Jessica (An Elim House Resident)

Jessica with other North Korean refugees.

Through Elim House, we have had the chance to see a wide range of needs of North Korean refugees. Jessica came to us in December of 2022 and, unlike the other refugees who we’ve met, she did not have a great financial need. Instead, she came to us because of her emotional state. She said that she needed the emotional support of a community that cares for her.

It is unclear how she has made her money and it seems as if she doesn’t work much. Her backstory changes on a daily basis and it does seem like she has some emotional trauma. She spends hours and hours each week with our staff. Through this time, it is our hope that she would know that she is loved by God and that she would get the emotional help that she needs. 

In North Korea, Jessica’s father worked near the Demilitarized Zone where he made missiles for the regime, and as a result, her family lived well. When her mother passed away, Jessica’s father turned to alcohol. He eventually remarried to a woman he met through an acquaintance and ultimately quit working.

Jessica, who was attending college in Pyongyang at the time, was forced to return home. She worked and supported eight children, including three of her stepmother’s kids. Jessica got into the business of selling copper in North Korea. She eventually expanded her trade to China. She also acquired goods from China and sold them in North Korea and made a small fortune, she said. However, her father stole money from the company Jessica did business with and fled, which complicated her work relationships. 

Before Jessica’s grandmother passed away, it was revealed that Jessica’s father was not her biological father. Her biological father was a Korean-Japanese man. The father that she knew was in reality her step father. Jessica's mother had once lived in Japan. After marrying Jessica’s biological father, Jessica’s mother became pregnant, and Jessica's maternal grandmother took the whole family to North Korea, including Jessica's mother. Her birth father decided to defect from North Korea at the age of 26 as his work became difficult.

When Jessica’s mother came to North Korea, she did not know she was pregnant. She gave birth to Jessica after remarrying. Jessica was physically abused by her step father when she was young, and as she grew up, this built in her a hatred towards men, she said.

As Jessica got older, she had made friends with military influence (including some Ministry of State Security officers) which allowed her to cross over to China frequently. But eventually, an acquaintance betrayed her and handed her over to traffickers in exchange for double the going rate. According to Jessica there are too many “trashy people,” a phrase she repeats when she recalls her past experiences. 

There were many times in China when she was betrayed and victimized by other North Koreans. In the early days of her life in China, there were times when she was taken to North Korea while helping other North Koreans. She was also sexually abused on multiple occasions. Jessica said that there were many unimaginable things in her past.

She was sold to a handicapped Chinese man who had no feet, became pregnant, and ran away from the house when her child was just two years old. But, because of her concern and care for her son, she visited every few months to see her baby and brought provisions. She lived a hard life in China for 10 years and eventually bought a fake identity.

In an attempt to escape from China to Korea, she spent six months in Vietnam and another six months in Cambodia. Life was extremely challenging in those two countries but she said she had to endure because of her desire to live.

Jessica eventually made it to South Korea in 2010 at the age of 38. While government assistance allowed her to receive housing, she hired people to help find relatives from her biological father’s side of the family in Japan. She waited six months in South Korea until she was authorized to have a passport and left immediately for Japan as soon as it was issued.

This is just a glimpse into Jessica’s life before she settled in Japan for several years and ultimately returned to South Korea. Like most North Korean women who come to Elim House, Jessica’s past is filled with suffering and pain. As the details of her story change from one telling to the next and our observations from other similar encounters is that it is a form of a survival skill for many North Koreans. We hope Jessica stays for a while and is receptive to the help we can offer her through counseling and with the healing love of Jesus.

Restore More: Spiritually

In the beginning

Kelly at Elim House.

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

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

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

Kelly’s Buddhist calendar.

Escaping North Korea

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

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

“Like everyone else,” she said.

Suffering

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

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

Kelly sharing a meal with Elim House caretakers.

Good News

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

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

Restore More

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

Life in China

Why have so many North Korean women been sold in China? And what are the daily struggles these women face?

China’s One Child Policy

China’s One Child Policy was an attempt by the central government to stem the growth of the world’s most populous nation by limiting the number of children couples could have to one as China grew too large for the government to feed and control. The policy was successful in curbing growth, but according to a recent publication from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, as a result, there are warning signs of population contraction that could begin as early as 2027. Many estimate contraction has already begun.

Dr. Yi Fuxian, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said that among the wide range of reasons a country could experience declining birth rates, such as economic prosperity and improved career opportunities for women, the most significant cause in China’s case was the 1979 One Child Policy. 

Not Enough Women

The average gender ratio at birth is 105 boys to every 100 girls. China’s ratio has been as high as 130 boys to every 100 girls and consistently skews higher towards the culturally preferred male children. It is estimated that China now has 30 to 40 million more men than women.

To exacerbate matters further, women born following China's One Child Policy are close to or have already passed their peak fertility age. There are simply not enough women in that generation to sustain China’s population level and the new Two Child Policy passed nearly four decades later on January 1, 2016 may have come too late.

Bride Trafficking

Chinese traffickers sell brides from neighboring countries to address their shortage of women. According to Human Rights Watch, “For years, it was easy for China to ignore the issue. The women and girls being trafficked are often ethnic or religious minorities, from impoverished communities, or, in the case of North Korea, on the run from their own abusive regime.”

Women North Korean Defectors

The first video in our new series “Breaking Down North Korea” covered the common role of women as primary breadwinners in North Korea and why most defectors are women. This created the perfect opportunity for China to meet its gender disparity needs by trafficking women from North Korea.

Once sold into China, life is difficult for North Koreans as a people sold into households with no one they can trust at home and fear of capture and repatriation is constant and all around. Even as they live in China, they are anxious and desperately want freedom.

Because of this ever present threat, they constantly look over their shoulder to make sure they are not being watched or followed. In fact, it is not uncommon for the Chinese government to make public announcements that they will pay bounties to anyone that turns in North Korean refugees. This drives these women deep into isolation. The less people who know about their situations, the less likely they are to be reported to the police. But this isolation leads to depression and hopelessness.

We hear this heartbreaking story time and time again. And this is why I’ve said that tragedy and trauma besets these people wherever they go. Every step of the way is fear and sadness.

Finding Community & Hope

In July, we asked about 100 North Korean refugees under our care about changes to the quality of their lives after encountering Crossing Borders. Here’s what they told us:

I have a supportive community: 97.8%

My life has improved after receiving care from Crossing Borders: 98.9%

I have heard the gospel through Crossing Borders: 93.3%

I live in fear of repatriation to North Korea: 92.1%

Physical safety, emotional healing and salvation are our recurring prayers for North Korean refugees and their children in China and we praise God when we hear back results like this.

Breaking Free

Many of these women look to South Korea for their ultimate freedom. An average of 1100 North Koreans enter into South Korea each year and most escape from China through the Modern Day Underground Railroad, which we will cover in our next episode. We’d love to hear your thoughts on the first two episodes of our Breaking Down North Korea series. Please drop us a note at hello@crossingbordersnk.org and share your feedback with us.

The Violence and Flight of North Korean Women

In 2014, the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHCR) released a summary of accusations against the North Korean government for its ongoing and wide-ranging crimes against humanity. In this 400-page document, the UNHCR compiled a list of policies established within the North Korean government that allowed and enforced abuses leveled against its people. The detailed report is disturbing, revealing a glimpse into North Korea’s cold indifference and willingness to allow extreme suffering to human life.

North Korea is a seemingly dystopian world made real. It is a place filled with violence against those who cannot defend themselves.

North Korean women live in a patriarchal society. This is due to lingering influences of Confucian values that are an essential part of East Asian history. North Korea’s lack of enforcement of human rights and abusive system of law has twisted gender inequality into a violent and sadistic part of many women’s lives.

“Sexual violence in North Korea is an open, unaddressed, and widely tolerated secret,” remarks Kenneth Roth, the executive director of Human Rights Watch. Following 54 interviews conducted with North Korean refugees who escaped from the state after Kim Jong Un’s rise to power, Human Rights Watch released an 86-page report on sexual violence against women in North Korea. In it, they detailed the brutal abuses endured by North Korean women in public, in their homes and in imprisonment. Quoting the 2014 United Nations Commission of Inquiry, the report states that “domestic violence is rife within DPRK society... violence against women is not limited to the home, and that it is common to see women being beaten and sexually assaulted in public.”

It is currently estimated that approximately 200,000 North Korean refugees may live in hiding in China. Over 70 percent of them are women. In Crossing Borders’ analysis of over a thousand refugees who have passed through our network, it is not difficult to believe that over 80 percent of these women have been trafficked. Some of those who are in Crossing Borders’ care have been sold multiple times after their escape from North Korea.

It is not entirely clear why such a large percentage of the North Korean refugee population is composed of women. Hypotheses vary many of them not exclusive of one another but North Koreans’ ongoing vulnerability in China is all the more abusive and impactful for women. According to a report on North Korean human trafficking published by Korea Future Initiative, the demand for North Korean women and the network for trafficking them is still expanding rapidly in China.

Studies reveal that North Koreans are not only be sold into forced marriages, but in to sex slavery - including prostitution and cybersex trafficking. According to the author of the report, Yoon Hee-Soon, “Historically, forced marriage was the most common form of sex trafficking... But after speaking with victims still in China and particularly with our rescue teams, we soon realized broker-led sales of North Koreans to brothels had overtaken sales into forced marriages.”

North Korean women are still fleeing. The most recent statistics state that 969 North Korean women found refuge in South Korea in 2018. This is one of the lowest numbers seen for refugees who have successfully fled to South Korea in the past decade. This may be due to the increasingly dangerous route for North Koreans through the modern day Underground Railroad in Southeast Asia through Thailand or Laos. China and North Korea are reported to be increasing security along their borders to arrest fleeing defectors.

Currently, --- North Korean women have found safety and community in Crossing Borders’ network in China. Together, we are hoping, in the face of growing darkness, to provide counseling, care, compassion for so many who have been hurt and broken for so long. Please help Crossing Borders to reach the downtrodden and burdened. Please help us to continue our work to bring many women together in encouragement and  support. With love and faith, even in fear, North Korean refugees can find freedom.

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 2 - North Korean Refugee's Story

The Tumen River runs from Mount Peaktu to the East Sea. It serves as part of the border between North Korea and China. In the winter it freezes solid. In the summer it flows heavy and is hard to cross for North Korean refugees. Both sides of the river are lightly populated for most of the river’s length. The Tumen is mostly surrounded by mountains and trees. On the North Korean side, there are signs with propaganda messages in bright red. There are hidden military bunkers along this side with thin, horizontal windows for soldiers to peak and point their guns out of.

Mrs. Jo crossed the river in the summer. It was pitch dark. Just as she was instructed, she gave the guard the name of the boy’s uncle. And she was able to cross unmolested.

The Tumen River still is a major crossing point for North Korean refugees today. But the North Korean government has made it harder to cross. Border guards are changed regularly and are instructed to shoot to kill anyone who attempts to cross. Seemingly endless barbed wire fences line on both sides. Explosives are hidden under the river’s currents, according to recent reports.

After Mrs. Jo crossed, she was instructed to go to a boy’s uncle’s house nearby. She did. She was given a meal, new clothes and was told to wait in a room with a few other North Korean women.

The women, all younger than Mrs. Jo, were picked one by one by Chinese men and taken away. Mrs. Jo soon realized that they were being sold.

Most North Korean refugees are women and a large number of them, an estimated 80% of the women, are sold to Chinese men as forced brides to supplement China’s gender imbalance.

This imbalance between men and women is one side-effect of China's One-Child Policy. Chinese couples are forced to help keep the country’s population under control. With the introduction of ultrasound technology in the 1980s, it became easy for couples to make a decision on what gender they wanted. Many have chosen to have a boy.

In 2010, The Economist reported a gender ratio of 275 boys for every 100 girls born in some of China’s provinces. This is almost a three-to-one ratio. What has resulted is an almost hopeless gender gap. The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences stated that by the year 2020, there will be 30 to 40 million more men than women in China.

The demand for women is high in China and the country’s poorest men have to go to the open market to find a wife.

Mrs. Jo was duped by the little boy in North Korea. She was on the selling block and could do nothing to stop it. This boy was part of a coordinated trafficking ring, which paid for her bowl of noodles, paid off the border guards and captured tens of thousands of North Korean women to sell.

Mrs. Jo watched as the women around her were sold. But because she was older, it took over a month to find her buyer. She was eventually sold to a pig farmer as a slave.

For a year Mrs. Jo carried large buckets of water from a well to give the pigs water. She was beaten when she didn’t understand orders, which was often since she didn’t speak Mandarin. She begged her owners release to release her for months. One day they let her leave, but not on her terms.

Her captors found someone else to purchase her. At this point, her back was so strained from her time on the farm that she was permanently hunched, a condition she is still in today.

The man who purchased Mrs. Jo did not mistreat her. He was an ethnic Korean man and he was older, with grown children. They lived together for about a year in Northeast China. But then he received a South Korean work visa. Within a week he was gone.

The South Korean economy has advanced so much that the country now needs to import a pool of cheap labor. It is estimated that there are about 500,000 Korean-Chinese people who have legal work status in South Korea. This is about 20 percent of China’s ethnic Korean population.

This mass migration has decimated the working-age Korean-Chinese population in China. There are less people to help North Korean refugees. Many Korean-Chinese churches in China are almost empty of working-age congregants.

Mrs. Jo’s husband would send money to his children but not to his purchased wife. She was again in need. He would call infrequently and make promises to her that he hardly ever fulfilled. She took to picking herbs and mushrooms on a mountain nearby to sustain herself. But she still couldn’t make ends meet.

This is when she met another North Korean refugee woman connected to Crossing Borders who said there are Americans who can help her.

Part three of “Rebounding” will be posted in one week.

China Facts: The Result - Effects on North Korean Refugees

What has happened as a result of China’s policies on North Korean refugees has been a human rights disaster. Tens of thousands of North Korean refugee women have been sold to Chinese men.

Approximately 70 to 80 percent of North Korean refugee women are trafficked into forced marriages, sexual exploitation, and abusive labor, according to Mark P. Lagon, Ambassador-at-Large and Director, Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, U.S. Dep’t of State.

This has caused a world of suffering for the women who have been sold and the children who have been born into these marriages.

power-and-control-wheel

Some women Crossing Borders has assisted have reported brutal treatment in the marriages they were forced into. Many were physically abused. One woman told us that she was locked in a shed and was "shared" by five farmers who couldn't afford to purchase a wife on their own.

Many North Korean refugees have children with their Chinese husbands. It is estimated by some experts that the population of these half North Korean, half Chinese children is about 60,000. Since China actively seeks out these women and many others flee these oppressive marriages, there is a growing population of children who do not have mothers or fathers who are willing to care for them.

Crossing Borders runs group homes to meet the needs of these children. We also provide scholarships for other children who live with family members.

P1000913

The human cost of the North Korean refugee crisis cannot be measured. Children who have seen their mothers hauled off by Chinese police are haunted by these memories. The women who have been beaten and raped by their "husbands" live with these scars.

Stay tuned for the final installment of China Facts later this week.

China Facts: Population - Trafficking of North Korean Refugees

Our second installment of our series about China is about China's massive population, which affects many North Korean refugees who seek help in the country. China’s sheer size is its biggest strength and its biggest weakness. China is the world’s most populace country with 1.3 billion people. The United States by contrast has about 300 million people and is still the world’s third-largest country by population.

A mass revolt in China would be overwhelming for the government. The government knows this. So the sheer size of the population has been a check on the government. As we mentioned in our last post, China’s ruling class seeks to hold onto power. This has been the driving force of the country’s turn to capitalism and subsequent economic boom.

In his book, “The Party,” Richard McGregor writes that the Chinese government "is all about joining the highways of globalization, which in turn translates into greater economic efficiencies, higher rates of return, and greater political security,"

China has a giant pool of cheap labor that is more than willing to take low-wage manufacturing jobs. But it is also a challenge to feed and control a population so large.

China has taken some measures to curb the growth of its population. One of these measures is the infamous One Child Policy, which went into effect in 1979. By law, most Chinese couples cannot conceive more than one child. This policy has been relaxed several times over the course of decades but the core of it remains.

china_population_2011_4_28

In 2010, The Economist reported a gender ratio of 275 boys for every 100 girls born in some of China’s provinces. This is almost a three-to-one ratio. What has resulted is an almost hopeless gender gap. The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences stated that by the year 2020, there will be 30 to 40 million more men than women in China.

“The cruelest effects of this lopsided gender seesaw will be felt by the involuntary bachelors living in a culture in which marriage is expected,” wrote Susan Scutti in her January report in Newsweek. “These surplus men are sometimes disabled (20 percent), often illiterate, and nearly always the ones who have been left behind to live in rural communities with limited financial prospects.”

As a result, North Korean refugee women who enter China illegally have been sold to the poorest of Chinese men, many of whom are disabled.

The country that is responsible for this gender imbalance has, in effect, created this “market” for vulnerable women and on top of this, hunts these same women down and sends them back to North Korea where they will be tortured and even executed.

Crossing Borders has ministered to men and children who have lost their wives and mothers by forced repatriation. The practice leaves families devastated. Many turn to alcohol to cope.

An overwhelming majority of the North Korean refugees Crossing Borders has helped over the years have been sold to Chinese men. Some have been sold more than once.

Stay tuned for more facts about China.

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.

Cake: A Doorway to a North Korean Orphan's Heart

"Chun Joo" is one of the North Korean orphans in Crossing Borders' Second Wave group homes. It was Chun Joo's birthday when our team visited her orphanage. They went to an American restaurant with her, which served chicken sandwiches and French fries, the closest  to Western food our staff had eaten in over a week. Chun Joo received some small gifts and a paper crown on her head. When the candles on her gaudy cake were lit, she began to cry. Chun Joo could have been crying because she remembered the home she came from. The house she lived in prior to being brought into our Second Wave network was described by Crossing Borders’ missionaries as a “pig sty” with “no space to walk.”

It could have been because she remembered, in this moment, witnessing her father abusing her North Korean mother repeatedly until she "looked like a panda bear." She may have been crying in part because her mother left her behind to flee from her father. Following her mother's departure, Chun Joo's father began to abuse his daughter as well.

Worried for her, wanting to comfort her, our staff asked Chun Joo why she was upset. Chun Joo simply replied that it was because she was happy.

Crossing Borders' team spent a week with Chun Joo and North Korean orphans like her in Northeast China teaching them English and about the gospel. She was very shy at first but with much effort and the work of God, she opened up and began sharing with our teachers. She participated in the activities. She even prayed with our staff.

Our team knew Chun Joos' story going into the camp before they even met her. She had experienced a very harsh and difficult life as a North Korean orphan in China. Her report, however, read, “... she has totally transformed from when we first met her. Where she was shy and sad, she now always has a smile on her face.”

In a few years this fragile little girl has gone from being frightened, nervous and hesitant to being a joyful, gentle young woman. When our summer team played games with her she would always be the first to laugh at her own mistakes. She formed close bonds wit h our volunteers.

The only thing that our team knew for sure as she sat silently crying was what she told us: that she was happy.

We pray that our North Korean orphans' happiness would not be based solely on exterior circumstances but because Jesus loves them and wants to share his compassion for them.

Prayer for North Korean Refugees: Unyielding Stone

You would never be able to guess that “Kyung”, a North Korean refugee in our care, escaped a life of abuse and and suffering from her husband, who owned her as property. She has a dignity about her that transcends her recent past. You would also be unable to tell that her husband’s teenage son raped her repeatedly when her husband was away or that her husband’s family would beat her if she didn’t cook food the way they liked. North Korean refugees, though resilient, are hard to read. They have been trained by their government to keep their thoughts, feelings and emotions inside. If a North Korean shows any of their feelings, they might die.

We helped Kyung for over two years and for most of those two years she would say to us, “North Korea has the best government, they just need food.”

Our missionaries were baffled by her unyielding insistence that the North Korean government, with its crumbling infrastructure, famines, and oppression of both its own citizens and North Korean refugees, was the best.

Despite her convictions, we would frequently visit Kyung. We would sing with her. We would try to meet her where she was. Kyung's beliefs, we found, were unchanging as if engraved in stone. To her, the North Korean government was an immovable ideal. Her demeanor was impenetrable, her personal thoughts and feelings always shielded impassively even to our skilled missionaries.

It was in a meeting after two years of spending time with Kyung that the subject of government arose in a conversation between two visitors and a missionary who came to see Kyung. Having no knowledge of the thoughts Kyung had shared for so long, one of the visitors asked Kyung for her opinion of North Korea's leadership. All she said was, “North Korea just needs God.” She has held to this new belief since.

Progress in ministering to North Korean refugees is often measured in teaspoons. Bringing change to hardened hearts that have endured much suffering, lies, and pain is a slow process. Nonetheless, Crossing Borders is confident that through the slow work of caring for and loving North Korean refugees, there is change. This is not to speak of our own ability and skill. It is a testament to God's love and unyielding pursuit.

As Ezekiel 36:26 writes,

"And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh."

Please pray for us this week as we minister with the compassion of Christ to North Korean refugees who struggle to hold their burdens in hardened hearts. Please pray that God would wash away the lies and the struggle they have endured, allowing them to receive His love.

Prayer for North Korean Orphans: Why Children are Orphaned

All of the North Korean orphans in our care in Second Wave have lost their mothers who have either escaped their forced marriages or been captured by the Chinese police and sent back to North Korea. Many of the children have fathers who are estranged or in moderate contact. If the children have fathers, why does Crossing Borders refer to them as North Korean orphans?

First, it is important to note that the official definition of "orphan" by the United Nations is “a child who has lost one or both parents.”

A second factor are the typical relationships between our children and their fathers. We take care of two North Korean orphans, brother and sister, “Soo and Jin.” They are half North Korean, half Chinese. They live in one of our orphanages, which is near their father’s home. Their father has been suffering from tuberculosis for years.

Each morning they both go to their father’s home, make him food, clean the house and then go to school. They go to their father's at night to do the same before returning to their orphanage.  Each weekend, they spend time with at their father to help maintain their his home and his health.

The typical Chinese or Korean-Chinese man who goes to the open market in China to purchase a bride lives in poverty, is sick, or has a mental or physical disability.  A majority of them are unable to provide an education or future for the children born following their marriages and need outside help.

This is why we consider each of these children as North Korean orphans. Not only have the children in our care lost their mothers, their fathers are unable to care or provide for them.

Crossing Borders currently helps more than 40 children in Second Wave. However, we cannot ignore the fact that over the past ten years there have been 100,000 North Korean refugees who have fled to China, most of whom are women. An estimated 80% of North Korean women who flee to China are trafficked and sold as forced brides. The number of children who need help must easily be in the thousands if not tens of thousands throughout China.

It is not hard to find a child who needs help in Northeast China.  Whenever we expand this program, it takes little effort.

Please pray with us as we address the needs of North Korean orphans. The sheer number of children in need is staggering. Please pray that these children will be loved. Pray that they would have a future. Pray that they would find hope in Jesus. And pray that we find more.

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 Refugees: Suicide

Mia came to China from North Korea at the height of the North Korean famine in 1998. Like many, many North Korean refugee women, she was captured by traffickers right after she crossed the border. What was unusual about her case, however, was that she was put in a burlap sack and thrown into the back of a truck. “I felt like I was less than a pig,” said Mia.

She was sold for 5,000 Chinese RMB (about $600, according historical exchange rate data) to an abusive Chinese farmer, with whom she had a son.

Mia’s husband beat her so mercilessly that she saw suicide as the only escape to her situation. She tried sleeping pills, which didn’t work. She tried rat poison, which hospitalized her.

When Mia came to in the hospital, she was placed in a bed next to a Korean-Chinese prostitute, who told Mia to be strong and that there was a way out of her situation. Mia didn’t want to believe her. When Mia was ready to go back home, there were policemen outside her room patrolling the hospital. As a North Korean refugee, she would be arrested, imprisoned, sent back to North Korea. Mia's roommate told her to step outside. What happened next was both horrific and extraordinary.

Mia’s roommate exchanged her body for Mia’s freedom. After the police emerged from the hospital room, they allowed Mia to move to another village with her son. There, she was sold to another man, who was disabled but did not beat her.

She now attends church and has a job in the kitchen in a small boarding school in the countryside. She said that she realizes now that suicide was not her hope, her hope was God.

We believe there are many more like North Korean refugees who are living hopelessly in forced marriages and are waiting to be set free.

As we pray today, let us ask God to mobilize the church so that North Korean refugee women like Mia can be saved from their utter despair.

Staff Notes: Defending the Fatherless - North Korean Orphans

The following post was written by Crossing Borders volunteer staff: There are an estimated 40,000 North Korean orphans in China. The numbers are staggering and it seems there is nothing we can do that would make any difference. "I am only one person!" we cry out, "What can I do?"

According to UNICEF, 21,000 children still die each day of preventable causes. Their mission is "to do whatever it takes to make that number zero by giving children the essentials for a safe and healthy childhood, including health care, clean water, nutrition, education, protection, emergency relief and more." By their definition, an orphan is a child who has lost one or both parents.

There were over 132 million orphans in sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean in 2005. It is estimated that there are 143 million to 210 million orphans worldwide. Out of the millions of children orphaned, only 250,000 children are adopted annually, and those who are not adopted are institutionalized until the age of at 18. Ten percent commit suicide. Sixty percent of girls become prostitutes and 70 percent of boys become criminals. As we see the global perspective, we understand that North Korean orphans are a part of a much more shocking picture.

Chicago, where Crossing Borders is based, is the main national hub for human trafficking. Every day there is someone walking through the arrival gates of O'Hare International Airport who is being trafficked. Every year 325,000 children are trafficked in the United States of America and the prime age of sex trafficked children between the ages of nine and 17. Human trafficking is so popular among criminal business groups because a human being can be sold over and over, where as guns and drugs are perishable commodities that can only be sold once. These things also cost money to obtain and produce, where as human beings can be kidnapped and traded like chattel.

Protecting children is something we can all do without breaking the bank. Volunteering at your local school or becoming a foster parent can protect them from the hands of abuse. If this is too much, you can be a safe house, where children stay in your home for a week to a month at a time. This program allows parents who lack in resources to place their children under that care of someone who will be able to help provide for them while they look for jobs or get their life situated. This program also allows the parent to receive their children back into their embrace without potentially losing their children to the State.

You can also support organizations that focus on children. Crossing Borders supports and provides holistic care for the North Korean orphans in the care of their Second Wave program. Other organizations such as UNICEF or your local adoption agency can also help you to work in defending the weak and fatherless.

“Defend the cause of the weak and the fatherless; Maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed.  Deliver the weak and needy from the hand of the wicked.”

- Psalm 82:3-4

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.

Prayer for North Korean Refugees: A Homeless People

One of the first North Koreans to come to the U.S. committed suicide in April of 2010. Last year a North Korean refugee and his wife were found dead in their Rochester N.Y. apartment in an apparent murder suicide. Many of the more than 20,000 defectors to make it to South Korea find it hard to adjust to a market-based, modern economy. Such stories might not make sense if you don’t know the context. Why would North Korean refugees who escape from the suffering and poverty of North Korea and China, North Korean refugees who make the dangerous and impossible journey through the modern-day Underground Railroad lose hope once they finally reach their prosperous destination?

I have met North Koreans refugees in China, defectors in South Korea and in the U.S. The story of struggle is almost always the same. They are a people without a nation, a displaced people who cannot find home.

The world they leave behind in North Korea is a place of hunger and oppression. In China they are hunted by the police or captured and trafficked as sex slaves. In South Korea, though they speak the language, they find themselves lost in the frenetic pace of the highly developed country. In the U.S. where only 200 North Koreans have decided to make their home, they are given very little support by the government.

In addition to the adversity of the foreign countries in which they choose to settle, many North Korean refugees long to see their husbands, wives or children who they have left behind, loved ones they may never see again.

As we emerge from our homes this week and live our lives of plenty, let us remember those whose hearts will never be satisfied anywhere except in Jesus Christ. Let us pray for the North Korean refugees whose hearts are yet homeless.