Staff Notes: A North Korean Refugee Mother's Heart

The following post was written by Crossing Borders volunteer staff: Ever since the birth of our first biological child Lila, my “mother’s heart” has been unusually sensitive to the difficult situations faced by mothers who have had to give up their children. Our second child Chloe was adopted from South Korea at the age of 14 months. She is now almost four years old and we cannot imagine our family without her. But at the same time I know that somewhere in Korea there is a mother who is wondering where her daughter is, how she looks, what she’s thinking and whether she’s safe and happy in her new life.  When I look at Lila, I can’t imagine how it must feel to give up the child you have carried in your womb for nine months and given birth to, and not know what is going to happen to her. And yet I know because of their life circumstances, whether it is poverty, abuse, or lack of family support, many mothers know that they are making a choice for their children to have a better life than they believed they could provide.

Thinking about the North Korean refugee mothers we assist through Crossing Borders, I often wonder if they have contemplated the same thoughts and worries. Though their lives may be vastly different than those of unwed teenagers or single mothers in South Korea, their stories are also the stories of heartbreak, of loss, and of families torn apart by factors beyond their control. What could possibly have gone through refugee mothers' minds as they made the perilous decision to cross the Tumen River, often leaving behind their youngest children in the hope of finding work or food in China, and hoping that they would soon be able to return? How must their hearts have sunk as they saw those hopes unravel when they were captured by sex traffickers and sold like property to men whose language they did not understand, trading one life of starvation and oppression in North Korea for one of fear and despair in China? And how did they feel when they bore new children and began cobbling together another life, only to be forced to run away for their safety and their children’s safety when they could no longer endure the abuse of their new “husbands”?

Though as varied and complicated as each individual experience may be, as a mother my guess is that one thing remains in common for them. These North Korean refugee mothers haven’t forgotten. They haven’t forgotten the daughter or the son they left behind. Although consciously they may no longer think of them daily, in their mother’s heart I am sure there is an emptiness that remains. And even if they are so numb that they cannot remember, I know that God remembers each orphan and abandoned child left in North Korea or China, and He loves them and cares for them as His own.

As some of the North Korean orphans in our Second Wave shelters recently studied during their devotions, the Word of God says,

“Though my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will receive me” (Psalm 27:10).

Below, in their own words, are some of the responses expressed by the children after studying this Scripture:

My parents gave me a life. But God who created me is my true parent. My parents have forsaken me.  But Jehovah God receives me eternally. I will truly pray to Him and praise Him. I want to be His joy.

My parents forsake me but God did not forsake me.  He sent me to Pastor to raise a faithful person. I give thanks to God. I will praise Him and go to heaven.

Please help us as we continue to pray over not only our orphans, but the North Korean refugee mothers who are not with them.

Prayer for North Korean Refugees: Isolation

One of the most striking things about North Korean refugees is how separated they have been from mass media and the rest of the world. When ministering to them, we must first address the lies they have been fed their whole lives by their government. The North Korean regime is relentless in cutting its people off from the outside world. They tell its people that other countries are terrible places to live and that North Korea is paradise on earth. With no information to refute this, the people generally believe it. It is a nation known for its mind-numbing propaganda.

But change is coming to the Hermit Kingdom. As North Korean refugees like the ones in the care of Crossing Borders travel in and out of the country, they bring with them news from the outside world. DVDs (or VCDs) are creeping past the nation's borders. People are smuggling in small USB drives with Korean dramas and international news reports that are usually only accessed by North Korea’s elite.

One booming industry in North Korea operates along the China-North Korea border as North Korean refugees and businessmen sneak cell phones into the country. These are not North Korean cell phones, which can only access other phones in the country’s tightly monitored network. They are phones that can access China’s cell phone network from inside North Korea. With these phones North Koreans can call family in South Korea.

North Korean refugees in China tell us that North Koreans are not so much interested in the things that most people from the outside world are. The plot lines of South Korean dramas can be entertaining, but most North Koreans are fascinated by the standard of living portrayed in the background of these programs. The city lights of Seoul, the plentiful food on the table, the nice apartments and new, clean clothing that people wear in these videos are what North Koreans are really drawn to.

As North Korean refugees come into our care, it is fascinating to see the transformation that takes place in them. One refugee, after spending years living in China, told us that she still thought the North Korean government is still the best in the world. The nation just needed food. But as time passed our refugee changed in her views. Eventually she told us, “North Korea just needs God.”

As we continue to chip away at the lies of the North Korean government something profound happens within the North Korean refugees we help. They begin to shift away from their worship from Kim Il Sung to recognizing and submitting to the authority and worthiness of Jesus. This is a slow and arduous process, which takes much time and many resources. But it’s why Crossing Borders exists.

Please pray for us as we continue in this work of ending deception and bringing the light of truth to the North Korean refugees and their people who have been isolated from the rest of the world.

Introducing Sex Education to Our North Korean Orphans

Earlier this month Crossing Borders’ missionaries held a sex education class with the North Korean orphans in our care in one of our group homes. This marks a milestone in Second Wave. Most of the education programs through Second Wave thus far have been geared toward children. We realize that we must now change with the passage of time, as the children grow into adolescence. Our missionaries felt that sex education was necessary because the Chinese education system does not teach at length on the subject and most of the children in Second Wave are reaching a mature age at which such discussions were necessary.

When we first started our work in 2003 our North Korean orphans were around the age of 2 to 5. Now they are reaching their teens. Most of the children in Second Wave were born between 1998 and 2006, when the outflow of North Korean refugees into China was at its height.

It was an awkward subject to broach but our missionaries approached on the subject carefully. They opened by asking what the children thought of sex.

“The children said that sex is a very embarrassing thing,” our missionaries said in a recent report. “They said that it’s sinful and only bad people do it.”

The lesson taught that sexual relationships are a gift from God but that they were only to be in the context of marriage. They even brought in something familiar to the kids.

“We found amazing Chinese letter – 性 (xing), which means means 'sex',” our missionaries went on to say.  “It is a combination of two words, the first part, 心, means ‘mind’. The second, 生, means body.  So true sex means body and soul. It matches what the Bible says.”

Our missionaries reported that, despite the awkward subject matter, the children were attentive. The caregivers of our group homes were the most thankful. Raised in the shame-based culture of China, subjects such as sex are hardly spoken of. We are grateful that the children were willing to be open to learning and sharing. We are also glad that our field staff and caretakers have boldness and wisdom in raising North Korean orphans with love and compassion.

Looking to the future, we will be shifting our curriculum focus from children to adolescents, developing methods on how to meet the changing needs of those in our care. We look forward to the challenge.

Prayer for North Korean Refugees: A Time of Danger

This week we ask for your prayers regarding the safety of North Korean refugees in China and the missionaries and field workers who care for them. Every so often China uses anniversaries and celebrations to make sweeps of border towns and round up North Koreans to strike fear in the refugee population and the people who help them. In show of force, Chinese authorities are sweeping the streets in the Yanbian Autonomous Prefecture in celebration of its 60^th year of existence on September 3 of this year. This is one region where many North Korean refugees hide and where many aid workers are operate secretly.

In February we reported on our Twitter feed that 26 North Korean refugees were captured by the Chinese police, many of whom were sent back to North Korea’s brutal system of political concentration camps.

Today is also the 23^rd anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protest and massacre. China is on high alert. A strange coincidence happened today as the Shanghai stock market index fell 64.89 points. That’s 6-4-89, the date of the massacre. This has created a cultural phenomenon in China in remembrance of the massacre. China has already blocked web searches for “Shanghai Stock Market,” according to reports by the Los Angeles Times.

Our eyes on the ground reported that Chinese policemen are patrolling the streets in greater numbers, two-by-two on every street in the Yanbian province.

The 26 refugees caught last year and the missionary who was shot, possibly killed, recently are tactics by the Chinese and North Korean authorities to terrorize the tens-of-thousands of North Korean refugees who are hiding and deter those who risk their lives to support them.

Please continue to pray for the safety of our staff workers and especially the North Korean refugees in our care.

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: Unsung Heroes (Part II)

It seems at times presumptuous to ask North Korean refugees to cast their significant burdens to Jesus when many of us live in safe, comfortable homes far from their everyday struggle. What right do we have to tell them how to live when we cannot fathom the pain and suffering they have and continue to experience? Similarly, how can our American staff challenge local staff members in China to live out their calling to the gospel from our ivory towers in the Western world? Can we call these individuals, who are already heroes in our eyes, to continue to give more of themselves to serve God? Do we have any moral ground to stand on?

Crossing Borders' leaders have been discussing this question as the organization looks to its ongoing and future efforts. Sacrifice is intrinsic in the work that Crossing Borders does. We have to ask people to give. We have to ask people to take some very dangerous risks.

However, after much consideration of these factors, we have concluded that the staff of Crossing Borders does have the right to continue to call others to both submission before Christ and sacrifice to God.

This is why:

Looking to our staff in the US, we realize as an organization that many have made some incredible sacrifices in their lives to follow their gospel call.

This past weekend a couple on staff brought home a beautiful 16-month-old boy from South Korea. They didn’t do this to fill a selfish need but because they felt called by God’s Word to do so. They are the second couple on our staff to adopt.

Last year a staff member took an unpaid leave from his job in IT to help out with our project in China. He didn’t know if he would be able to keep his job but he did it anyway to further our ministry potential.

A few years back, when Crossing Borders was running a deficit, two of our directors took out loans to cover our expenses for the year, not knowing if they would ever be paid back. Both directors had families and children to care for.

We see an incredible amount of sacrifice from our volunteers and staff in the US. They have full-time jobs. They all are active members of their churches. They have people in their own lives they must support and uphold. Yet they still sacrifice on behalf of our mission. They give their time and finances to the will of God and His given conviction to serve North Korean refugees and their children.

What right do we have to ask North Korean refugees and our Chinese staff workers to follow God’s call? It’s because we have so many here in the comfort of the most prosperous country in the world who still demonstrate what it means to give their lives to the Lord in service of His kingdom. We will not be an organization that does not lead by example, and we will continue to pray that as we call others to submission to Christ, our hearts and lives will be examples of submission.

I believe that it is this heart of sacrifice to God that has carried our ministry for the past 10 years. In the next 10 years, we believe we will be called to give even more to the Lord.

Please pray for Crossing Borders - for our staff and leaders in the United States who offer their lives to the Lord, for hearts of sacrifice. We also pray for humility in our work for Christ. We hope that this message to you will not be read as a post of worldly boasting, but as a declaration of our joy and pride as we see so many volunteers and staff a part of our work dedicated to glorifying God in their lives and in the lives of North Korean refugees.

Staff Notes: A Gift of Potential to North Korean Orphans

The following post was written by Crossing Borders volunteer staff: It seems that everywhere I turn lately, I'm running into reminders of our North Korean orphans. And it's usually in the unlikeliest of places. For example, a couple weeks ago I was reading Grace-Based Parenting by Tim Kimmel (which obviously has nothing to do with North Korea), and I came across this quote:

“There is a deep longing in the heart of every child to make a difference. They were hard-wired by God to want to do more than take up space…. That’s why tyrannical governments get so little out of their people. God didn’t create us to ignore our potential or abandon our dreams.”

Here I am, reading this book about parenting in hopes of finding some words of wisdom to help parent my two daughters, but the first thing that comes to my mind is each of the refugee children that Crossing Borders has supported over the years, and the individual dreams and potential that every North Korean orphan represents. In North Korea they would not have had a choice to pursue those dreams that God had planted in their hearts. They would be required to submit those dreams to the whims of a government that most certainly was not concerned with what was in their best interest.

But that is not the kind of God who created us. He created each of us, including every child that we serve, as individuals, with unique and purposeful longings and desires and dreams that are waiting to be fulfilled.

And then again, just this weekend, I attended a “Missional Moms” conference where it seemed God kept whispering to me, “Don’t forget about the orphans. Don’t forget about North Korea.”

One of the speakers, Shayne Moore, who wrote the book Global Soccer Mom after she was awakened from her own “suburbia stupor,” encouraged each one of us to go beyond our own small worlds and pursue the burdens that God has laid on our hearts. In her book she writes:

“I’m only one woman, who lives in one town, who goes to one church and who has one voice, but I have come to believe all our ones add up and together we can make a difference.”

At the end of her session, she told a beautiful story about meeting a little five-year old girl in Africa who had so much charisma and presence that she drew the attention of those around her simply by being who she was, and how this little African girl inspired her own fifth-grade daughter to come to the conclusion that “You’re never too small to make a difference.”

When I think about my own daughters, and when I think of each of the North Korean orphans in our Second Wave shelters, it reminds me that even they are not too small to make a difference. These are the children that will be the next generation that God is raising up, children that already say they want to grow up to be pastors and missionaries and teachers, and return to the country that their mothers and fathers fled, in hopes of bringing the good news of God’s love to a people that so desperately need to hear it. I suppose this is part of the mysterious way that God works, bringing salvation and hope, one individual, one soul at a time. To our Heavenly Father, each person matters. And no one, no child, is too small to be forgotten.

Prayer for North Korean Refugees: Unsung Heroes (Part I)

They prefer not to be seen in our brochures or website. Each day they do their jobs knowing they might be arrested. They are Chinese citizens, which means they can go to jail for an indefinite amount of time if caught helping a North Korean refugee. They are truly heroes and they are truly human. Our local staff is comprised of about 15 Korean-Chinese workers who have given their lives to this dangerous work. We have a group of missionaries who manage the operations but our local staff does most of the dirty work.

They are there for our Second Wave orphans 24/7 with no vacation. They drive or take the bus on dark nights to get to the remote areas where our North Korean refugees hide and live. They are our eyes and ears and often warn us of impending danger from the Chinese government.

But they are also people.

They get tired. They lose their focus. They get depressed. They get scared.

There is a lot of work that we put into making sure our local staff stays on track. We have not been perfect in doing this but part of our call is to help them help North Koreans refugees. The work of saving refugees in China cannot be done without the help of these people.

Please pray for them as they brave through the Chinese night to help North Korean refugees. Please help us pray as they fight their own desires to serve faithfully in God’s kingdom.

Thank You! Two New North Korean Orphans in Our Care

Last winter Crossing Borders ran an email campaign that said your donation of $10 or more could help save two lives. With the generous contributions of our supporters, the campaign raised just short of the desired goal of $6000. We were able to make up the difference and commit to support two North Korean orphans in our Child Sponsorship program.

Your donations have changed the lives of these two children, and we would like to introduce them to you.

Sun Mee

Sun Mee is an 8-year-old girl. Her mother was captured by the Chinese authorities when she was a year old. Her father has psychological problems. She comes from a very small town and her grandmother takes her home every other weekend. Her favorite food is strawberries. Sun Mee wants to own a clothing shop one day. When asked what kind of clothes she wanted to sell in her shop she said, “Only for women!”

Hoonie

Hoonie is a 7-year-old boy. He was told by a relative that his mother is in another town but we were unable to verify this. All we know that his mother left him at a very early age and has never come back. His grandmother, who is also a North Korean refugee, was raising him. He is sickly and he misses class often. He loves to draw.

Most North Korean orphans in Second Wave have North Korean mothers who have abandoned them. Crossing Borders runs group homes, which provide them with holistic, compassionate care. All of these children are desperately poor and would be left in the streets had it not been for your help.

You can profoundly alter the course of a North Korean orphan's life by donating to this program. Please click here to see how you can powerfully affect the work that we do in sharing Christ's love with them.

Thank you to those who donated to this campaign. We look to build off this success throughout this year and beyond. We really feel like we are on to something great. Stay tuned.

Prayer for North Korean Refugees: Sickness

With the ease in dealing with common illness in modern society, struggles to battle everyday sickness in other parts of the world can often be forgotten. As Americans a simple check-up or maybe a drive to the drug store is all we need to deal with the cold or the flu. Medical care is complicated for North Korean refugees. We recently received a report about one of our children in Second Wave whose mother’s ailments include: breast cancer, infectious hepatitis, heart disease, and more.

“Basically nothing is normal,” said our missionaries in the report.

North Koreans in China have a difficult time finding medical care. Hospitals cannot legally give care to North Korean refugees because of their illegal status. If it is illegal for a Chinese citizen to even give a meal to a North Korean, one can only imagine what the consequences would be for a doctor who is caught treating a North Korean refugee.

The lucky few who have found help through foreign aid organizations like Crossing Borders must find care through the doctors who are willing to take a chance (or a bribe) to care for them. There is no shopping around for the best doctor or getting a second opinion.

This is the reality for the many North Korean refugees who come to China for medical care because, believe it or not, the medical care in China is still better than what they have in North Korea, whose system is still stuck in the 1950s. Things were working fine when they were receiving medical supplies from allies like the Soviet Union.

“But by the early 1990s, the deficiencies in the system became more pronounced. Much of the medical equipment was obsolete and broken down, with spare parts impossible to obtain since the factories in the Communist-bloc countries where they were manufactures were by now privatized,” Barbara Demick wrote in her book, “Nothing to Envy.”

The medical system in North Korea by all accounts is still struggling today.

So what does a sick North Korean refugee do? Even as we work to serve them through various means, we at Crossing Borders realize that, currently, there are no perfect, sustainable solutions. It is an ongoing struggle. Please pray for the sick people of North Korea, and the North Korean refugees who desperately need healing care.

Why We Let North Korean Refugees Use Newspaper as Toiletry

The following post was written by a Crossing Borders staff member: It was perhaps one the most meaningful exchanges I’ve had with one of the North Korean refugees in our care. And it was the day that I realized it was okay to let our refugees live in sub-American standards.

I was escorted by our missionaries into Ae-young’s apartment on a dark night. It was in the outskirts of a small city in Northeast China. The roads had no streetlights, the buildings had no power in their stairwells. We used a cell phone to see if we had the right address. Ae-young and her 10-year-old son welcomed us in.

Ae-young is a North Korean refugee. When she crossed the border from North Korea into China, she was sold to a Chinese man and later, with their son, escaped. On her way out she had a chance to grab only one thing: a guitar.With Crossing Borders' support and security, the guitar now hung on the wall of her dim apartment we had relocated her and her son into.

“Do you play?” she asked.

“A little,” I said in broken Korean.

The guitar was dusty. Four of its six strings were intact. The tuning keys creaked as if they had never been turned. I played and the five of us, me, our two missionaries, Ae-young and her son, sang old hymns quietly so we wouldn’t disturb her neighbors. I broke one more string as I played but no one seemed to notice.

After we sang the missionaries and Ae-young spoke while I played with her son. Then I excused myself to the bathroom. I noticed a healthy stack of newspaper within arms reach of the toilet and realized they used this stack of coarse paper to wipe in the bathroom.

When we left I told our missionaries that I wanted to go to the store and get Ae-young and her son some toilet paper. It was a nice gesture, I thought. But our two missionaries, surprisingly, advised against it.

Ae-young was happy with her current situation. She had been provided with this apartment recently. Her new home was an immense upgrade from the conditions she was living in before she had been taken in by Crossing Borders.

Crossing Borders’ goal is not merely to address the living standards of the North Korean refugees we help. Our goal is also not to simply supply refugees with materials we think they need. We try to help them by giving them a safe, clean environment to live in, to meet their needs of food and shelter so that they can figure out what they want to do next. We want to help them to build towards their future independently, responsibly and self-sufficiently. We will guide them to the means to do this whether it is in building a life in China or in taking the steps to flee to South Korea.

I knew this before I had encountered Ae-young and her son but it’s hard to realize that things like nice toilet paper are luxuries. We are used to living with so much that we can forget that our work is not to provide only material happiness.

A lot has been said recently of compassion and the damage organizations like ours can cause in the life of a person with material needs. The perception is that groups like ours come in and take “compassion” on North Korean refugees' standards of living, making them dependent on our aid. In cases this can become a real, detrimental issue. I have seen the damage that money without wisdom and oversight can do in a country that is just beginning to get a taste for Western materialism.

But the injustice in the North Korean refugee crisis isn’t that they can’t afford iPhones, or even toiletries available to modern countries. It is that they have been lied to and spiritually decimated by their government. It is that they have been frozen in fear and made fugitives to victim mentalities.

The goal of Crossing Borders isn’t to bridge the material divide between North Korean refugees and American citizens. We exist because there is a huge injustice in the world and we believe that it is our calling as Christians to go help, to empower them with Christ's compassion.

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.

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.

Prayer for North Korean Orphans: Abandonment

Crossing Borders staff and leaders spend a significant part of their time on the field with the refugee children in our Second Wave program. On the surface, the North Korean orphans in our care are adorable. Many of them could simply pass as one of the many Chinese and Korean children who live throughout China. But as our team members have had the opportunity to get to know some of these boys and girls, they have noticed that the differences between the North Korean orphans in China and the other children around them widen from a simple difference of nationality to a great vast gulf of pain and heartache. One of our staff members even described the hearts of the children in our care as "old, deserted houses." A majority of North Korean refugees who cross the border from North Korea and into China are women. Exposed and vulnerable, they are often captured or manipulated into trafficking rings who will sell them into marriages with Chinese men. The gender disparity in China due to the One-Child Policy has given way to a colossal, illegal trade of North Korean refugee women. Children are born into these forced unions.

As North Korean mothers are captured by Chinese authorities or as mothers attempt escape for South Korea, sometimes having no choice but to flee for safety from the police or their own husbands, their children are left behind. This is a case for a most of the refugee children in our program, Second Wave.

One of the children in our care was abandoned the day she received heart surgery. Her mother stole away as her father remained distracted. Another child watched his mother try desperately to wrestle away from the Chinese police as they dragged her away.

Jo Han (12) had a hard time adjusting to his new surroundings in one of Crossing Borders’ group homes. At first his caretaker was unable to handle him because he was always stealing things from other kids at school.

Kleptomania has been a common a symptom of abandonment, according to our field missionaries who are actively involved in the lives of each of our children. The more hurt children are, they say, the more they want to steal. This is a problem for a number of North Korean orphans who we take into our group homes. Some kids search through the garbage for items to take home. Fo others, the deep pain of abandonment comes out when they fight with the other children at home. These fights can turn vicious if nobody is there to stop them.

We encouraged and advised Jo Han’s caretakers as they became a source of love and discipline in his life. With their patient and compassionate efforts, we have seen a dramatic turnaround in his life.

“My parents forsook me but God did not forsake me.  He sent me to [our caretaker] to raise me as a faithful person.  I give thanks to God.  I will praise Him and go to heaven,” wrote Jo Han in his journal.

Whether this was genuine or just to impress his caretakers, we cannot know. But we do know that the stealing has stopped and young Jo Han is behaving much better at home. As we go about our week, let’s remember to pray for Jo Han and the North Korean orphans like him who feel the pain and loneliness of abandonment.

An Inside Look: Our Work with North Korean Refugees

Welcome to the new and improved Crossing Borders website and blog! We are an organization with the mission to share the compassion of Christ with North Korean refugees and their children in China.

It has been over 5 years since we’ve had a blog and for good reason: security.

There is a line we must walk as a missionary organization. We must share stories about the North Korean refugees we encounter and their plight.  Telling stories about the people we help can spread awareness about our mission but in so doing, we can run the risk of compromising the security of the very people we support. Since we’ve been on the mission field now for seven years, we feel like we have developed a firm grasp on what we can and cannot share and the precautions we must take in security.

We understand that we ask of our partner churches, donors and supports for an incredible amount of trust in participating in our work. In order for you to donate to us or even take time to read our emails, tweets and now, blog entries, you must first believe that we do in fact help North Korean refugees in Northeast China. You have to trust that we aren’t just pocketing your money and using it for ourselves.

There is a leap of faith that so many of you make when you write your checks and send them so faithfully to our PO Box.

We believe the trust factor is one reason why so many people don’t support us. If this is you, we hope this blog will help you change your mind.

Although we can never share the names of our refugees, tell you where they live or show their faces, we hope that this blog will give you the information necessary to trust that we are in fact on the difficult mission to restore the lives of North Korean refugees and their children.

We will share stories of our refugees and orphans, give you a behind-the-scenes look at our work, recommend and review books that might help you understand what we’re doing better, and share updates in the world of North Korean refugee work. We will try to pack as much information and news into our posts as possible. We warn you that some of our stories will be heartbreaking, dispiriting, depressing. But we guarantee that there will also be stories of light, joy and hope.

Through it all, we hope that you will be more engaged and motivated to help us share compassion and love to a people in need.