations add up to over 40,000. Absolute statistics are impossible because they are not counted in any census. But evident to us, nonetheless, is that there seems to be an endless number of them. In each city we visit, we always find large pockets of them.

Upon entry into support from Crossing Borders in our Second Wave program, these children are given an education, raised in discipline and, most importantly, introduced to our faith. In our work, we have had the opportunity to take care of about 150 North Korean orphans. In their lives, we have witnessed stunning transformations. Children who were too scared to speak have become rambunctious and outgoing. Children who were living in filth have been given clean, quiet, orderly homes to live in with guardians who can provide and care for them.

We think it’s time for people around the world to rise up and take responsibility for a group of children, who, if left alone, might be on a road to destruction.

Please pray for these children that they would not be lost in the world cruelty, callousness, or suffering. Please pray that they might be found in Christ.

The Story of Joon, A North Korean Orphan

"Joon" was a North Korean orphan in the care of Crossing Borders. From the stories of our staff and volunteers who met her on the field in China, their lasting impressions speak of her bright smile and energy. They also tell of her surprisingly small stature and the shock that many on the field had when they first met her, learning that she was a young woman of 16 years, not a six-year-old child. Stunted the growth is one of the lasting effects of malnutrition during the Great North Korean Famine. The national impact of starvation and suffering resulted in a population of undersized people who are, even today, noticeably smaller in stature than their counterparts in South Korea. This is an equally, if not more pronounced, attribute of the North Korean orphans and refugees supported by Crossing Borders.

When Joon was 15-years-old, her mother abandoned her and her father in North Korea. Where she was headed, where she is now, remains unknown. Following her mother's departure, Joon lived alone with her chronically ill and alcoholic father who physically abused her.

Joon and her father had crossed over the border from North Korea into China not long after her mother left. Joon's father was captured as an illegal North Korean refugee and died in a Chinese prison, possibly from alcohol poisoning.

All North Korean refugee are considered illegal trespassers and denied human rights in China. The only country that can compare in such abuses with China is Joon’s home, North Korea.

As a young North Korean orphan, a girl without the protection of the law or caretaker, Joon was incredibly vulnerable. She was not only in danger from forces within Chinese law, but outside of the law as well. Human trafficking is prevalent in Northeast China due to a massive gender imbalance produced by the One-Child Policy. Many North Korean refugee women are captured and sold to Chinese men who purchase illegal wives. It was in this dire situation that Crossing Borders was able to step in and place Joon into the home of a local caretaker and staff member.

Our US staff were able to speak with Joon at our missionary’s home after sharing lunch with her. She reminisced about the her home across the border. She told us stories of harsh North Korean winters, times when she endured the abuse of her father. She shared that, even in the cold snow, she collected grass for a living. She was paid less than a quarter per day.

Joon remembered springtime in North Korea as well. Warmth would return to the rural region where Joon lived. The snow would melt to reveal the cold, frozen bodies of those who had died of starvation. Her school days were spent working for her schoolteacher, who made students collect various food scraps during the day, using them as free labor.

It was during our US staff's visit that our missionaries realized that Joon's safety and welfare had been compromised under our caretaker, and that she was in potential danger of being trafficked. Though Crossing Borders could not guarantee that she would be perfectly safe with her caretaker and immediately moved her to live and hide with our field missionaries. Our staff and missionaries spoke with Joon, and it was decided that she would be safest in South Korea. We began developing a plan and considering the steps necessary.

In the following months Joon was secretly and steadily moved from one city to another under the care of our missionaries, evading Chinese authorities from checkpoint to checkpoint. In 2009 we snuck her into the Korean cultural program with hopes she would soon be granted exit out of China and entrance into South Korea. This did not happen.

Our communication with her dropped into complete darkness. For two years, it was unclear if Joon was somehow caught by traffickers or sold as an illegal, 18-year-old bride to a poor Chinese farmer. At worst, we wondered if Joon was even alive.

We later learned that the Korean program into which Joon had been placed imposed a extreme restrictions on Joon. She was not allowed to leave the building, was denied any communication or information on the progress of her movement to South Korea. Joon felt like a prisoner, trapped and desperate. Refusing to cooperate she demanded to be released, but was forced to stay. It was only when Joon began to harm herself to gain their attention that the officials a part of the cultural program agree to let her go.

Joon took matters into her own hands and found a broker to escort her out of China into Southeast Asia. She traveled with a group of five North Korean refugees through the Modern Day Underground Railroad in Laos and made it into Thailand to seek refugee status. She was admitted into South Korea in 2012.

Joon spent three months in Hanawon, a re-education program designed to help North Koreans enter modern society. She received a funds to help her begin building a life for the next year, along with a small apartment furnished with basic supplies that would last her about three months.

Our staff is now in touch with Joon, and has met with her in South Korea. She is finally free.

Joon's story reminds us that even as Crossing Borders works to provide the utmost care and safety for every North Korean orphan and refugee in our care, only God's sovereign and powerful protection can make way to transform their lives. As we work carefully to mitigate risks and keep our refugees from harm, we understand that danger lies all around. All the wisdom in this world cannot perfectly evade the unforeseen circumstances, abuses of power and constant presence of watchful and oppressive authorities. Only God's guidance and care can allow our work to prevail.

We are thankful to Christ for His compassion and love for Joon and for the North Korean orphan. We thank him also for our field missionaries who risk their lives in China to share His message of hope. Please continue to pray with us for Joon and the future of Crossing Borders as we work to bring His compassion to others like her in their pursuit to find salvation.

The Problem with Numbers and North Korean Refugees

One of the biggest hurdles in trying to convince people to help North Koreans is that there is so much mystery surrounding North Korea. For all the press on the Great North Korean Famine of the late 1990s, experts still disagree on exactly how many North Koreans died from starvation. In 2001, North Korean foreign minister, Choe Su-hon told UNICEF that 220,000 North Koreans died of starvation between 1995 and 1998.

A 1998 memo to the House International Relations Committee stated that 300,000 to 800,000 North Koreans were dying per year at the famine’s peak.

But there is another phantom statistic that makes it hard for Crossing Borders to promote our work: how many North Korean refugees are there in China? People like solid numbers and the absence of one makes people skeptical that a problem even exists. With an absolute statistic people can assess what exactly needs to be done. They can put a dollar figure next to the issue and throw the appropriate amount f money and resources to experts who work in the field.

In 2003, when Crossing Borders officially started work, most experts estimated that there were between one hundred to three hundred thousand North Koreans hiding in China. A recent study by W. Courtland Robinson from Johns Hopkins University pegged the figure at 10,000.

The only thing we know for sure is that the number is big but that’s the equivalent of going to the international community, spreading our arms as wide as we can and saying, “we need this much help.”

Crossing Borders is among the few organizations that has kept our eye on the situation among North Korean refugees for a prolonged period of time. Though we cannot quantify the problem objectively, we are noticing that the number of North Koreans is decreasing in the area in which we work. In 2004 our wait lists for those who needed support were long and the problem at hand was too big for us to handle. Today North Korean refugees are still plentiful in the area but there is no waiting list.

Despite the absence of a solid figure, we have an amazing amount of anecdotal evidence backed by the testimonies of North Koreans who have defected to the South. We also meticulously vet each person who comes through our doors to get the clearest picture on the refugee crisis and on how we can expand our work. We have people on the field who keep their ears to the ground in refugee communities and underground churches. Thus far all the evidence we have gathered indicates that the great number of North Koreans who need our help throughout China are not going away any time soon.

If only that were enough.