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 Orphans: (Almost) Lost Generation

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Prayer for North Korean Orphans: A Process of Healing

In the past two weeks, Crossing Borders has been in constant motion as we opened booths at the Glenview Farmers Market and the GKYM conference. Because of this opportunity, we were able to share and speak to many people about North Korean orphans and refugees we serve. In response, we are overwhelmed by the interest, support and generosity many of you have shown toward our ministry and thank everyone who took the time to speak with us. Thank you for making our booths a success and we hope to be connecting with you in person again soon. As you pray with us this week we ask that you lift up our North Korean orphans and refugees who have, over time, displayed a miraculous process in healing from their traumatic experiences. We know that this has only been possible with the work of God and every one of us at Crossing Borders can speak to witnessing God's hands in the lives of many of the refugees and orphans we help.

We recognize, however, that this transformation through healing is an ongoing process. It is also one that often takes much time to nurture and develop. As God works powerfully, quickly or slowly, in the lives of the North Korean orphans and refugees we support, we ask know that prayer is an essential and critical need for their building strength.

On this note, we would like to share with you an interview conducted with one of the resilient and growing North Korean orphans in our care in the Second Wave program. As you will read from his experiences, he is one of the many refugee children in China who have felt the hurt and pain present in this world's brokenness.

---

How was when you lived with your mom and dad together?

That was my happiest time. I liked that time.

Was your dad nice to you and your mom?

My dad loved me. He was very short and tiny and he liked me because I looked like him. He cooked fish for me. My dad and mom fought only one time.

What happened to him?

He died in a car accident when I was six. He drove a truck.

Then how did you and your mom live?

My uncle (dad’s big brother) took me and my mom to his house. My uncle hit my mom all the time, every day. My dad never hit my mom.

Were you scared?

I was scared of my uncle. He sometimes beat me too, for no reason. Oh, yeah, when he was drunk he got crazy and looked scary. My mom left me there and ran away by herself because my uncle hit her badly. I saw blood on her face.

So, you lived with your uncle? How long?

I lived at uncle’s house for long time. I didn’t like my mom because she left me there. He had a 20 years old son who was a disabled, he couldn’t walk, sitting all the time. I had three uncles and seven cousins, all were grown up boys. I liked 6th one who was a disabled. Everyone was mean to me except for that one. But I didn’t like my uncle he hit my mom all the time. I cried and hid behind old door and stayed there quietly. Sometimes I slept there and my mom looked for me everywhere.

Who do you miss the most?

I would hate to go back to my uncle’s house. I don’t miss anyone.

Do you miss your mom?

Sometimes. But, she is living with new dad and baby, my brother who is three years old and looks like my mom. I look like my dad.

Do you like to stay at your home home?

Yes, I like my home but when [my caretaker] gets upset I get scared.

Why does he get upset?

When we don’t clean our room or shower.

What would you like to be when you grew up?

A nice person, I don’t know.

---

Though we cannot share with you his name, we ask that you would pray for him and the many North Korean orphans like him. Sometimes the process of healing is slow. But we know that God is at work.

Prayer for North Korean Orphans: The Future

It’s always interesting to read reports from our missionaries in China about the North Korean orphans in Second Wave. The children have day-to-day lives and, like many children in the developed world, have simple dreams. A boy in Second Wave, "Jo Han", is one of the biggest troublemakers we have. His caretakers say that he lies a lot. He gets into the most fights and he is the most stubborn. But despite these flaws, he is determined to be a pastor. He reads the Bible everyday because, as he was told, that’s what pastors do. And he even tithes his allowance faithfully.

It is easy to forget that before he came to our group home just four years ago Jo Han had no dreams. He would dig in garbage cans for food or steal things from kids at school to sell. He had no dreams nor did anybody – his parents or relatives – have any dreams for him. They just hoped he would survive.

Dreams come when there is stability - food in the pantry and love in the home. They rarely come to those who are trying to survive the day. And for the North Korean orphans of Second Wave, these dreams are a sign of life.

As we pray this week, let us ask God to give us the wisdom on how best to honor the dreams God Himself is planting in each child’s heart. So that all of us, those who give, those who pray and those who do both, might be silent partners in each North Korean orphan's success.

"'For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the Lord, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.'" -Jeremiah 29:11

Prayer for North Korean Refugees: Harvest Workers

Crossing Borders has been fortunate to have a string of missionaries in China who have driven our work to new heights. Our current missionaries aiding the North Korean refugees and orphans in our care are fantastic people. Two years ago our staff member made a visit to our work in China and was able to spend quite a bit of time with our current missionaries. They noted on the trip, "They're twice my age but they were running circles around me as we moved from task to task. At one point I asked if we could slow down. They didn’t."

Our missionaries brought our staff to a remote farming village in Northeast China where there are many North Korean refugees in hiding. Refugee after refugee lined up to tell our missionaries their stories and their troubles. In response, each one was treated with kindness and compassion. With each North Korean refugee, our missionaries listened and ministered avidly, passionately. Tears flowed and prayers were shared.

After several years on the field, our missionaries continue to show remarkable care toward the individuals they have met time and time again, with each and every new North Korean refugee who enters our Refugee Rescue program. Missionaries in our line of work tend to get hardened and burnt out. These two got better with time.

But now their commitment is up and they are looking to move on. Though we fully support this decision, we are at a loss as to how we are going to find people to fill their shoes.

We remain hopeful and see this as an opportunity, not a setback. We pray in eager expectation to see what God has in store for us. We pray that this will make our organization grow, not shutter.

For this we ask you to join with us in prayer. This is a specific need that we need met and before we get into specifics about what we are looking for, we really want to spend time in prayer about it.

Please join with us as we pray asking God to send workers to His harvest field of North Korean refugees in China.

“When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”

- Matthew 9:36-38

Prayer for North Korean Refugees: More Prayer

How many people have had prayers answered in the past month? Year? Prayer works. Prayer is a powerful weapon in the Christian walk. Every word is heard in the ears of our all-powerful God, and He will change lives. It is for this reason that prayer North Korean refugees is such a critical need in Crossing Borders' work. The power of prayer is not only for personal concerns. God can move nations, leaders, rulers on different paths. Sometimes generations pass before these prayers come to fruition. Sometimes generations receive an answer to their prayers with immediate and unprecedented transformation and revival.

Recall the voices of the Israelites under slavery and suffering:

"During those many days the king of Egypt died, and the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God. And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. God saw the people of Israel—and God knew."

Exodus 2:23-25

When we call out to God, He will remember His covenant with us, signed in the body and blood of our Messiah - Jesus Christ. It is with this promise that we can pray for lost and broken North Korean refugees and their families trapped in the Hermit Kingdom.

The truth is that many people know the power of prayer. Yet, because of the busyness of life, lack of faith, or discouragement that plagues us in thoughts of the many in pain, Christians often give up on the dark nation of North Korea.

Therefore, we ask of you, our faithful supporters: please pray for prayer.

Today, as we drive to work, sit at our computers and go about our days, let us remember that God laughs at concrete and barbed wire. The Demilitarized Zone is nothing before the Almighty. We have hope.

"Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go."

Joshua 1:9