prayer

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.

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.

 

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.

 

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.