North Korean Mothers, Chinese Fathers: Caught in the Middle

“Amy,” a North Korean mother who lives in the U.S., has not seen her daughter, who lives in China, in over a decade. Amy’s ex-husband purchased her at the height of the Great North Korean Famine in the early 2000s, when she had arrived in China as a North Korean refugee. She fled China and chose to make her home in America. Amy lives in the Midwest, has a steady job and has remarried.

We recently met Amy in Chicago. She had an odd request: To obtain guardianship over her daughter from her ex-husband’s family and so they could be reunited in the U.S.

Amy’s ex-husband’s family will not grant her request unless she promises to help her husband get a work visa and a job in the U.S., a request that is impossible for Amy to fulfill because she and her ex-husband are not legally married. Amy is also scared that, if her husband comes to the U.S., he might harm her. Crossing Borders told her that we couldn’t help because it is outside the scope of our mission.

Half-North Korean children such as Amy's daughter are often in the middle of disputes that they have little to do with. Many North Korean children in the care of Crossing Borders are in similar predicaments.

Kyung Min, a teenage boy who has been in our care since 2009, has a North Korean mother who fled China for South Korea. Kyung Min’s caretakers say that his mother “lives to get revenge on his father’s family” because she was abused after they purchased her as a forced bride. She often uses Kyung Min to slight his father’s family by making promises to them, then reneging or by sending messages to the family through Kyung Min.

This has gone on for over five years. And though Kyung Min’s caretakers have tried to shield him from this ongoing battle, he is entering into adolescence and is more aware that he is at the center of an ongoing dispute. It is hard for him to not have seen his mother in years, but to realize that much of her contact with him has been to manipulate him to hurt his father's family is a difficult matter for Kyung Min to cope with as he matures.

The lives of these children and their relationships with their North Korean mothers are complex. To say that we have put systems and rules in place to tackle all their issues is foolish. The best we can do is make sure our workers on the ground have been engaging with our children’s every need. We can say that our current workers truly love our children and that they make sure every hair on their head is in place and every problem they have is attended to.

Crossing Borders cares more about people than systems. As we continue to grow, we want to make sure we don’t lose this.

Please pray for us as we deal with diverse and complicated matters in families of Chinese fathers, lost children, distant North Korean mothers. Pray for our caretakers who deal with these problems day in and day out. And pray for our children, who are trying to make sense of their complex situations.

North Korean Refugees: A Meaningless Epidemic

What is it like to realize that everything you once thought true is not? How does it feel when you realize up is down and down is up? This is happening to tens of thousands of North Korean refugees and people today today. "Eun," a North Korean refugee, lived a relatively normal life in North Korea. She worked odd jobs, as a child, through the famine. She had full belief in her government until she heard a knock at the door of her home. It was a North Korean woman who had returned from a stay in China. The woman was pregnant and about to give birth.

Eun worked as a midwife when she was 12. She helped this complete stranger deliver a baby in her living room. When it was discovered that the baby was conceived in China, word spread quickly to the authorities and the woman and child were sent to prison. Eun was interrogated harshly for days about her association to this woman.

“It was then I began to question the regime and everything that I knew,” Eun said. “I was lost.”

Many North Korean refugees speak of a point in their lives when they began to question what their country taught them. North Korean children are indoctrinated at a very early age to believe in the god-like power of their founder, Kim Il Sung. They are also taught that they live in paradise on earth.

North Koreans do not have legal access to any information that can dispute their government’s claims. All foreign media is banned. They have no Internet access. They are in a bubble of lies. When the bubble pops, they are often left in shock, grief and lives that feel as if they are void of meaning.

With information from the outside world leaking into North Korea and North Korean refugees spilling out, there is a crisis of depression growing in North Koreans around the world.

This weight of self-doubt and betrayal only adds to the already treacherous and terrible conditions many North Korean refugees suffer in China. Most women who enter into China are sold as commodities to the highest bidder. Many are treated like slaves and forced to cook, raise livestock and farm.

North Korean refugees are also hunted down by the Chinese police and forced to live in terror. If caught, they are sent back, imprisoned, tortured and even executed. Many women in China stay inside and keep an eye on a window. Fear and insecurity rules over their every waking moment.

It is in this crisis that Crossing Borders enters into the lives of North Korean refugees. Many tell us how that they disjointed they feel after they realize they’ve been lied to their whole lives.

North Koreans are taught to hate Americans and especially Christians. Americans are supposed to be cannibals. Christians are supposed to be evil, wicked people who will bring them pain. When North Korean refugees realize that their only means of sustenance and safety are delivered by American Christians, they feel upside-down.

Crossing Borders works to bring meaning into the lives of North Korean refugees by empowering them to follow their dreams. Eun arrived in China with her father, who unable to receive proper treatment for edema. He died shortly after they arrived in China. When our missionaries first met her, she was afraid, mourning in the wake of her father’s death.

Eun experienced great mistreatment following her father's passing because she was recognized as a North Korean refugee. She hid in the guardianship of a woman who used her for long hours of unpaid labor as a maid. Eun worked so hard that the skin on her hands began to crack. She came to us only as she realized that her "guardian" was in the process of negotiating a deal to sell her to a Chinese man in a forced marriage. Having encountered the world outside of North Korea in such a harsh and cruel way, having lost her father and all hope for a life outside of fear and poverty, Eun felt as if her life was crashing down around her.

Crossing Borders worked quickly to verify Eun’s story, understanding that time was of the essence. Once we determined she was telling the truth, we helped her escape China. She was able to attain North Korean refugee status on the Underground Railroad and enter South Korea.

However, like many North Korean defectors, Eun had difficulty in South Korea, where she was discriminated against. She thought she would be better off in Canada, where she lives today.

It is an amazing thing to see Eun living now, outside the oppressive conditions of China and North Korea. She recently gave birth to a healthy baby boy with her husband who is also a North Korean refugee. She emails our staff pictures and thanks us for helping her. She wrote this in one of her emails to our staff:

“Teacher, I will live diligently for the day of reunification of North and South and for my home village in North Korea. I have a dream. Some people tell me that my dream cannot come true. But, I believe my dream will come true someday if it's Jesus' will. And, in whatever I do, I want to be a person who spreads good news about God.”

Eun is now living a life of meaning. Not only because she has gained freedom from Chinese and North Korean authorities. It is because through her journey, she was able to find God's compassion in our work, to find meaning in the gospel which drove us to such lengths to help her. Crossing Borders is thankful to have been a part of the process of sharing and revealing God's love for her in our work to free her from physical and spiritual bondage.

Please pray for Eun and the tens of thousands of North Korean refugees who have not experienced the liberating power of the gospel. Please pray for Crossing Borders to continue to show the compassion of Christ to these people.

North Korean Refugees: Ok-seo’s Struggle for Peace and Heat

Crossing Borders has two organizational functions: first, to raise funds and second, to use these funds wisely to help North Korean refugees in China. But sometimes it is easy for us to think that the funds that we raise can solve every problem. As you pray with us this year, please pray for that we would rely on God for everything. The ongoing life of "Ok-seo", a North Korean refugee in our care who we have shared about before through our blog, continues to remind us that the most important thing for us to do is to ask God to take control in the life of our refugees.

Ok-seo has trouble picking up her husband’s native tongue: Mandarin. This causes a lot of trouble in her household. She gets into fights with her husband and is often physically abused by him. But she cannot leave her family because they have a son and it would be difficult for her to run away with her young child.

Ok-seo’s family went without heat this past winter. We have been helping her with a small, monthly stipend for the past couple years to cover living expenses. Ok-seo's husband, however, decided late last year to stop working for reasons unclear to Ok-seo and our workers on the ground.

Her husband is described as extremely lazy by Ok-seo and our missionaries. He was coddled as a child and is unable to handle adversity, according to our sources familiar with the couple.

China’s northernmost recesses are extremely cold in the winter. Ok-seo lives near the border of Siberia, where it can reach 30 to 40 degrees below zero Fahrenheit without the wind chill. It’s hard for us to imagine how hard it is for the family to stay warm without heat.

It would be easy for us to raise funds to give the couple extra funds to heat their home but we fear this will give Ok-seo's husband even less incentive to work. We could also cut our support to them all together to encourage her husband to work but this would leave the family without enough food.

Last year we posted a video of Ok-seo singing a song she wrote about God’s grace in her life. This song is based on a traditional North Korean tune used to praise Kim Il Sung.

North Korean Refugee Sings a Song She Wrote from Crossing Borders on Vimeo.

Her song is an example of how Ok-seo, like many North Korean refugees in our care, has replaced a man-made idol for the true and living God. Through her struggles she continues to lean on God to carry her through.

As she was explaining her situation to our staff member, Ok-seo expressed her thankfulness at how God had changed her heart. Her circumstances might not have improved but she has something that she never had before.

“Before I had no hope,” she said in a recent interview. “Now I have hope.”

Though Ok-seo’s circumstances are dire, her soul continues to soar with supernatural strength and courage.

As we continue to pray for Ok-seo and North Korean refugees like her, we pray not for more money but that God would get involved in her marriage and that in Christ her husband might change. Please pray with us as we continue to seek wisdom in helping Ok-seo.

North Korean Defectors: Update on Bo-ah

We informed you earlier this year that a North Korean refugee, “Bo-ah,” was sent off on the Underground Railroad and was well on her way to freedom. Recently, she contacted Crossing Borders and said that she made it to South Korea. She has been through re-education training at South Korea’s school for refugees, Hanawon. Now she is living in Seoul with another North Korean defector. Bo-ah crossed several borders, traversed rivers, climbed mountains and traveled in danger to make it to South Korea. She said that she felt our prayers as she fought her way to freedom.

Bo-ah’s struggles aren’t complete, though she has made it to South Korea. South Korea is now home to more than 25,000 North Korean defectors and many find it difficult to adjust to the modern lifestyle and capitalist society.

Seoul can be overwhelming for the former people of North Korea, people from a country that lives in relative simplicity compared to their southern counterpart. Some North Koreans even share that they are startled by their appliances, which can speak to them. Others are disoriented by the lights. North Korea, with its lack of electricity, becomes pitch black at night.

Though Bo-ah tells us that she is doing fine, she has shared some significant barriers she now has in South Korea. First, because her education in North Korea was only through the third grade. Second, she still longs to reunite with her family.

Just ten years ago, when a North Korean moved to South Korea, it was like they were saying goodbye to your family forever. Today, this is not the case. Through couriers that operate in China and North Korea, defectors like Bo-ah can send messages, money and other items to their remaining relatives.

Andrei Lankov, one of the world’s most respected scholars on North Korea, wrote that 49 percent of all North Korean defectors send money back home through illegal channels. Many send money to get their families out of the country.

Though Bo-ah would like to purchase freedom for her family, she doesn’t have the means nor does she have the education to get a higher-paying job to pay for it.

Until then, she chips away at her studies hoping that one day she will be reunited with her family. Please pray for Bo-ah and the thousands of other refugees who long to see their loved-ones again. Pray for her as she goes to school and church that she would find hope in Christ, despite the sadness of missing her family.

Director's Notes: Rapunzel and North Korea

The following post was written by Crossing Borders' Executive Director: For the past year the animated film “Tangled” has been on heavy rotation in my house. It’s Disney’s take on the classic fairy tale, “Rapunzel.” My daughter has really latched onto the story and the songs. If you’re not familiar with the movie, it’s about a girl with magic hair who was kidnapped by a witch when she was a baby. The witch locks her up in a tower and raises her to think there is nothing outside her tower but suffering and pain. Rapunzel escapes, finds love and lives happily ever after.

After about the fifth time watching it, I began to study the film. I analyzed the plot, I picked out bad dialogue and I found holes in the story.

“A woman is locked up in a tower by an evil witch her whole life and she shows no signs of PTSD?” I asked my four-year-old, who wasn’t listening.

Around the eighth time watching it I began drawing parallels between Rapunzel and the North Korean people. Like Rapunzel, North Koreans have been trapped in their own “tower.” But instead of a witch controlling the information that comes in from the outside, it’s a government with a strong army.

North Koreans have no access to the Internet. Their phone network is completely cut off from the rest of the world. It is outlawed for them to watch television shows from the outside (the punishment can be time in their brutal system of labor camps) or listen to songs the regime deems threatening (almost every song that is not originated in North Korea). If someone hears you speak ill of the government, you could be reported, sent to a prison camp and maybe executed.

We have shared on this blog about our North Korean refugee Ae Young, whose job in North Korea was to teach her people about Juche, North Korea’s ideological construct or, as some people have called it, their religion. Even after fleeing out of North Korea for food and seeing the truth and prosperity of the outside world, she still maintained that the North Korean regime had built the greatest government on earth, that all they needed was food.

It was only after two years that she acknowledged North Korea wasn’t the best. She simply said, “They need God.”

After years of captivity, North Koreans, like Rapunzel, are hungry for the outside world.

Rapunzel was starving to see the world outside her tower. She was starving to see the lights of the nearby town, which lit up on her birthday.

Today, North Koreans are starving for DVDs with Korean dramas, shrugging off punishment because such blackmarket items are commonplace. People are smuggling in USB drives with Korean pop music and information about the outside world. Teenagers with cell phones are exchanging files through Bluetooth with music and videos from the outside. And most significant to Crossing Borders, North Koreans are still illegally moving to and from China in search for food and freedom.

Every human has an innate sense of right and wrong, not just when they are confronted with lying or stealing but in a global sense of how the world should or should not be. Both Rapunzel and North Koreans have found a way to climb down from that tower into the truth of the real world.

For those who are willing to take the risk of stepping out into the world, Crossing Borders will be in Northeast China to greet them just over the border. Our mission is to show the compassion of Christ to them and their children with no strings attached. Please pray for us as we continue this work.

North Korean Refugees: Food and Nostalgia

Some of the most reminiscent and nostalgic discussions we have had with North Korean refugees in our Restore Life program have been about food. Close your eyes for a moment and think about the food that best encapsulates your hometown. Whatever it is, a sandwich, a taco, a hot dog or maybe even a certain soup, how would you feel if you could never go home and eat it?

Many of us on staff, while in China, will talk for hours about the food we miss from back home. These discussions are often accompanied by distant looks in our eyes as we long for things like pizza, peanut butter or French fries.

North Korean refugees have the same conversations. However, unlike us, they have little hope to ever eat their favorite dishes again. North Korean refugees have an even deeper connection to their food because the famine made every morsel all the more precious.

Our missionaries recently took three North Korean refugee women out for dinner and they had one of these conversations. These women are usually shy and muted but the topic of food brought life to their faces.

These were some of things the North Korean refugees in our care missed:

“HeeKyung”: Salted Pollack Soup

“My family would sit together and eat this when it would snow so high that it reached above our knees. On those days I would eat fresh salted Pollack. The taste would shoot in my mouth. I wish I can taste it again.”

“AeHyun”: Potato Noodles and Pyongyang Style Nengmyun (buckwheat noodles with beef broth)

“The noodles are very clear and thin. It’s my favorite noodle.  You can have it in hot soup or mixed with spicy paste. Just thinking about it makes my mouth water. And there is nothing compared to Pyongyang buckwheat noodles! I miss it so much.  The Chinese don’t have buckwheat noodles. Pyongyang noodles must be made with buckwheat. During the famine, we only dreamt about food, especially white rice. We left our homes for food. It’s sad.”

“OakSoon”: ‘Eun Eo’ Sweet Roasted Yellowfish

“Only in XX city people could eat it because there were many business people. They could afford to buy fish. Also, I miss corn noodles in hot soup.”

Please pray for these North Korean refugee women who long for more than a taste, but for their homes. They are foreigners in a strange land with a different language and unfamiliar foods. Please pray that their hunger might be filled by the only One who can satisfy.

Prayer for North Korean Orphans: Why Children are Orphaned

All of the North Korean orphans in our care in Second Wave have lost their mothers who have either escaped their forced marriages or been captured by the Chinese police and sent back to North Korea. Many of the children have fathers who are estranged or in moderate contact. If the children have fathers, why does Crossing Borders refer to them as North Korean orphans?

First, it is important to note that the official definition of "orphan" by the United Nations is “a child who has lost one or both parents.”

A second factor are the typical relationships between our children and their fathers. We take care of two North Korean orphans, brother and sister, “Soo and Jin.” They are half North Korean, half Chinese. They live in one of our orphanages, which is near their father’s home. Their father has been suffering from tuberculosis for years.

Each morning they both go to their father’s home, make him food, clean the house and then go to school. They go to their father's at night to do the same before returning to their orphanage.  Each weekend, they spend time with at their father to help maintain their his home and his health.

The typical Chinese or Korean-Chinese man who goes to the open market in China to purchase a bride lives in poverty, is sick, or has a mental or physical disability.  A majority of them are unable to provide an education or future for the children born following their marriages and need outside help.

This is why we consider each of these children as North Korean orphans. Not only have the children in our care lost their mothers, their fathers are unable to care or provide for them.

Crossing Borders currently helps more than 40 children in Second Wave. However, we cannot ignore the fact that over the past ten years there have been 100,000 North Korean refugees who have fled to China, most of whom are women. An estimated 80% of North Korean women who flee to China are trafficked and sold as forced brides. The number of children who need help must easily be in the thousands if not tens of thousands throughout China.

It is not hard to find a child who needs help in Northeast China.  Whenever we expand this program, it takes little effort.

Please pray with us as we address the needs of North Korean orphans. The sheer number of children in need is staggering. Please pray that these children will be loved. Pray that they would have a future. Pray that they would find hope in Jesus. And pray that we find more.

Prayer for North Korean Refugees: Safety and Terror in Life

North Korean refugees in China live in terror everyday. The bombing in Boston has reminded us in the first world that none of us are truly safe, no matter where we live. Acts of terror such as these are intended to scare us from living our everyday life. We get on a plane and we think twice. The next time we participate in or attend a marathon, we will think of Boston.

This terror is relative compared to what others go through on a daily basis. When we think of Syria or Gaza, our daily level of terror is put into perspective.

North Korean refugees in China are under constant pressure of being discovered by their neighbors, police officers or cameras, which seem to have sprouted up on every major street corner in Northeast China.

In 2009 we visited a small village in Northeast China where the police had come a month earlier to round up refugees and send them back to North Korea. The North Korean refugees lucky enough to escape were horrified. They didn’t want to stay in their homes where the police could come again in an attempt to round up refugees. But they also did not want to leave their homes where they might be caught.

“Can you please help me leave the country and go to South Korea?” one terrified woman asked us.

In 2011 China arrested and deported about 28 refugees and put the entire community in horror. The North Korean population is estimated to be around 100,000. Yonhap news reported in 2012 that a few of these refugees were publicly executed.

As we pray this week, let us remember the fear North Korean refugees face everyday. The psychological and emotional damage is stifling. Please pray that they would, through workers like our own in China, receive the peace and comfort of Christ.

Prayer for North Korean Refugees: The Underground Railroad

We have been helping “Bo-ah”, a North Korean Refugee in our Restore Life program for over five years. Late last year we sent her off on the Underground Railroad. As tensions have escalated on the Korean Peninsula, the Underground Railroad continues to quietly bring thousands of North Korean refugees to freedom each year. It is an extremely dangerous journey because, if refugees are caught, they will be sent back to a North Korean gulag to be tortured and possibly executed.

Bo-ah has vivid memories of her home in North Korea. She used to go to the mountains early in the morning with her father to chop down trees to heat their home, which was outlawed. Her teenage years were spent picking mushrooms to make money. She was constantly hungry and would often bring a cup of milk for lunch.

When Bo-ah decided to leave North Korea it was a hard decision because she knew she would be leaving her family behind. She still worries for her family.

“I wish I will be able to make some more money and send it to my family so that they can move to a better house,” she said. “I would buy them a farm in a flat area so they could get enough food for a whole year. But I don’t even know how to contact them.”

We got her a job in Northeast China, though North Korean refugees are not allowed to work in China. Her dream is to open a successful restaurant. She was paid a small wage at first but soon her paychecks became smaller, with more and more time between payments until they stopped altogether.

Eventually Bo-ah decided to leave Northeast China through the Underground Railroad through a partner organization*.

Bo-ah set off months ago and we have not heard from her. The last message we received from our partner was late last year. They told us that she successfully made it past the most difficult leg of the journey.

Please pray this week for North Korean refugees who make this difficult journey through China to Southeast Asia and eventually to South Korea or another free country. Pray that they would be invisible to the authorities and visible to those who are willing to help them. Please also pray for Bo-ah, who could be anywhere along this path. We will keep you posted about her progress.

* Crossing Borders does not help refugees navigate the Underground Railroad because our focus is to provide help for them in China.

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 Sustainable Future

In China is a family of North Korean refugees and orphans we help. “Ha Neul,” lives with her cousin and father in the countryside of Northeast China. Her father has a degenerative bone disorder that prevents him from working on his farm for very long. This family leads a poor and desperate life. Their house was described by one of our missionaries as “filthy.” Ha Neul’s father comes from poverty and because of his disabilities, it was virtually impossible for him to find a wife. China’s One Child Policy has left the country with a severe gender imbalance. It is because of this imbalance that North Korean refugees are trafficked heavily in the country. So Ha Neul’s father went to the open market in Northeast China in the early 2000s to purchase a wife.

Though some women are treated brutally by their purchasers, Ha Neul’s father treated his wife well. They lived happily in the countryside for a time. However, Ha Neul, as many North Korean refugee women, was captured by the police and sent back to North Korea. She has not been heard from since.

Ha Neul’s father tries his best to provide for his daughter but the numbers cannot add up. What little he makes from his farm goes to service his debts. Very little is left over to provide for his half North Korean, half Chinese child, who, until very recently, was not able to obtain a legal ID so she could go to school or obtain medical care. The cards are stacked against Ha Neul and the tens of thousands of families who are in situations like hers.

Crossing Borders is now considering more sustainable options to help North Korean refugees and their families.

For 10 years, we have been providing aid to these communities. But as the landscape has changed in China and North Korea, we feel the need to change along with it.

When we first landed in Northeast China, the situation was dire and immediate aid was necessary. But today, the situation has stabilized. The food situation in North Korea is still unstable but not nearly as horrific as the '90s in the Great North Korean Famine.

What we need now are sustainable models of building infrastructure in the lives of North Korean refugees, to especially be better equipped to help North Korean refugees should the nation of North Korea destabilize or experience another famine. In other words, we need to help Ha Neul’s father support himself and his family instead of simply giving him the aid to help his child.

We are considering several models to help North Korean refugees and their families but the most important thing is to be thoughtful and prayerful about this as we proceed. We know the best plans can fall apart in the blink of an eye if we are not careful.

Please pray with us as we consider how we can help North Korean refugees and those they care for as they continue to pour across the border for help.

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.

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.

Prayers for North Korean Refugees: A New Decade

On New Years Day this year Crossing Borders celebrated our 10-year anniversary. It has been 10 years since Mike Kim packed up two duffle bags and boarded a one-way flight to serve North Korean refugees in Northeast China. Since January 1, 2003, we have assisted hundreds of North Korean refugees in China. We have raised more than $2 million. We have seen a transformation in the region, the refugees and ourselves.

As we look to our next decade of work, we know that our methods and our staff may change. However, our goal to bring the hope of Jesus Christ to North Korean refugees will not. At the heart of what we do is our relationship with a God who pursues.

In Luke 15 Jesus shares three parables that illustrate his heart: the lost sheep, the lost coin and the prodigal son. Each parable depicts God as a pursuer of what was lost.

This is exactly what Crossing Borders longs to do.

When Mike packed his bags 10 years ago, we believe it was because of a passion God placed in him to bring justice and hope to North Korean refugees who could not attain it for themselves. We take so much care to do what is best for the people we help because we believe that God did the same for us. He laid down His glory to live among us. He bore our shame so that we could live abundantly for Him.

How could we not do the same?

There have been many exciting moments over the past 10 years of our work but most of the time it has been a grind. Our staff and volunteers give a significant portion of their time and energy to make this organization work. We would not still be doing this if we didn’t truly believe in the power behind this work.

As we start our second decade, please pray that we would continue to pursue the lost sheep, the North Korean refugees of China, with the heart of Jesus Christ.

Prayer for North Korean Refugees: Laughter Facing Death

When “Joseph” first came to Crossing Borders for help, he was covered in sores. He was a North Korean refugees had just been released from prison in North Korea. It was so crowded there that bodies would cover the concrete floor at night. Inmates would punch him as people jockeyed for position. His body was infected from sleeping on the floor, which people used as their toilets. During the day he would get beaten by the guards. Seven years ago, Joseph shared a meal with our Crossing Borders staff members. And as he shared about the difficulty of being a North Korean refugee in China and the horrendous conditions of his incarceration in North Korea, Joseph said, “I’ve never laughed as much in my life as I did in prison.”

“If you don’t laugh, you’ll die,” he said.

Joseph became a believer when he first made the dangerous journey to China. He had the fortune of hearing the gospel through missionaries who ministered to him. It was after becoming a believer that he decided to return to North Korea , as a North Korean refugee, to see his siblings. It was in this journey that Joseph was sent to prison.

We have seen it many times, the incredible unflappability of North Korean refugees in the direst of circumstances, especially among those who believe. This is surely a testament to the superhuman strength promised in the Bible when believers experience “trials of many kinds.”

As you pray with Crossing Borders for North Korean refugees and their children this week, let’s pray for strength. As North Koreans continue to suffering at the hands of a regime who does not care for them, as many still lie hopeless in prison, as the church is still being persecuted, please pray for an unshakeable strength that comes from the Lord.

Prayer for Work with North Korean Refugees: Words to Speak

In our line of work, Crossing Borders has had the opportunity to hear many stories from North Korean refugees face-to-face. Some of these stories shared around dinner tables and in circles of conversation are so heart-wrenching that, after the refugees are done, there is a deafening silence that follows. For some of us on the American staff, sometimes there is nothing to say. In times, we have let this silence remain until someone refills the water or until the check comes at the restaurant.

Fortunately, our missionaries have a gift in comforting and wise words, and have aided us in many a meeting with North Korean refugees in China.

There is a gift that some people have which can only be explained as spiritual. Some people’s words, given at the right moment with just the right tone, can be a salve for those who are hurting or a scalpel for those who need to change.

What do you say to a child who is living with the regret of accidentally turning her mother in to the police? What can be said to a woman who has lost her child to traffickers? Or a man who is dying from a sickness that cannot be healed in Northeast China?

There is no manual for this but there is the Holy Spirit, who can give us these words.

Please pray with us this week as we continue to minister to North Korean refugees who need help and healing. Please pray for God’s presence to be felt in every encounter we have with our refugees and orphans and that we would be given the right words to speak.

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 Orphans: Hugs and Kisses

For the fortunate, hugs and kisses are a normal part of life. Many of us grew up with them showed on us by loved ones. It is how we show love and caring to our kids. They are even a part of our greetings. But for many of the North Korean orphans in our Second Wave orphanages, expressions of affection are a rare luxury. This summer, the North Korean orphans supported by Crossing Borders participated in an English camp, which was run by volunteers serving alongside us. One boy went home to his father after camp. His father told us that his son cried for three days afterwards. When asked why, we learned that one of the woman volunteers hugged his son so much and it reminded him of his mother, who is currently serving time in a North Korean gulag.

Another girl once told us during the camp that sometimes she lays in bed at night hugging herself, crying, thinking about her mother.

If there was a way for us to send e-hugs to the children in our care, we would. But for now, we encourage our caretakers, missionaries and visitors to hug and kiss these children as much as they can.

But of course, there is a greater solution still that we all pray for, remembering the innumerable North Korean orphans living day to day in China without the love of their parents. We pray fervently that God would envelop the children of North Korea with His Fatherly love, and that He would send more harvest workers to provide for them in His affection.

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.