Five Topics to Pray for North Korea

North Korea is a chaotic and confusing nation. Their government tests nuclear weapons while their people suffer from starvation. They speak of peace and unity one day and war the next. Listed below are items we feel need your prayer:

1. Pray for the people in North Korea – If you’ve read the Bible, it is clear that God has a soft spot for the poor, the widow and the orphan. North Korea is filled with such individuals. There are no signs that the food situation in the country is moving toward any form of stability, and eyewitnesses invited into the country have confirmed this. This is causing instability in families, disease and suffering. The poor, the widow, and the orphan desperately need our prayers.

2. Pray for North Korean refugees – North Korea can be enigmatic because of the lack of good reporting in the country. The regime controls most media outlets in the country and the ones it doesn't control are not allowed full access to all parts of the country. The best information coming from North Korea is through North Korean refugees who travel beyond the country's borders to find hope in a new and terrifying capitalist world. These refugees, many of them homeless, hungry, impoverished, seek a life free from the North Korean regime. Please pray for these North Korean refugees. Please pray especially those in China, North Korean refugees who are scared and in hiding due to China’s zero tolerance policy toward escapees from North Korea.

3. Pray for North Korean politicians – North Korea is a political problem for world leaders, most of who are afraid of a nuclear North Korea and rightfully so. But this can often divert the world’s attention away from the suffering people of North Korea. For things to change in the world on a global scale, there must be a political response. Pray that our politicians would not lose focus on the pain of the North Korean people.

4. Pray for North Korea’s leadership – Some say it is a waste of time to pray for North Korea’s leadership who are often seen as power-hungry hedonists who would crush a whole nation to remain in power. The worst thing we can do is to turn this group of people into caricatures. Jesus was clear when he commanded us to “pray for our enemies.” This accomplishes two things: 1. If they are in the wrong, prayer can change their hearts and 2. prayers for our enemies instantly humanizes them. These are fallen people just like us. They need our prayers.

5.  Pray for North Korea’s underground church – This is perhaps the most persecuted church in the world. No one is sure how large it is. No one can be sure what their activities are. But it has been confirmed by multiple sources that the underground church in North Korea exists. Not only do Christians fear the government’s heavy hand but they also fear their friends, family, neighbors and even their own children. North Korean children are taught to report their parents if they do anything the regime finds threatening. Christianity is at the top of this list. The only way for North Koreans to have true and lasting peace is through the gospel. They can have food. They can have freedom. But we believe the gospel is the only way for them to truly be transformed and to find healing.

Prayer for North Korean Refugees: A Testimony to the Power of Prayer

In the middle of the night the Chinese Police barged into a room where our missionaries were meeting with two North Korean refugees. There was a Bible open in front of them and it was clear what was going on. This was the first time anything like this had ever happened to Crossing Borders workers. Our missionary couple was taken aback. The wife was sitting with the North Korean refugee women. When the police came in the husband was off in a corner of the room, watching television. Immediately the wife whispered in English, “Don’t turn around.”

He stayed still while the TV blared on.

For a reason unknown to us, Chinese authorities punish male missionaries more harshly than female missionaries. The government punishes couples with even more cruelty.

When I think of this story I am reminded of Acts 12, when Peter was imprisoned and the church began to pray.

“So Peter was kept in prison, but the church was earnestly praying to God for him.” – Acts 12:5

As the church prayed, Peter was met by an angel, was escorted out of prison and showed up at the prayer meeting. So unbelievable was this that when a woman announced that Peter - the subject of their prayers - had arrived at their doorstep, nobody in attendance believed her.

As the police questioned our female missionary and the two refugees, they looked around the room. They did not see her husband watching television, who sat in plain sight. They told the women to go home and left without a huff.

That month Crossing Borders was the prayer focus of one of our closest partner churches. We didn’t know it but this church was busy praying for us.

We believe, as an organization, that prayer is an integral component to our work. Prayers fuel the effectiveness of our ministry toward North Korean refugees and protect us as we do this dangerous work.

We ask that you, the Church, would continue to pray for us knowing that it is our sovereign God who moves the hearts of refugees and eyes of policemen.

Prayers for North Korean Refugees: A Look Inside

Despite the tens of thousands of North Korean refugees that have crossed illegally into China, there are a few ways for a North Korean to visit China legally: 1. by visiting a relative, 2. by obtaining an official work visa and 3. by visiting on official state business. Recently Crossing Borders had contact with a North Korean woman who was visiting her relatives in China. We will call her “Lee-hae.”

We interviewed her at a house of one of our local field workers. She was skinny. She rarely looked up at the interviewer. She cried when speaking about her children. It was striking that, despite her legal status in China, her situation was no less desperate than the hundreds of North Korean refugees we’ve met with “illegal” status.

She was able to give insight into the current situation in North Korea and why things are still miserable there, despite recent attempts at reform.

Lee-hae said that the food situation in North Korea is still desperate. Many aid organizations that have access to the country say that the situation is as bad, if not worse than the famine of the 1990s.

“In the city people can eat once or twice a day but on the farm there is nothing to eat because the government takes all of the harvest for the military,” Lee-hae told us.

She lives in a small town near the border and often sees balloons flying in from South Korea with pamphlets and sometimes small morsels of food. The government orders the pamphlets and food to be thrown away. They say that the food is poisonous. But Lee-hae was so hungry that she ate it anyway.

Despite her troubles in North Korea, Lee-hae said that she would continue to go back and forth to China because she doesn’t want to abandon her husband.

If given a chance, this is what most North Koreans would do. They would go back and forth from China to North Korea to eat and then return to their homes to be with their friends and family. This is precisely what is happening today, except the overwhelming majority of the estimated 100,000 North Korean refugees do so illegally and are at risk of being captured, tortured and even executed because they are hungry and have the wherewithal to do something about it.

But despite the dire situation there are glimmers of hope. On one of Lee-hae’s legal trips to China, she became a Christian.

“When I heard the Gospel first time I could not believe it because I was very afraid of the North Korean government,” she said, sobbing.

Crossing Borders will continue to be a contact point for North Koreans and North Korean refugees in Northeast China. We will share our faith with them and hope that some, like Lee-hae will bring the gospel home.

We believe that we have both sowed and reaped seeds of the underground church inside North Korea over the past 10 years. Please pray that we would be able to effectively minister to North Korean refugees and the North Korean people and that someday our work will create true, lasting change inside the country.

Prayer for North Korean Refugees: Being Illegal

Today members of the US Senate proposed a bill that would eventually lead to provisions for many illegal immigrants to be granted citizenship. President Obama will supposedly follow suit with his own plan tomorrow. While immigration has been a hot topic on Capitol Hill for the last 10 years, North Korean refugees have lived in constant fear with no hope for any reform. Though China signed the UN Refugee Convention in 1951, they have not fully abided by it.

A cornerstone to this Convention is the concept of non-refoulement, which guarantees that the host country will not send a refugee back to their home country. China has been forcibly repatriating North Korean refugees since the late ‘90s.

This has lead to devastating consequences for North Korean refugees seeking food and freedom in China. We minister to children who have witnessed their mothers being hauled away by the police. We cry with the women who have been sold to abusive husbands and treated like livestock by their families. We hid in a closet with a half-North Korean, half-Chinese child because the police were actively searching for North Korean refugees in 2006. We held the hands of North Korean refugees as they traversed rough terrain on the Asian Underground Railroad in search for freedom.

The reason Crossing Borders exists is to help North Korean refugees who are in fear of forced repatriation. If China was abiding by the 1951 Convention, there would be little need for our help. But this is what the church is built for, to provide justice for those who cannot attain it for themselves.

Please pray this week for this dark situation and the people trapped in it. And please continue to pray for Crossing Borders and groups like us that we may continue to provide shelter for those in need.

Prayer for North Korean Refugees: Refugees and Families

Last week we shared about North Korean refugee women who reject their families in China after experiencing life in South Korea. Though we are seeing more and more women abandon their families, a majority of these women still have an overwhelming desire to be reunited with them. Here is one of their stories: “Saenah” came to China as a North Korean refugee in 2001 and was sold to her husband shortly thereafter. She gave birth to twin girls whom she loved. But she and her family suffered in a cycle of poverty and debt that they could not escape.

In 2006 Saenah and her husband left the girls at a Crossing Borders orphanage to find work in Shanghai. But they could not find any meaningful work.

Desperate, the couple went to a fortuneteller who, according to Saenah, didn’t have any answers for them. Out of options, they turned to the church and began to pray night and day for an answer.

At the church they met someone who told Saenah that she could go to a South Korean consulate and find freedom in South Korea. So that’s what they did.

The husband and wife went to a consulate in a nearby town where Saenah and a group of refugees would try to sneak in. Saenah’s husband would watch from a nearby café.

Chinese guards are placed strategically around the South Korean consulate in China, keeping a lookout for any North Korean refugees who might attempt entry. The group of North Korean refugees with Saenah passed through the outside gates of the South Korean consulate while exterior guards made their rounds. Watching from the café, Saenah’s husband thought she was safe. But there was a guard inside the facility.

As a last ditch resort, the women had brought hot chili powder to throw in the eyes of the guards. When they opened the door to the consulate, a guard was waiting there for them. Panicked, the others scattered and the guard quickly cornered Saenah.

In desperation, Saenah reached into her pocket and threw a fistful of chili powder at the guard's eyes. While he was distracted, she made it into the consulate.

Saenah believed that she was almost free. What she did not know was that the Chinese government had a tape of her throwing chili at the guard. This made it difficult for her to gain exit out of China. Saenah waited for three years. People came and left but she, alone, was stuck in the South Korean consulate.

When the time came, Saenah was allowed to board a plane to South Korea. The first thing she did was call her husband, who had given up hope of ever seeing his wife again.

Saenah sent for her husband first, then came and got her twin girls from Crossing Borders. They are living happily in South Korea now.

Family is a complicated topic when it comes to North Korean refugee women who were sold into forced marriages. Some husbands treat their wives well. Others treat them like livestock. Most are somewhere in between.

We do not make decisions for women in these marriages on whether they should flee or stay in China. But we do make sure that the North Korean refugees in our care make sound decisions and that they know the risks of escaping to South Korea.

As we pray this week for these families of North Korean refugees and their children, let us pray for families like Saenah’s who have suffered so much. Our hope is that somehow, they can stay together and live happily with one another in Christ.

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: Kyung Joo's Story

Join Crossing Border this week as we pray for Kyung Joo, one of the North Korean refugees in Crossing Borders' care, and her son. Kyung Joo’s arrival to China from North Korea was similar to the story of many North Korean refugee women. She was guaranteed a job in China by a “friend” in North Korea. When she crossed Kyung Joo was forced into the trunk of a car, sold as a commodity to the highest bidder and trafficked into the hands of a husband who didn’t love her.

What is different about her story is that, when the Chinese police caught her and turned her over to a North Korean prison camp, Kyung Joo was eight months pregnant.

North Korea does not take well to “tainted” blood of outsiders. So when the North Korean officials of Kyung Joo's prison camp discovered she had a half-Chinese baby in her belly, they beat her mercilessly. They beat the baby in her belly too.

Kyung Joo said she was “an inch away from death” when they released her. She somehow found her way back to China where she had her baby.

Our staff met with Kyung Joo and her son recently on a visit to the North Korean refugees in our care. Crossing Borders is helping her with food, shelter and her child’s education. Her son was severely impaired. He cannot walk. Our staff stated that his impairment was unlike any natural disability they had seen. It looked like someone had broken his legs permanently. He could not walk, talk or eat without assistance.

Kyung Joo is determining whether she should stay in China or flee through the Underground Railroad to South Korea. Her journey would be difficult given her son’s condition.

Please pray for her and her son. We will keep you posted.

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: Crossing Borders Work, Contentedness

The following post was written by Crossing Borders staff: My wife and I have recently been looking at houses to buy. It’s a good time to buy, they say. Especially because we just gave birth to a newborn boy, our second child.

He’s a month old and his things are piling up around our small, two-bedroom apartment. Diapers, clothes, a crib, creams, bags.

As I searched online for a home, I said to myself, “If only I was making $__ more, then we could afford the home we need.”

And then last week a rare moment of clarity came over me. "Need? What does one really need?"

When a North Korean refugee comes to Crossing Borders and expresses thankfulness to us about all that we have done for him, I remember what I truly need.

Crossing Borders furnishes our refugees with what we consider basic necessities. Food, a small apartment, a television. And with these things, some come to us gushing with thanksgiving. Many refugees who have been in our care say that they want to go back into North Korea with the blessings they have received through Crossing Borders in China and share the Christ's compassion with others.

I remember a boy in one of our orphanages who used to look through every garbage can he could find. With just a little food, a meager place to live and a good education, we have seen his life transform. He now wants to become a pastor to train and teach in the gospel.

In order to help others, we at Crossing Borders must first realize how blessed we are. Looking through those real estate sites on my Macbook Pro with my speedy internet connection, somehow I forgot what it meant to be content.

I recently listened to a sermon by Tim Keller. He was talking about his wife, who was unsure of whether to move her family from Virginia to New York City in the difficult transition of building a church there. She was looking at a communion table and heard the voice of God saying:

“If I’ve done this for you, then it should be okay for me to ask you to spend the rest of your life living in a cardboard box in the streets of Calcutta.”

After that she agreed to move to New York City and God blessed the world through her and her husband’s ministry.

I am not saying that poverty is equal to godliness. Nor am I saying that being rich is bad. All I am saying is that the desire for more could hinder us from seeing what we have and from helping those in need.

As we pray this week I ask that we would all ask God to give Crossing Borders and those who share our vision the desire to “seek first his kingdom” and not “all these things.”

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 Refugees: Imprisonment

The topic of imprisonment comes up a lot in our work with North Korean refugees. One refugee woman we helped reported to us that she was imprisoned in a gulag in North Korea for illegally trading in minerals with Chinese businessmen because her family didn’t have enough to eat. She subsisted on 24 kernels of corn each day in prison. When they let her out she immediately fled to China. Through God's grace in circumstances, she was later placed under our care.

Another North Korean refugee escaped her abusive husband and family after she was sold to them in the mid-2000s. Her husband’s family beat her for not knowing how to speak Mandarin. They beat her if she didn’t cook Chinese food right. She was raped repeatedly by her husband and her husband’s teenage son. Upon escape, she was also taken in by Crossing Borders.

Many refugees found daily life in North Korea stifling. They were always being watched, monitored by their neighbors, family members and even their own children (children are taught at school to report their parents if they speak ill of the regime). North Koreans are denied freedom of thought, movement and speech.

The North Korean refugees we’ve spoken with in South Korea have more money than they have ever seen in their whole lives. The government helps them with housing, education and job training. And yet there is a profound emptiness in the North Korean refugee community in South Korea. Some report discrimination. Some say they are depressed from the trauma of what they have endured in China and North Korea. Other North Korean refugees say they just miss their families in North Korea. Whatever it is, they too are in a prison of grief and distress.

There is an even greater imprisonment that all North Koreans feel whether they are in a gulag in North Korea, whether they are in China and afraid of being captures, or whether they are free in South Korea. We believe this is a spiritual imprisonment. They in bondage to sin and it is our job as believers to pray for their spiritual freedom in Christ.

As we pray this week, let us remember the prison that North Koreans all over the world are trapped in. Let's pray for light to overtake the darkness.

Prayer for North Korean Refugees: Missing Missionaries in China

As we pray for North Korean refugees and those who work on the field, please pray for two missing missionaries who have recently disappeared in Northeast China. One of the missionaries is a US citizen. The US State Department has been notified and is conducting the necessary research. There isn’t very much information that we can share publicly but we can say that there has been a string of disappearances of missionaries in the region. The missionaries who have disappeared are not associated with Crossing Borders, but are part of a network of Christian missionaries in Northeast China who minister in the region. It is too early to say who is responsible for these disappearances.

China is a strange combination of dictatorship and democracy it is neither and it is both. If you’ve traveled there, you no doubt have experienced both freedom and the watchful eye of the government - cameras on every street corner, the censored Internet sites and quiet whispers of the locals as you walk by.

If you stay long enough, you might get lulled into thinking that nobody cares what you are doing until something like this happens. Events such as these serve as a chilling reminder of the power the Chinese government possesses over its guests and the evident danger of missionary work. This is something through which we pray for our own missionaries as they serve North Korean refugees with caution and secrecy.

Please pray for the two missionaries to return, for their safety and for gospel to continue to spread in this region without fear. We pray that God would continue His work, despite earthly authorities, and that the gospel would reach many North Korean refugees living in hiding. For His glory!

Prayer for North Korean Refugees: Effects of Hiding

A member of our American staff recalls his experience not too many years ago, standing over the Tumen River on a broken bridge. Not far from where he stood, across the river, was North Korea. Our staff member remembers seeing a few guard houses, mountains stripped of their vegetation. The river had frozen solid in the Siberian cold, and in the snow were the footprints of North Korean refugees who had fled across the ice. Once a North Korean refugee flees into China, their lives depend on how quickly they are able to blend in. Steps must be taken to avoid being noticed. Clothes must quickly be changed in the dark. They must clean themselves of any marks of travel or fatigue. Two things have a potential tip their hand: their height and their language. They must always be mindful of who is watching. Fear and suspicion begin to settle into their every waking moment as their lives depend on how cautious they are in everything they do.

Our staff was able to visit a small village in the Chinese countryside where the police had raided and captured much of the North Korean refugee population. One boy, now an orphan, had witnessed his mother being tackled by the police and dragged away.

One of the few remaining refugees approached our missionaries, dropped to her knees and begged. She pleaded, “Can you please help me get out of here?”

She couldn’t muster up any other words. She was shaking and visibly terrified.

North Korean refugees are aware that they have been watched for almost their whole lives in their homeland. Relatives and even their own children may be asked to inform on them as a test of their loyalty. They have heard of spies who will report any "unpatriotic activities". But in China, where refugees cannot grow close to anyone, cannot distinguish generous help from malevolent deception, cannot begin to even consider trust as a valid option, North Korean refugees are trapped in a state of unending instability and paranoia.

Some North Korean refugees in China have lived with this looming shadow of fear for more than a decade. For them, the anxiety and dread has seeped deep into their lives and have taken their toll.

One North Korean refugee who made it to South Korea after more than five years in China told us that, the day she got her legal ID, she slept with it in her palm and cried herself to sleep.

Please pray for those who are hiding this week. It is no way to live. Please help us as we minister to them, comfort them, and pray for their healing in the security and protection of Christ.

"Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees. Say to those who have an anxious heart, 'Be strong; fear not! Behold, your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God. He will come and save you.'"

- Isaiah 35:3-4

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

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

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.