Restore More: Emotionally

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

Crossing the Yalu River

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

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

Arriving at Elim House

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

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

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

Whether the respondent experienced any suicidal impulse

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

Experience of and reasons for any suicidal impulse

Rescue from Loss

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

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

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

Eunice at her new apartment.

Restore More

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

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.

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.