Top North Korean Headlines - October 2021

NORTH KOREA BEGAN TO ACCEPT COVID AID FROM WHO

• COVID-19 medical supplies from the World Health Organisation (WHO) and other UN agencies arrived in North Korea, which signals that the regime is easing one of the world’s strictest pandemic border closures.

• The medicines and medical supplies sent by the WHO include personal protective equipment, gloves, masks and COVID-10 test reagents.

• According to the WHO office in Pyongyang, North Korea’s Public Health Ministry permitted items that had been stranded in China since January 2020 to be shipped through the Chinese seaport of Dalian a few months earlier.

• Considering the devastating effects the strict border controls have on North Korea’s economy, which was already suffering the fallout from international sanctions, it appears Pyongyang is ready to reopen its border for trade as well as to receive foreign aid.

Source: http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20211008000645&np=1&mp=1

THE LAST EUROPEAN EMBASSY SHUTS DOWN IN PYONGYANG

• It is reported that the Romania embassy in Pyongyang had closed on 9 October 2021 due to harsh COVID-19 restrictions.  The two remaining Romanian diplomats had left North Korea via China, meaning there are now no European diplomats left in North Korea.

• The exodus of North Korea’s last western presence has been described by John Everard, the UK’s former Ambassador to North Korea, as a loss that significantly deepens its isolation from the rest of the world since Sweden opened the first foreign embassy in Pyongyang in the 1970s.

• Sources also indicate that there would be uncertainties over the reopening of the embassy due to the high costs involved in re-securing the facilities.

• Following the collective exit of diplomats since the pandemic, the only countries to retain an embassy in North Korea are China, Cuba, Egypt, Laos, Mongolia, Palestine, Russia, Syria and Vietnam.

Source: https://www.nknews.org/2021/10/romania-closes-embassy-in-pyongyang-as-more-diplomats-leave-north-korea/

NORTH KOREAN SHOT DEAD AT THE CHINA-NORTH KOREA BORDER

• A local North Korean man was “fired upon and shot dead” when the Storm Corps discovered him returning to the country from China on 30 September 2021.  

• It is reported that many Hoeryong residents witnessed the border patrol fishing his body out of the Tumen River on 2 October 2021.

• The border patrol had later cremated the body and the Ministry of State Security was reportedly high-handed with the family when turning over the remains, claiming that the cremation complies with the “state’s highest emergency quarantine system” and that they “should accept this without complaint...[as the man had] engaged in treason by violating state quarantine policy in going to China”.  The family was also ordered to mourn in silence at home.

• The man was in his 50s and had been missing since mid-September.  His neighbours speculated that he had left somewhere because he had nothing to eat.  It was later revealed that due to his gradually worsening financial situation, he had crossed the border to visit a relative in China.

Source: https://www.dailynk.com/english/north-korean-shot-dead-near-china-north-korea-border-last-week/

PYONGYANG’S GOAL TO BUILD 10,000 NEW APARTMENTS IN 2021

• During the Eighth Party Congress in January 2021, North Korea had pledged to build 50,000 new homes in Pyongyang by 2025, the 80th anniversary of the founding of the ruling party, by building 10,000 homes each year.

• The new apartments are to be built in five Pyongyang districts: Songhwa and Songsin districts in east Pyongyang, Sep. 9 District in central Pyongyang, and Sopo and Kumchon districts in west Pyongyang.  Tens of thousands of square meters of land in Mangyondae, the western area of Pyongyang and the birthplace of Kim Il-sung, had been cleared for this construction project.

• However, North Korea’s mass-scale construction project faces serious difficulties amid economic challenges and the pandemic.  In particular, power and heating issues as a result of chronic energy shortages pose additional challenges to workers on site.  Sources further suggest that not only have mines and farms suspended production due to blackouts, residents of central Pyongyang have also experienced electricity shortages.

Source: https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/nation/2021/10/103_316758.html ; https://www.dailynk.com/english/north-korea-faces-difficulties-in-completing-10000-new-homes-in-pyongyang-by-the-end-of-the-year/

A Painful Chuseok - A Thankful Heart

Chuseok is one of the biggest national holidays in both North and South Korea. It falls on the 15th day of the 8th month of the lunar calendar. This year it will land on September 21 and celebrations typically span three full days starting on the day before the actual holiday. The celebration is focused around the harvest and is similar to Thanksgiving in the US but culturally, the holiday has the importance of Christmas in the West. 

During Chuseok the entire peninsula shuts down and people return to their hometowns to celebrate. Festivities include a large, traditional meal and the most traditional observers pay homage to their ancestors by visiting their gravesites. For a second year, we expect celebrations on both sides of the DMZ will be muted as COVID-19 restrictions will impair the movement of people in both countries. 

There is one population who will not be visiting their hometowns during Chuseok: North Korean refugees. These people are permanently severed from their families and friends who are still caught in the country. They cannot call or write into North Korea. There is no form of Zoom or Facetime they can use to virtually join these celebrations. Most ties are all but severed.

Consider what it might feel like to be alone on Christmas as the world around joins their families to celebrate. North Koreans already feel isolated in South Korea but this shared holiday highlights this cold reality.

North Korean refugees in South Korea typically gather with fellow North Korean friends and engage in heavy drinking, according to our staff in South Korea. In the absence of immediate family, they gather with people who come from the same hometown in North Korea. Some celebrate with people who they came into South Korea with, people they can share their earliest memories of their new country.

The holiday starts with families visiting the gravesites of their ancestors to pay respect, something that is impossible for North Korean refugees to do. Chuseok celebrations then focus on food, specifically songpyeon, a rice cake with sweet fillings such as red bean, chestnuts, dates or honey. But for North Koreans, reminders of how food ran dry during the famine often pepper their feelings of nostalgia with pain.

Elim House resident “Kristine” remembers when she was a little girl in her hometown eating songpyeon and traditional Korean vegetables such as bean sprouts. In North Korea before the famine, Kristine’s family made a large amount of songpyeon and brought it to her grandparents' tomb.  After bowing three times, she remembers sitting around and feasting. The famine changed all of this, she said.

When the famine took hold in the late 90s, there was nothing to eat and no more rice cake to make on Chuseok. This is when she decided to make the dangerous journey across the river to China.

This Chuseok, our South Korea team will celebrate with our Elim House residents  and enjoy traditional food and activities together like a family. The celebration will be centered around God’s goodness in the lives of the refugees. Though this holiday is often a painful reminder of the homes and families they left, there is much to be thankful for: a safe place to stay, people who are there to help them rebuild their lives, and the love of their Heavenly Father.

The Impact on Refugees from China’s relationship with the Taliban

The eyes of the world are on Afghanistan right now. The Taliban’s rapid takeover of the country has caused consternation to foreign powers, including the U.S. Worse, it’s put numerous people groups (including women and Christians) at risk. However, one group of people has received much less attention: Uyghur people from China, living as refugees in Afghanistan.

The Chinese government has been carefully improving its relations with the Taliban, Afghanistan’s new rulers, since as early as July. The relationship could be mutually beneficial: China gets to pursue its business interests in the country, and Afghanistan receives some much-needed investments. The Chinese government is unlikely to interfere with the Taliban’s rule or balk at human rights violations.

The collateral damage of this diplomatic relationship? Refugees from China. Much like how North Korea seeks to extradite refugees living in China, Beijing wishes to see Uyghurs in Afghanistan returned to the country. Recent history indicates that Afghanistan’s “close diplomatic ties with China results in persecution of Uyghurs.”

Those close ties appear to be what the Taliban is seeking. It’s unlikely this new government will have qualms about extraditing even second-generation Uyghur refugees to China—regardless of the persecution they’ll face when they arrive.

China’s Xinjiang region, home to a large number of Uyghurs, has also recently been the site of mass detention campaigns—all under the guise of a “war on terror.” Uyghur people have been arrested for seeming overly religious, or for violations as small as “disturb[ing] other persons by visiting them without reasons.” Detainees are sent to internment camps, ostensibly for “voluntary job training.”

The plight of Uyghurs in China has received more press over the past few years, but Beijing continues to deny any human rights abuses. It insists that the detention camps are for re-education or “job training.” However, the Chinese government has increasingly attempted to extradite Uyghurs from countries allied with China. The “war on terror” has resulted not only in mass arrests within China, but also peril for Uyghurs throughout Asia—and now Afghanistan.

The Chinese treatment of Uyghurs sheds light on the predicament of other groups in China, such as North Korean refugees. While North Koreans may not end up in Chinese detention camps, they have no rights under Chinese law and are subject to repatriation to North Korea, just like Uyghurs in Afghanistan and other countries are extradited to China.

China’s new relationship with the Taliban is a bad sign not only for Uyghurs in Afghanistan, but also for oppressed groups within its own borders. Beijing’s willingness to overlook human rights abuses in Afghanistan, and its own treatment of Uyghurs in China, clearly signals that human rights are low on its priority list.

It’s likely that North Korean refugees, and other minority groups within China, including the church, will only face more persecution in the coming months. Both these groups and the organizations that work to help them will need prayer and support more than ever.

Top North Korean headlines - September 2021

Hackers in North Korea attack Defector in South Korea

Hacker Group in North Korea Targets Defector

Prominent NORTH KOREAN DEFECTOR’S ACCOUNTS HACKED

• A hacking group linked to the DPRK, known as ScarCruft or Venus 121, had allegedly hacked into North Korean defector Kang Mi-jin's email account, as well as her accounts on Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin.

• In total, at least four of Kang’s accounts using different passwords across different platforms were compromised.

• Over the course of several weeks, the attackers impersonated Kang by sending a malicious document to a contact working on DPRK issues and sent a message to NKnet’s (an organisation focusing on DPRK human rights issues) executive director Eun Kyoung Kwon to congratulate her on a new job.

• However, the odd choice of words made Kwon suspicious of the message. “The language the hacker used was not explicitly awkward from a South Korean point of view, but there was definitely a subtle North Korean nuance in the phrases,” Kwon told NK News.

Read More: NKNews.org

NORTH KOREA builds quarantine facility to RESUME TRADE WITH CHINA

• North Korea’s unification minister announced that its trade with China plunged 82.1% on-year amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

• In addition to North Korea’s focus on addressing recent challenges in relation to protracted sanctions, the COVID-19 pandemic and recent flood damages, the North is also building a quarantine facility in the border area to encourage import of goods to address its continued instability in the supply and demand in rice, food and medicine.

• Nevertheless, North Korea, which claims to be COVID-free, continues to impose stringent controls at its borders.

• Read more: Korea Herald

NORTH KOREA TURNS DOWN 3 MILLION SINOVAC VACCINE DOSES

• North Korea requested that the COVID-19 vaccines from the Covax program (which aims to help poorer nations obtain vaccines) be redirected to countries experiencing surges in view of global vaccine shortages.

• It was alleged that some 37,291 North Korean health care workers and people experiencing flu-like symptoms had been tested and all were found to be negative.

• North Korea has previously rejected shipments of around 2 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccines and multiple offers of Sputnik vaccines from Russia, expressing concerns over potential side effects and doubt over the efficacy of COVID-19 vaccinations.

Read More: AsiaOne & BBC

KIM JONG UN SUMMONED TO APPEAR BEFORE JAPANESE COURT

• Kim Jong Un has been summoned to face demands for compensation by 5 ethnic Korean residents of Japan for alleged human rights abuses in North Korea after joining a resettlement program.

• About 93,000 ethnic Korean residents of Japan and their families who faced discrimination in Japan went to North Korea “for a better life” under the resettlement program (which continued until 1984). However, they did not receive free healthcare, education, jobs and other benefits as promised by North Korea, and were instead assigned manual work at mines, forests or farms.

• The plaintiffs demanded 100 million yen ($900,000 USD) each in compensation from North Korea.

• Kim is not expected to appear in court for the October 14 hearing. This is a rare instance in which a foreign leader is not granted sovereign immunity, said Kenji Fukuda, a lawyer representing the five plaintiffs. (Sovereign immunity refers to the international law doctrine that one state has no right to judge the actions of another by the standards of its national law, thus rendering it free from civil suit or criminal prosecution.)

• Although Fukuda said he is not expecting Kim to provide compensation even if ordered by the court, it is hoped that the case can set a precedent for future negotiations between Japan and North Korea on seeking the North’s responsibility and normalizing diplomatic ties.

Read More: South China Morning Post

Top North Korean headlines - August 2021

Heavy rain and flooding in North Korea cause mass evacuation

The EU ready to provide aid to North Korea

• Over 5,000 people in North Korea evacuated as floods damaged over 1,000 homes.

• Sinuiju, a city neighboring the North Korea/China border instructed residents to evacuate to nearby mountains or highlands should an emergency siren sound.

• A European Union’s Humanitarian Aid Department official told a Radio Free Asia that they stand “ready to provide assistance if border measures are loosened to allow for the import of aid materials and entry of international humanitarian personnel”.

Read More:
http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20210811000808
https://www.rfa.org/english/news/korea/flood-08092021204331.html

North Korea’s economy shrank to smallest size since Kim Jong Un took power in 2011

• North Korea’s economy in 2020 contracted the most since their deadly famine in the 1990s due to the coronavirus, natural disasters and international sanctions.

• According to a recent Bank of Korea report, North Korea’s exports last year dropped 68% to just $90 million, while imports fell 74%.

• Economic hardship has not stopped Kim’s nuclear arsenal growth, producing enough fissile material annually for about six nuclear bombs.

  Read more: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-07-30/north-korea-s-economy-contracted-most-in-two-decades-in-2020

Speculations of why North Korea skipped the 2020 Summer Olympics

• COVID-19 was the biggest reason for North Korea’s decision not to participate in the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo.

• When North Korea does show up at the Olympics, sports often take a back seat to politics.

• If North Korea participated in Tokyo, they could have seen success in weightlifting, boxing, women’s wrestling and women’s marathon.

• Kim Jong Un may use the North’s absence from the Tokyo Games as a way to signal to his people that he values protecting them from the coronavirus more than the possible glory of medals

Read More:
https://apnews.com/article/2020-tokyo-olympics-sports-tokyo-coronavirus-pandemic-winter-olympics-1d50342d7fba7e334041c8526724b3cb

North Korea’s lack of response to offers for COVID-19 vaccines

• The US, South Korea, China, and Russia are among a list of countries that have offered vaccines to Pyongyang.

• The offers have gone unheeded. Kim Jong Un’s regime refuses help and spares no efforts to brag about the superiority of its health care system through their propaganda machinery.

• A lack of refrigeration facilities to properly transport and store vaccines also likely inhibits North Korea’s responsiveness for access to outside vaccines

• Even if North Korea manages to secure vaccines, the quantity will be barely enough to vaccinate even just a fraction of the population of 25 million North Koreans.

• Pyongyang may find any public gesture of COVID-19 aid from Seoul as “humiliating.” And that Kim considers North Korea’s supposed virus-free status as “one of the greatest feats of his leadership.”

Read More:
https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/08/09/north-korea-covid-pandemic-vaccine-strategy-pyongyang/

How God Prepared Cindy to be a Social Worker at Elim House

Cindy, our Elim House Social Worker, hard at work

Meet Cindy, our first team member in South Korea and Elim House’s social worker

Korea requires a licensed social worker to be on staff for a shelter for abused women like Elim House. We shared in February that God had brought us a candidate who was a pastor’s wife and had served North Korean refugees in her church for the past three years. She goes by “Cindy” and has been a huge blessing to both our Elim House residents and our missionaries. We had a chance to sit down with Cindy to get to know her better and ask her a few questions why she chooses to serve North Korean refugees.

What made you want to work with NK refugees?

While working with my husband at our church, I met North Korean refugee women and their children. I came to know their pain and life situations and realized that no one seemed to really understand them. But I was sure that God’s love could heal them just like God’s love did not give up on me. With that hope I was able to start working with them.

How has God prepared you for your role at Elim House?

Through serving in the children’s ministry and a ministry helping with resettlement of North Korean refugees at Onnuri Church, we got to know more about the lives of North Koreans in South Korea, including their culture and the harsh realities they face. At first it was shocking to me and I felt helpless, but I began to realize that the only thing that would give them true freedom from their suffering was the gospel.

I initially served the North Korean refugee population as a volunteer. And three years ago, I decided to formally work with them and started studying to be a social worker.

It seems that is how God has prepared me to be a social worker at Elim House today.

What has been the most challenging experience at Elim House?

The most challenging experience at Elim House has been when I served our residents with the utmost consideration and heart, only to have my efforts shunned and shot back at me like arrows. I was hurt by the actions of some of our residents and I have regrets regarding my reaction to them as well. I feel there are still many things I do not know about North Korean refugees. But because I am also a person in need of God’s love, I am able to relate to them in this way. God has been teaching me a lot through our most difficult residents.

What has been the most blessing experience at Elim House?

It is a blessing for me that God has allowed me to meet a healthy organization like Crossing Borders, a warm missionary couple with loving hearts that always respects and praises me and a women’s shelter that operates with biblical values like Elim House.

Please share some prayer requests with us.

Pray for refugee women who need healing and recovery at Elim House.

Please pray that I will be able to carry out the role of a social worker wisely and fruitfully.

China Operations: 2021 Mid-year Update

A New Opening in China

Since the beginning of the pandemic, Crossing Borders has been unable to send our missionaries to China. Chinese regulations as of 2020 were such that any foreign traveler would have to quarantine for 14 days in a government-run facility in Beijing and then quarantine for another seven days if the traveler’s final destination was outside of Beijing. Even if our missionaries quarantined, movement is limited within China. Citizens including our field workers are routinely questioned at toll booths and by phone for traveling within the country.

Adding to the existing challenges of restricted travel, China has systematically deported most foreign missionaries from its borders. This has been the trend for several years now but the pandemic has accelerated it. Most foreign missionaries that Crossing Borders is in contact with have been expelled and not allowed to return.

By God’s grace, Crossing Borders’ missionaries were not expelled. But at the beginning of this year, we held internal discussions about how we could provide the level of information that we usually report to our donors and partners throughout the year with our missionaries no longer in China. As a stop-gap, we use coded language over the phone or internet to check in on our refugees. This ensures that our services are being administered properly and that there is no abuse, but it does not give us personal details into the lives of the refugees in our network. Those stories that are the hallmark of any Crossing Borders update are just not available for us at the moment. More importantly, it is becoming increasingly difficult to closely enforce the accountability that has kept our organization on the ground for so long.

Despite these overwhelming challenges, we prayed that God would keep the door open in China for us. Miraculously, we believe that God has answered our prayers.

The pastor in our network is trustworthy and a man who has served with much integrity for over a decade. While God has gifted this pastor in caring for refugees, he is not as strong in the area of administration and keeping detailed notes.  Finding field workers who are gifted in both areas has been a challenge within our network in Northeast China.

But a candidate recently emerged from our network who fits the qualifications that we need. She has experience working with large corporations that require details and accountability while also having compassion and a heart to serve North Korean refugees. As a Chinese citizen, she will have no problems with getting in and out of the country. She is truly an answered prayer.

We continue to pray for openings for our US staff to be able to visit, but we are confident that the staff that we have in place will be able to carry our work forward into the future.

The Underground Railroad in 2021

South Korea reported that in the second quarter of 2021, a mere two North Korean refugees came into the country. Our staff in China has noticed the difference as well. Our refugees in China often talked about the possibility of leaving the country, but these murmurs have stopped.

There are multiple factors that have contributed to the near halt of the Underground Railroad for North Koreans.  According to one of the pastors on our staff, the Chinese government has built a barrier on one of the major escape routes out of China. More concerning is the fact that North Korea went on complete lockdown when the pandemic became a real threat. The country shares a border with China and most of its trade is conducted with China. Shutting its country borders meant that movement between the two countries all but halted.

Many refugees who take the Underground Railroad have family in South Korea. These relatives pay for the expensive defections. And brokers arrange pickups at precise locations along the border at exact times. This activity has all but stopped.

A partner organization also told us that the brokers who normally use this route to shuttle North Koreans to freedom now cater to a different kind of clientele. Instead of North Koreans with no rights, wealthy Chinese are using their services to flee their own country from an ever encroaching government.

There is also the changing posture of the South Korean government towards these refugees. The Moon administration has taken a more skeptical approach to North Korean defector groups. They have cut funding to help North Korean defectors entering the country. They put all of the 289 defector groups in South Korea under investigation last year to make sure their paperwork was filed properly.

Our partners on the ground in South Korea have felt the pinch as well. Many of the organizations that Crossing Borders is in touch with have experienced sharp government cuts in their funding. Some are barely hanging on financially.

This perfect storm of events has led to this near cutting-off of North Koreans reaching South Korea. In the 18 years Crossing Borders has been operating in China, we feel as if our work has entered a different chapter. All of the organizations that were active when we started are now gone. Though there is much uncertainty in the near term, God allows us to continue our work. Through these unknowns, we look forward to seeing how God will continue to reveal his plans for North Koreans.

North Korea’s Ominous Mysteries

Top North Korean headlines from July 2021

Only Two Defectors

• South Korea reported in July the fewest number of North Koreans to have ever reached South Korea in a quarter, as only one male and one female North Korean defector arrived in South Korea from April through June 2021.

• From January through March of 2021, 31 defectors reached South Korea.

• In the past 10 years, the number of North Koreans arriving on an annual basis had never dropped below 1,000. In 2020, 229 North Korean defectors entered South Korea - a 78% drop in persons.

Read More:
https://www.nknews.org/2021/07/just-two-north-korean-defectors-reach-south-korea-from-april-to-june/ 

Choi Hyunmi, from North Korean defector to a South Korea woman boxing champ

• Choi Hyunmi’s talents were noticed at a young age and she was told  she could become a boxer who “can delight General Kim Jong Il”

• She and her family left North Korea when she was 13 and arrived in South Korea by way of Vietnam

• She went back to boxing after a classmate insulted her North Korea background

• Choi became a member of South Korea’s national team in 2006, turned pro and clinched the World Boxing Association’s vacant featherweight crown in 2008

• Agents from the US, Japan and Germany have approached her about being naturalized in those countries, which Choi turned down. 

• Reasons being: worries about another tough resettlement, and the immense pride that she’s had representing South Korea

  Read more: https://apnews.com/article/sports-2020-tokyo-olympics-south-korea-great-britain-olympic-team-ireland-olympic-team-6ec5a04a1abede44839e2a2790ff42f7

Kim Jong Un’s Dramatic Weight Loss

• “The biggest wild card” in assessing the stability of North Korea is no other than the health of its leader, Kim Jong Un, as stated by Senior fellow of Center for Strategic and International Studies and former CIA analyst on North Korea, Sue Mi Terry.

• The significant weight loss over the course of recent weeks has launched a frenzy of speculation. It is unclear whether Kim’s loss of weight indicates that his health has become dramatically better or worse.

• Uncertainty and confusion regarding the sudden change reveals the sheer lack of information coming out of North Korea and the deterioration of intelligence on its leaders throughout the pandemic.

Read More:
https://www.ft.com/content/1cfce6b6-fcf0-470d-98e2-3124a76d38e7

Kim Jong Un ’s appearance on February 8, left, compared with June 15, right. © AP

Food Shortages or Famine

• “The people’s food situation is now getting tense,” announced Kim Jong Un to the North Korean state media in a recent public statement. “It is essential for the whole party and state to concentrate on farming.”

• Recent flooding and agricultural disasters caused by 2020 droughts and typhoons has sorely affected North Korea’s annual yield of grain.

• The Korea Development Institute in Seoul reported in June that North Korea required 5.2 million tons of food in 2020, yet produced only 4 million tons.

• The fear of ongoing flooding damaging food production in 2021 has resulted in criminal sentences for “soil plunderers” - farmers who take soil near rivers for their farmland. Those who steal river soil, thus increasing the risk of flooding, “will be punished as ‘anti-party’ elements for consciously neglecting [government directives],” noted an anonymous North Korean source in Pyongyang.

Read More:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/7/1/humanitarian-disaster-looms-in-north-korea
https://www.rfa.org/english/news/korea/farm-07162021201141.html
https://www.38north.org/2021/07/is-the-north-korean-economy-under-kim-jong-un-in-danger-arduous-march-in-the-age-of-covid-19/

Elim House: 2021 Mid-year Update

Elim House officially opened one year ago in July of 2020. Since opening, we’ve hired one full time staff, our missionaries have endured two rounds of 14-day quarantine, three children have come to Elim House with the four women that resided there and our fifth resident arrived this July. While the number of residents that we took in were fewer than we anticipated, God in his wisdom knew that that was exactly what we could handle.

“Julie’s” arrival

“Julie” (pseudonym used to protect refugee identities) was our fourth and most recent resident that came to Elim House in January, 2021. While her husband was asleep, Julie fled her house with her son to stay with a close friend. This friend took her to a medical center in Seoul where she received medical care and also was seen by counselors who treat North Korean refugees. Julie was referred to us at that point.

Julie and her husband are both North Korean refugees and had lived in South Korea for five years. She shared with us her fears that she might not leave her house alive if she returned to her husband one more time. Even if they were to divorce, she believed she would have to live the rest of her life in hiding from him.

One evening our missionaries gathered all the residents, including Julie, to lead them in a Bible study and to share the gospel. Julie, who was not a believer, was immediately very curious to know about Jesus and the gospel. As she followed along, when asked if she would repent her sin and commit her life to Christ, she responded with an enthusiastic “Yes!”

As her husband persisted in wanting to reconcile with Julie, she returned back home after about a month of staying at Elim House. She had set conditional terms of seeking counseling together, which seems to have been fruitful as Julie recently shared with us that her husband treats her much better. It is a blessing to see her life change so dramatically in the short time we’ve known her. Julie and her husband even invited our missionaries over for a meal at their house soon.

Elevated COVID levels and Elim House

While South Korea had the spread of COVID-19 under control during the better part of 2020, spikes and continued elevated levels in 2021 have placed the entire country under strict restrictions. Under the latest curbs, people are advised to stay home as much as possible. These limitations have also slowed down the number of North Korean refugees referred to Elim House given the elevated risks of moving into a shared facility with strangers. As such, we had not taken in any new residents since Julie came to us in January until just last week.

“Heather” wanted to be admitted to Seoul Medical Center but was referred to us since the hospital was at capacity. Heather is 44 years old, was sold to a man in China at the age of 21, was captured, sent back and jailed in North Korea until 2006. She was sold again to a farmer in China in 2007 and where she lived until she arrived in Korea in 2021. Abuse has followed her through every season and every country including South Korea. Heather has been diagnosed with severe depression and cries uncontrollably when she is by herself. Elim House will be a short time of respite while she waits to be admitted to the hospital and we pray God will work powerfully in the coming days.

Elim House residents

We shared in October about our first resident “Cathy” who came to us after a thwarted suicide attempt of jumping from a bridge. She was very receptive to the care and love given by our missionaries and even confessed her faith in Jesus after hearing about him over the course of two months. It was unexpected and unfortunate when we discovered that she had stolen money from another resident and left Elim House in February. We have not seen or heard from Cathy since. We pray constantly that her heart might be fertile soil and not rocky soil and that the gospel truth she accepted is still at work in heart. We hope to see her again.

In our first quarter update we shared a little bit about another resident who joined us in December. She had been sexually assaulted by a man whom she personally knew and trusted. During her time with us, she was able to get legal advice on her situation and request government assistance to relocate to a new apartment. She officially left Elim House in June and our missionaries shared that it was bittersweet and akin to sending a daughter off from their home to get married.

Finally “Kristine”, who has been with us since November, has made good progress with the counsel of lawyers to clear up her legal Korean identity on record with the government which will then open the door to gain custody of her two sons. She continues to grow in her faith and we are so encouraged to see Kristine cling to God’s word when she encounters setbacks.

Drive-by Banchan and other updates

We shared about hiring our first South Korea team member in our first quarter update. “Cindy,” the full time social worker for Elim House, has been an amazing addition to our team and a huge blessing to both the residents and our missionaries. Kristine recently shared with our missionaries how she has witnessed the love and care Cindy has for North Korean refugees that come to Elim House.

“I want to be a martyr while serving banchan (Korean side dishes typically served with each meal),” is how this amazing woman and mother of four serves Elim House residents and our missionaries. She is a friend of Cindy and has blessed us with several “drive by” banchan drop-offs.

While our missionaries returned back to the States for their COVID shots, a kind neighborhood grandmother planted flowers in the garden at Elim House.

You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you. - Isaiah 26:3

The past year of learning to care for refugees in South Korea in the midst of COVID has stretched the faith and abilities of the Crossing Borders team. COVID numbers may continue to climb in South Korea and we may encounter more unexpected hurdles but we know the only way to navigate uncharted waters is for us to trust God and keep our minds steadfastly on him.

A Tale of Two Famines

The Great Chinese Famine

Though the devastation of the Great North Korean Famine is still fresh in our minds, many experts report that the greatest and deadliest famine in human history took place in China during 1959-61.

In 1958 Mao Zedong launched the Great Leap Forward, an effort to mobilize China's massive population to fast track in just a few years economic advances that took other nations many decades to accomplish. The movement focused China’s peasant population on steel mining and manufacturing, forcing them to split time between farming and smelting steel in makeshift backyard furnaces. As a result of this shift, grain harvest plummeted during this period.

Earlier in the 1950s, unable to provide for its impoverished communities, the Chinese government had formed communes to teach its people how to work collectively towards self-reliance. With the Great Leap Forward, Mao increased the size of these communes twentyfold to over 5,000 families per commune. The utopian fantasy was to push these communes to be self-sufficient in agriculture, industry, governance, education and health care.

In the face of declining crop production, but to demonstrate the perceived superiority of communal farming, provinces grossly exaggerated their grain haul figures. These inflated counts were then used to justify sending a greater share of grain to cities, leaving nothing for peasants to eat. Millions were forced to starve. It is estimated that a third of China's provinces were in a famine by the spring of 1959. The estimated death toll from this great famine ranges from 36-45 million lives.

Fleeing from China to North Korea

As China suffered famine and financial turmoil, neighboring North Korea was undergoing economic growth. Ethnic Koreans of Chinese nationality, known as “Joseon-jok”, saw this as an opportunity to go to a place with familiar language, family ties and most importantly, where they would not die of starvation. With the upside of escaping the persecution they often faced in China, it was also not too difficult to swap one authoritarian regime for another in North Korea.

The Great North Korean Famine

Fast forward three decades to 1991 when the Soviet Union collapsed and with it dissolved one of North Korea’s few trade relationships. Trade from the Soviet Union dissipated from about 60 percent of North Korea’s economy in 1988 to virtually nothing.

Between 1990 to 1995, North Korea was struck by a series of natural disasters ranging from cold fronts to multiple years of flooding that decimated grain production. Even with outside food aid, a broken distribution system controlled by a corrupt government led to the death of upwards of 3.5 million citizens during the North Korean famine which spanned from 1995 to 1998. As the infrastructure of the country unraveled into chaos, between 100,000 to 300,000 North Korean defectors made their way out of the country seeking refuge and resources.

Flight from North Korea to China?

The world is closely monitoring North Korea for signs of another famine, which is primarily a result of halted trade and commerce with the outside world in reaction to COVID-19. If North Korea does face another major famine, it could lead to another mass exodus similar to what the world witnessed during the great North Korean famine of the 1990s.

A Different China Today

Much has changed in China over the past 30 years. President Xi Jinping said recently during the 100 year celebration of the Chinese Communist Party that they "will never allow anyone to bully, oppress or subjugate China". The irony is that China is perceived to be bullying others as China’s communist regime continues to grow in power and cunning. A new Pew poll from June 30, 2021 found that a majority of people surveyed in 15 out of 17 nations around the world view China negatively. The primary reasons being: ground zero for COVID-19, aggression against self-ruled Taiwan and in the South China Sea, not to mention dwindling freedoms in Hong Kong and human rights violations in Tibet and Xinjiang province.

China also actively captures and returns defectors back to North Korea. The North Korean refugees in our network who live in China constantly live under this very real threat. We have witnessed the Church in China under attack and most missionaries we know have left. If another mass migration from North Korea takes place, we fear for the safety of the refugees as surveillance and monitoring continues to increase. China’s leaders conveniently make little mention of its speckled history. We hope the people of China remember the devastation of their own famine if North Korean refugees start to cross over the Tumen and Yalu river again.

North Korea’s Culture War

North Korea’s “fashion police” and sentencing children

• North Korea has literally enacted “fashion police” through youth organizations that report on clothing such as skinny jeans, lip or nose piercings, or branded western clothing.

• Police are now authorized to detain anyone foreign clothing or hairstyles.

• Secret police conduct raids searching for any DVDs or USBs smuggled from China or South Korea.

• Three boys and four girls in North Korea were recently sentenced to five years at North Korea’s re-education camps for crimes worthy of a “life sentence of re-education through labor” or “execution.”

• The children were found guilty of watching and sharing South Korean media - film and television - with their classmates.

• In the past three years North Korean police have increased their surveillance and raids on North Koreans suspected of being influenced by South Korean culture.

Read More:

https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2021/may/26/north-korea-bans-skinny-jeans

https://www.dw.com/en/north-korea-crack-down-on-foreign-influence/a-57813764 

K-Pop is a “vicious cancer” on the North Korean youth

• Kim Jong Un recently denounced Korean pop music culture, as well as its “attire, hairstyles, speeches, behaviors” to be a corruption in the North Korean youth and a “vicious cancer”.

• Kim Jong Un has dedicated several speeches in the past month about the “anti-socialist and nonnsocialist’ influence of South Korean dramas and K-pop.

• While state propaganda in North Korea states that South Korea is starving and poor, South Korean media portrays the opposite, and smuggled media threatens the North Korean government’s ability to be the single source of information for its citizens.

• Jiro Ishimaru, chief editor of Asia Press International, noted that Kim Jong Un sees South Korean media as a “cultural invasion” that may cause the North Korean people to “start considering the South an alternative Korea to replace the North.”

Read More:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/11/world/asia/kim-jong-un-k-pop.html

Inside North Korea

Wild fluctuations in food prices while North Korea’s preaches self-reliance

• “I don’t understand why food prices and exchange rates are constantly changing,” remarked a North Korean resident of Pyongyang, as the prices of food fluctuated dramatically in the span of a few days.

• According to some sources, food prices were suddenly more expensive in evenings than in mornings for unknown reasons.

• Citizens report fears and concerns about food prices increasing dramatically as their hopes for North Korea resuming trade on the border with China are dwindling.

• One Pyongyang resident, seeing the price of rice grow by 50% in the span of a month, stated: “I have lived in Pyongyang for more than 20 years, but I’ve never seen such high food prices.”

• In response to the growing concerns, North Korea has begun to enforce ideological education sessions for its citizens, focusing on the North Korean concepts of “juche” - self-reliance in North Korea’s economic and cultural isolation from the world.

• The government has released studies emphasizing independence from imports and stabilization through self-sufficiency.

• Sources indicate that not all North Koreans are quick to accept what seems like an “unrealistic” expectation upon them from the government. “Some residents shouted that they are too busy making ends meet or tending to their vegetable gardens and cannot understand why the authorities are trying to tie their feet by making them come learn about ideology three times a week,” said a North Korean citizen.

Read more:

https://www.rfa.org/english/news/korea/self-reliance-06112021180051.html

https://www.rfa.org/english/news/korea/food-06142021163437.html

North Korea has appointed a new and secret “second-in-command”

• According to excerpts of a North Korean government document, North Korea has recently created the position of a second-in-command to leader Kim Jong Un.

• It is unclear who now occupies the position. Experts believe that there are several candidates.

  • Jo Yong Won is one of Kim Jong Un’s most tenured aides and serves in the Worker’s Party’s central committee.

  • Kim Tok Hun is one of the highest ranking officials in the North Korean government.

• Kim Yo Jong, sister to Kim Jong Un, despite her growing influence and publicity, is not likely to have taken the position, as she is not a member of the North Korean Politburo Standing Committee, the highest echelon of North Korea’s leaders.

• Director of North Korean Studies at the Sejong Institute, Cheong Seong-chang, stated that Kim Jong Un’s delegation of power to ease his growing centralization of power may indicate that the North Korean leader is confident in his “grip on power”.

Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/02/asia/north-korea-new-position-intl-hnk/index.html

Is North Korea Panicked About Another Famine?

Food Insecurity Definition

The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) defines “food insecurity” as “a household-level economic and social condition of limited or uncertain access to adequate food.”

According to the USDA’s 2020-2030 International Food Security Assessment, “an estimated 59.2 percent of North Korea’s population is food-insecure in 2020, rising slightly to 59.8 percent when the effects of the COVID-19 macro shock are taken into account.” That is approximately 15.3 million people or three in five North Koreans.

Worst Decline in Recent History

We shared our concerns in January about North Korea potentially entering into yet another famine.

The Financial Times reported in February that North Korea was facing the worst economic decline since the infamous North Korean famine of the 90’s. “Following a triple hit from the strict border closures, economic sanctions and devastating flooding last year, the economy is suffering its worst decline since famine killed millions of people in the mid-1990s”

In March, Geneva-based Assessment Capacities Project (ACAPS) rated the severity of North Korea’s Humanitarian Conditions 4.5 out of 5, which is a “measure of conditions and status of the people affected, including info about the distribution of severity”. “The ACAPS report estimated “chronic food insecurity and limited access to basic services, such as healthcare and clean water, have left more than 10 million people in need of humanitarian assistance.”

Admitted Failings of Kim Jong Un

Kim Jong Un addressed party members in a political conference this past April and stated that the nation was facing its “worst-ever situation.” The North Korean dictator was likely making reference to the catastrophic failure of his five-year plan introduced in May 2016 that promised to bring North Korea to economic independence.

Experts are referring to North Korea’s current economic crisis in the pandemic as “the Great Leap Backwards” as the nation is struggling to respond to fears of economic collapse, complete loss of food security, and inability to vaccinate its 25 million citizens.

Urgent Party Central Committee Meeting

North Korea’s state-run news outlet Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) recently announced the call for another, larger political meeting called a plenum in early June. Kim Jong Un reportedly stressed the necessity to call a plenary meeting to “solve pending problems urgent for the economic work and people’s living.” All these items could point to a country in distress and panic.

Tighter Control with Closed Borders

North Korea was quick to respond to COVID-19 by completely sealing its borders to all foreigners, including trade, tourism and international relations. According to Daminov Ildar of The Diplomat, this also meant “no defections, no migration, no dangerous external information coming from abroad.” This enabled the North Korean government to enforce a greater measure of censorship as “every single product that entered North Korea in 2020 was thoroughly checked and paranoidally disinfected, while most goods were not even allowed to come in.”

This also shrank the number of North Korean defectors entering into South Korea, which dropped nearly 80% year-over year from 1,047 (2019) to 229 (2020). This is easily the fewest North Korean defectors since The Ministry of Unification began publishing this metric in 1998.

Another Famine?

The world does not have an accurate count of how many North Koreans died between 1994 and 1998 during the great North Korean famine. Higher estimates speculate that two to three million North Koreans perished during this period. The famine also exposed cracks in North Korean ideologies and its system of misinformation. Disenfranchised with the government and out of the need to survive, an informal free market system emerged and continues to be used as farmers markets and black markets throughout North Korea.

Survivors of the North Korean famine may be able to help their fellow North Koreans endure another season of scarcity with past learnings. But with heightened government security brought on by COVID-19 resulting in even less access to the outside world, Kim Jong Un and his regime may also be opportunistically purging liberties that have seeped in since the last famine. Another famine could be an excuse for the government to further constrict North Korean people and inflict more suffering.

What’s Behind China’s Three-Child Policy

China is the world’s most populous country with 1.4 billion people. The country industrialized at a rapid pace with ambitions to be the world’s economic superpower. But their breakneck economic growth is showing signs of weakness. One of their most glaring weaknesses is their rapid population decline. In order for their economy to continue to grow, they must secure a base of workers.

This is why they have changed their One-Child Policy to the Three-Child Policy over the past five years. 

The following are some common questions people have about these policies:

1) Why does China enforce a policy on how many children families can have?

In the 1960s and 1970s global fears were fixated on an exploding population and the inability to produce enough food and resources to support this growing population. This was driven by one concept that was described in the wildly popular book “The Population Bomb,” by Paul Ehrlich. The book purported massive catastrophe because human population would outgrow the earth’s ability to support human life.

It was out of these fears that India, the world’s second most populous country, began its horrific mass-sterilization efforts where women were lined up to be sterilized by the country’s doctors, some against their will. This practice was reversed only in 2020. 

It was in this hysteria that China instituted The One-Child Policy law in 1979, with an intent to curb the growth of its population, which the government feared was getting too large for the government to feed and control.

2) What is China’s Three Child Policy?

In May 2021, China increased the legal number of children families were permitted to have from two to three. The change comes just five years after the Chinese government put a stop to its decades-long One-Child Policy. The Three-Child Policy is an attempt by the Chinese government to mitigate population decline. But data indicates that this policy alone is too little too late.

A 2017 study conducted by the All-China Women’s Federation reveals that 20.5 percent of Chinese couples with one child were willing to have another. And between 2016 and 2017 China’s birth rate fell by a staggering 630,000, according to China’s National Bureau of Statistics.

For China’s economy to continue growing, they need to continue to make things. In order to make things, they need factories and companies. In order to have factories, they need people to work in them. Though China’s workforce is a deep resource, they will one day reach their limit and when they do, they fear their economy will cease to grow.

3) What are the consequences of the One Child Policy?

While implementing this policy, China caused a tremendous amount of real-world suffering, like forced abortions and bride trafficking, which we covered previously when China’s One Child Policy was relaxed to a Two Child Policy.

As we pointed out in 2015, this policy has created the conditions by which the trafficking of North Korean refugees has flourished in China. Since there is a preference for boys in Chinese families, the country has skewed to predominantly male. The country estimates that there are about 34 million more males than females in the country. And because of this, China needs to import women.

Human Rights Watch stated in 2019 that China “has a bride trafficking problem.” The lasting impact of China’s population controlling policies is why 80 percent of North Korean refugees in China have been trafficked and bought by Chinese men.

4) What impact can be expected with China’s Three Child Policy?

Similar to 2016’s policy change, this is a wake up call to not only China but to the world. We hope this raises much needed awareness to China’s human trafficking problem. China is deemed a “Tier 3” country in the US State Department’s 2020 Trafficking In Persons (TIP) report, which, simply put, means the country does not make much effort to prevent or prosecute trafficking. The same report states candidly that “Many North Korean refugees and asylum-seekers living illegally in [China] are particularly vulnerable to trafficking. Traffickers lure, drug, detain, or kidnap some North Korean women upon their arrival in [China] and compel them into commercial sex in brothels and bars, through internet sex sites, or in relation to forced marriage.”

“Many North Korean refugees and asylum-seekers living illegally in [China] are particularly vulnerable to trafficking.”

Children’s Day in North Korea

The contrast of life between North and South Korea could not be greater. Even childhood is a profoundly different experience in the two countries. South Korea recently celebrated Children’s Day on May 5 as a national holiday of no school, tasty treats and a showering of gifts. Today is North Korea’s Children’s day, a holiday in which childhood is celebrated in vastly different ways.

Songbun

A baby born in North Korea is given a social status at birth, which determines much of his or her future. Known as songbun, based on the status of his or her father, an infant is officially classified as  “special”, “nucleus”, “basic”, “complex” or “hostile”. Songbun translates to “ingredient” and dictates what area this family will be allowed to live, which university this child will be able to eventually enter, where she might work and whether she will have the privilege to join the Korean Workers party. According to Fyodor Tertitskiy of The Guardian, “becoming a party member is the only way to aspire to a high social position” in North Korea.

Education

Kindergarten begins at the age of five in North Korea. Secondary schooling, which is called “middle-high”, continues from the ages of ten to sixteen. Military service is required for both North Korean men and women at the age of seventeen where women serve until they turn twenty-three and men serve for ten years.

All children between the ages of seven and thirteen are required to join the Korean Children’s Union. It is one of the many unions North Koreans will join in their lifetime of indoctrination and forced loyalty to the Kim dynasty. Each child reads an oath of allegiance during an admission ceremony which reads something like this:

“I join the ranks of the Korean Children’s Union, founded by the Great Leader Generalissimo Kim Il-sung and shined upon by the Great Guide Commander Kim Jong-il, do hereby swear to always and everywhere think and act according to the teaching of the Generalissimo Kim Il-sung and Commander Kim Jong-il and to become a good reservist of the brilliant cause of constriction of Communism, which is carried along from generation to generation by the great revolutionary deed of Juche.”

Some find it disturbing to see the purity and joy of childhood so grossly corrupted in North Korean children.

North Korean Children’s Holidays

North Korea observes two official holidays in June for children: June 1 as Children’s Day and June 6 as Children's Union Day. Children’s Day in North Korea mostly targets preschoolers and is a day of festivities and games. A few days later, June 6 celebrates the establishment of the Young Pioneer Corps in 1946. On this day, newly initiated Union members are presented with a red necktie from their teachers before repeating the above oath of loyalty in front of portraits of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il.

In 2012, on the 66th anniversary of Children’s Union Day, Kim Jong Un said before a gathering of 20,000 members of the Children’s Union that they were the future masters of "a most powerful country where every home will be full of laughter and everybody lives in harmony."

Children’s Day in South Korea

Children and families in South Korea celebrate Children’s Day (어린이날) on May 5, a national holiday that appreciates and celebrates children. It has been celebrated since 1923 and was officially designated as a public holiday in 1975. Children’s day is often spent doing fun activities as a family and also involves eating out and giving gifts to children and can feel like a second birthday celebration for kids.

Power to save

The sad reality of the stark difference experienced between children of North and South Koreans feels all the more tragic on a day like today. Though we may feel powerless even as we wish for change, we’re thankful for the opportunity to help North Korean refugees and their children in China and South Korea. They give me hope and serve as a reminder that God is always at work, even when the truth of their realities appear bleak.

Breaking Down North Korea: May 2021 Headlines

10,000 North Korean students reportedly confess to consuming South Korean media

• Over 10,000 North Korean students surrendered themselves to authorities for consuming K-pop and Korean dramas in late April of 2021 with hopes for reduced sentences.

• North Korean citizens must perform a practice called “saenghwal cheonghwa” or “self-criticism” in which they confess their shortcomings in loyalty to the state and publicly report on those who do not conform to state laws to local authorities. The practice is used to enforce the nation’s control over its citizens through self-monitoring.

• Those who break the law may face up to 15 years in labor camps and fines for parents of children violating bans.

• Those caught importing banned materials from South Korea receive life-sentences for imprisonment. Those importing materials from the US or Japan may face execution charges.

Learn More:

https://www.rfa.org/english/news/korea/youth-05102021190202.html

https://www.todayonline.com/8days/sceneandheard/entertainment/10000-north-korean-students-reportedly-gave-themselves-authorities

Alarming and candid warnings of a possible famine from Kim Jong Un

• Kim Jong Un recently stated that North Korea must “wage another more difficult ‘Arduous March’” and that "many obstacles and difficulties are ahead.”

• The “Arduous March” refers to the horrific North Korean famine from 1994 through 1998 in which an estimated 200,000 to 2 million people perished due to starvation.

• Reports from experts point to North Korea’s spiraling economy in the COVID pandemic and the possibility that Kim’s statement may be entirely true.

• North Korea’s trade relations with its only lifeline, China, dropped 80% in 2020, according to Chinese trade data.

• The USDA currently projects that approximately a million more North Koreans have become food insecure during the course of the 2020 pandemic.

Learn More:

https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/04/12/north-koreas-leader-warns-famine#

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-04-26/north-korea-s-economy-seen-barely-growing-as-pandemic-pain-lasts

https://www.dw.com/en/coronavirus-how-the-pandemic-is-hitting-north-korea-hard/a-57168554

https://thediplomat.com/2021/04/global-trade-is-recovering-from-the-pandemic-north-koreas-economy-isnt/

https://www.npr.org/2021/04/09/985743058/north-koreas-kim-alludes-to-1990s-famine-warns-of-difficulties-ahead-of-us

South Korean President Moon’s last chance to achieve a lasting peace with North Korea

• "I will consider the remaining one year of my term to be the last opportunity to move from an incomplete peace toward one that is irreversible," Moon said.

• Moon has made engaging with North Korea a signature project of his presidency

• The South Korean president is expected to push the US to seek engagement with North Korea, though Biden has shown little interest in making North Korea a top priority.

Learn More:

https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/skoreas-moon-says-looking-nkorea-response-peace-talks-2021-05-10/

Still Virus free

• North Korea has told the World Health Organization that it has tested 25,986 people for the coronavirus through April but still has yet to find a single infection.

• Experts have expressed skepticism about North Korea's claim given its poor health infrastructure and a porous border it shares with China.

Learn More:

https://www.thenationalherald.com/coronavirus/arthro/north_korea_again_claims_zero_coronavirus_infections-2410816/

Enduring Love - Honoring North Korean Moms

As we honor and celebrate moms on Mother’s Day, we pause to recognize a few moms we have encountered in our years of helping North Korean refugees. While their stories don’t always have happy endings, we pray for the day when restoration and healing can take place for these moms and their children.

Crossing Borders has shared stories of children who have been separated from their mothers, oftentimes violently. Children who lose their mothers are profoundly affected. Their whole lives are upended and even their development is slowed by this traumatic event. Add on top of this the devastating realization that their mothers might be suffering in a North Korean prison camp.

On this Mothers Day, we remember the enduring love of these moms who will do whatever it takes. We also remember their children whose lives have been profoundly changed by these separations and yet have shown so much promise. Despite the inherent challenges this situation might bring, some North Korean children in China have found the will and strength to carry on while waiting to see their moms again one day.

YA and Kyung Tae

Our first story is about Kyung Tae, whose mother repeatedly attempts to reunite with him after being captured in China and repatriated to North Korea.

Read Part 1 - Escape from North Korea, marriage and a police raid

Click to read part 1 of Kyung Tae’s story

Read Part 2 - Betrayal in North Korea and hope for Kyung Tae’s future

We pray that YA and her son Kyung Tae will have a chance to be reunited again.

Pyunwa and her mom

Our second story comes from 2011. It is disheartening to see an entire decade later how little things in North Korea have changed.

We thank God for his hand of healing in both Kyung Tae and Pyunwa’s life. While we hold out hope that their mothers will escape to China again, we continue to support these children through their post secondary education and most importantly, we share the hope of the gospel with them. Find out more about how we support North Korean Orphans.

Kristine and her sons

Finally, we want to share an update about one mother who is currently with us at Elim House. “Kristine”, as we call her, has two teenage boys, 12 and 17. She came to us with her boys several months ago to escape her brutally abusive South Korean husband. They recently had a run in with him that left her and her oldest son severely beaten. The future of her situation is still uncertain as Kristine and her sons try to find legal protection from her husband. But time at Elim House has enabled Kristine and her sons, who have suffered the entirety of their young lives, to start receiving professional counseling.

Kristine shared recently that for the first time in their lives, she had a chance to tell her oldest son that she was sorry for all that she had done and for the pain that he had to endure until now.  Her son began crying and also apologized to his mom. They said they loved each other for the first time in their lives and hugged.

Looking ahead with hope

There are many complexities of Kristine’s situation that will take time to untangle and to finally allow her and her sons to live a life free from fear and violence. The road may be long but we will continue to support and love her. As we honor moms this month, we recognize the hardships moms like Kristine endure. We also celebrate the victories that God provisions, however small or big they may seem.

Crossing Borders has very little control over the horrific occurrences in these people’s lives. We could not stop the Chinese police from repatriating Pyunhwa and Kyung Tae’s mothers. But what we can focus on is the emotional and spiritual healing of the refugees and orphans who have to live with the terrible aftermath of these events.

This is why Crossing Borders offers North Korean refugees and their children opportunities to thrive by providing physical care, emotional healing and spiritual guidance in a safe community.

Though the chaos of this world is often outside of our control, we work to help shape the path forward for these people. And though their past is often riddled with tragedy, we see their future as full of hope.

Four Prayers for the 2021 National Day of Prayer

What is the National Day of Prayer?

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the President shall set aside and proclaim a suitable day each year, other than a Sunday, as a National Day of Prayer, on which the people of the United States may turn to God in prayer and meditation at churches, in groups, and as individuals.

Approved April 17, 1952.

President Truman officially designated a National Day of Prayer by signing the above resolution into law in 1952. In 1988, President Reagan permanently set the day as the first Thursday of every May. Since it was enacted, every sitting President has called a national day for the American people to pray each year.

Fun fact -- according to GotQuestions.org, “In 1952, Conrad Hilton (founder of Hilton Hotels) and Senator Frank Carlson of Kansas, encouraged by Billy Graham, initiated a bill calling for the President to designate one day a year as a National Day of Prayer.”

As stated in the resolution, it is a day for Americans to “turn to God in prayer and meditation” collectively and individually.

Here are four prayers we’d like to share this year:

A heart of humility

If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land. –2 Chronicles 7:14 ESV

Our world has endured a long and onerous season, which still has its grip on us. The past fourteen months have attacked us physically through the COVID-19 virus and tested our mental fortitude as we were forced to accept new normals in every facet of life. Americans specifically also lived through the anxieties a changing of the guard in the White House brings and were confronted by growing racial tensions that appeared to pull our nation apart.

In the preceding verse in 2 Chronicles 7, when a nation is struck with strife and suffering, before praying or turning from sin, God calls for his people to first humble themselves. Rick Warren explains plainly in The Purpose Driven Life that “Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it’s thinking of yourself less.“ In other words, we are to think more about our heavenly Father who is our creator, master and redeemer. And 1 Chronicles 29:16 tells us that a humble person recognizes that all he has is a gift from God. We are utterly helpless and unable to even breathe one more breath or think one more thought without God’s sovereign provision.

We pray for a heart that declares God is in control and we are not. A heart that mourns our sinful state and yearns for God’s holiness. A heart that considers others more important than ourselves. A heart that causes us to “die to ourselves”, including our fears, frustrations, preferences and longings. May we leave all of that at the feet of Jesus and with meekness and reverence, approach our Father.

A prayer of thanksgiving

You who have made me see many troubles and calamities
    will revive me again;
from the depths of the earth
    you will bring me up again.
–Psalm 71:20 ESV

Damage caused by the pandemic was indiscriminate. Our global economy shrank by an estimated $4 billion dollars that will take years to recover. And over three million souls perished around the world. Yet, in the midst of many troubles, King David’s words in Psalms attest to God’s faithfulness and bring encouragement to our weary souls.

While words of thanksgiving may be far from our lips, as we humbly approach God, we are reminded that His goodness is unchanging. His power and reign over every single event in the world did not falter in the past year. And the promise of eternity in his Glory for those who love and follow Jesus is steadfast.  As we look with hope on the future, we remember the words of Jesus at the end of Matthew: “And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Praying for the marginalized

Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world. –James 1:27

God’s heart is for the marginalized and he repeatedly names the widow, the orphan, the sojourner and the poor throughout scripture. The devastation of the past 14 months have widowed many spouses, orphaned children, have alienated people around the world and impoverished countless families. James calls the church to action by being “doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.” (James 1:22)

May we put on God’s heart for those most severely impacted by this season and become doers of the word. May we intercede for those who are hurting and for those who have not tasted the goodness of God. I pray that we would be compelled to give of our time, money, resources and of ourselves to those who need it most, for their good and for God’s glory.

Praying for North Koreans

Finally, it behooves us to encourage you to pray for the people that we love and care for so much: North Koreans. This website is filled with information that can guide you as you pray for the North Korean people. Here are a few ways we can pray:

1. Pray for the persecuted church in North Korea. 

2. Pray for material relief for North Koreans who might be experiencing another famine-like situation. 

3. Pray for North Korean refugees in China, many of whom have been sold into sexual slavery. 

4. Pray for North Korean refugees in South Korea, who, above liberties and material blessings, may ultimately find the lasting hope, peace and abundant life found in the gospel.

How is God leading you to pray for our nation and the world this National Day of Prayer?

Breaking Down North Korea: April 2021 Headlines

No Tokyo: North Korea will not be attending the 2021 Olympics.

• North Korea declared through its Olympic committee that “The committee decided not to join the 32nd Olympic Games to protect athletes from the global health crisis caused by the coronavirus.”

• The decision may be motivated by two factors:

  • North Korea may truly be paranoid about the COVID-19 pandemic, further revealing that nation’s inability to respond to the virus within the country, while still claiming zero infections.

  • North Korea’s response may have been influenced by Japan’s recent decision to extend sanctions on North Korea for two more years.

Learn More:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/olympics-north-korea-japan-covid/2021/04/06/cafec75a-968b-11eb-8f0a-3384cf4fb399_story.html 

https://www.insider.com/north-korea-quits-tokyo-olympics-after-japan-extends-sanctions-2021-4

Kim Jong Un acknowledges failures: North Korean is in an economic crisis.

• Kim Jong Un addressed party members in a political conference this month and stated that the nation was facing its “worst-ever situation.”

• Kim is likely referring to the catastrophic failure of his five-year plan introduced in May 2016 that promised to bring North Korea to economic independence.

• Experts are referring to North Korea’s current economic crisis in the pandemic as “the Great Leap Backwards” as the nation is struggling to respond to fears of economic collapse, complete loss of food security, and inability to vaccinate its 25 million citizens.

• “Following a triple hit from the strict border closures, economic sanctions and devastating flooding last year, the economy is suffering its worst decline since famine killed millions of people in the mid-1990s” - The Financial Times

• Kim Jong Un has stated the current crisis is the result of the party’s smallest units of administration and management, and has accused this network of party authorities of “shortcomings.”

Learn More:

https://www.crossingbordersnk.org/blog/could-north-korea-be-headed-towards-another-famine/2021/1/12 

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/kim-jong-un-north-korea-worst-ever-situation/

https://www.ft.com/content/49dd499f-e7a1-4dd1-9803-9702fbc52f11

Missiles are back in the air: North Korea begins 2021 weapon tests.

• In late March, North Korea launched its first set of ballistic missiles in 2021, testing rockets with guiding technology.

• North Korean Official Ri Pyong Chol stated that the weapon’s development was “of great significance in bolstering up the military power of the country and deterring all sorts of military threats existing on the Korean Peninsula.”

• President Biden stated in response to the missile tests: “... there will be responses if they choose to escalate. We will respond accordingly. But I’m also prepared for some form of diplomacy, but it has to be conditioned upon the end result of denuclearization.”

• It is possible that the weapons test was to further emphasize the warning issued by Kim Yo Jong, sister to Kim Jong Un, regarding planned joint military exercises with South Korea.

Learn More:

https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-south-korea-north-korea-united-nations-pyongyang-4ff07ea48279a6d8d739415d2bab9f06

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/north-korea-fired-least-one-missile-over-weekend-u-s-n1261860

https://www.crossingbordersnk.org/blog/north-koreas-missile-tests/2021/2/16

Brewing nuclear tension: North Korean nuclear labs show further activity

• The latest satellite imagery of North Korean nuclear sites show steam and smoke being emitted from the Yongbyon Radiochemistry Laboratory in North Korea, a plant that is used to extract plutonium for nuclear bombs.

• In consideration of the reactivated nuclear plant and the missiles tested in March, the efforts may be in an effort to force President Biden to the table for diplomatic discussions. 

• “It is a series of escalations. I think it's pretty calculated. They're ratcheting up pressure as they had done to President Trump and to President Obama.” - Victor Cha, Korea chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies

Learn More:

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/satellite-image-shows-renewed-activity-north-korean-nuclear-lab-n1262530

China and the Balancing Act

One of China’s greatest cultural wonders is its history in acrobatics, as home to some of the most talented and athletic performers in the world. But perhaps no performer in China is nearly as capable, powerful, or impressive as the Chinese Communist Party.

Biden Administration’s Tightrope to North Korea

• “Beijing has an interest, a clear self-interest, in helping to pursue the denuclearization of [North Korea] because it is a source of instability.” -  Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken in Seoul, South Korea in March 2021

China’s leading diplomats Yang Jiechi and Wang Yi met with Secretary Blinken and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan in Anchorage, Alaska in their first high-level diplomatic meeting.

The resulting combative and contentious meeting between the two parties resulted in a series of accusations that the Chinese officials described as “exaggerated diplomatic presentations” and the American representatives claimed were “public theatrics and dramatics over substance.”

Nevertheless, with growing tensions over missile tests and nuclear armament on the Korean Peninsula, United States diplomats such as Secretary Blinken have stated explicitly that while China remains America’s “biggest geopolitical test of the 21st century,” Beijing simultaneously “has a critical role to play” in the efforts to reach out to Pyongyang.

Frank Aum, a North Korea expert at the U.S. Institute of Peace states, “It’s reasonable to try and enlist China’s support, given its political and economic relationship with North Korea and its overall heft in the region.”

As concerns regarding North Korea’s provocations grow, the Biden administration faces the challenge of criticizing China’s ongoing expansionist and autocratic policies while persuading the same country to aid its efforts in stabilizing a nuclearizing nation.

North Korea’s Wavering Lifeline

• “All parties should work together to sustain peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula… China will continue to play a constructive role in this process.” - Spokesman for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Zhao Lijian

In January of 2020, China closed its border to North Korea, effectively crippling a nation on life support, almost entirely dependent on the flow of trade and goods supplied by Beijing. Without China’s support, North Korea entered a state of economic freefall.

Over a year later, recent news has confirmed that the Chinese border city of Dandong has prepared inspections, quarantine facilities, and customs offices to resume trade with North Korean trains that will cross the border. Further information has revealed that the trains that will be shuttled into the city will only include freight, with no passenger cars. Exports to North Korea will be building materials, essential goods, food, and infant formula.

Questions may arise as to why China continues to bolster an isolationist country that acts as a source of insecurity and tension in the region. Analysts who assess this same question propose that China’s focus is a careful balance. To maintain the status quo, China must guarantee two elements:

1. North Korea cannot become so unstable that it risks American expansion on the Korean Peninsula or uncontrolled destabilization.

2. North Korea cannot grow so provocative and emboldened that the United States is compelled to increase its military presence in East Asia.

While Beijing cannot simply cripple North Korea into a collapsing state or source of chaos. Simultaneously, China cannot simply deny assistance to the United States in talks to denuclearize North Korea, thereby instigating nondiplomatic intervention.

Learn More:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/18/world/asia/biden-north-korea-china.html

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/03/18/china-us-alaska-meeting-undiplomatic-477118 

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/north-korea-warns-us-kim-jong-un-sister-threat-japan-china-security-blinken-lloyd-austin/

https://www.rfa.org/english/news/korea/trade-03312021200341.html

https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2021/04/02/nkorea-North-Korea-China-Dandong-trade/4181617382653/

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/china/2021-04-02/chinas-dangerous-double-game-north-korea

COVID-19 Relief Fund - One Year Update

Uneven Recovery

China was quick to lock down its country and curb social activities at the onset of the pandemic in early 2020. And perhaps as a result of its quick response, it is the only major economy in the world to have positive economic growth for 2020, at 2.3%.

What lies beneath the surface of a year of surprising growth, however, is the unbalanced “burden of the pandemic-induced downturn that has fallen on rural Chinese”. This includes 290 urban million migrant workers with rural hukou (household registrations) status who work in cities throughout China and send money back home. COVID locked down key sectors of the economy where many internal Chinese migrant workers earn a living, namely in services and retail. According to one estimate, Chinese migrant workers lost about $100 billion in wages that they will not likely recover. Stanford University researchers and authors Scott Rozelle and Natalie Hell stated in Invisible China: How the Urban-Rural Divide Threatens China’s Rise that “exacerbated by the pandemic, China’s rural crisis remains largely invisible to outside observers, and even to many Chinese.

A Familiar Response

China’s opaque government practices and its struggling rural hukou isn’t new to us or the refugees under our care. North Korean refugees in our network live in rural regions and are often married to rural hukou farmers. Refugees don’t even have hukou status as China offers no help or protection to North Koreans. And urban migration will continue to reduce available government services, like healthcare and public education, and opportunities away from rural areas.

A year ago, we asked for support to help provide food and relief to the refugee women and their families during the pandemic and were met with an overwhelming response. To date, we have raised over $23,000 for COVID relief and have already sent 25% of it to provide food and medical aid.

Meeting needs

A refugee woman we call “Amelia” is a single mom to her three children and had worked illegally in a small restaurant to provide for her family. The restaurant had closed due to COVID and was preparing to reopen when Amelia took a bad fall in the kitchen, broke her leg and burned her arm. Crossing Borders’ COVID relief fund provided rice, vegetables, snacks for their children, and medical care for Amelia. Amelia shared that she was “amazed how God helps and provides in time of need.”

One refugee woman’s husband was in the hospital due to COVID with breathing issues. Another refugee’s husband has tuberculosis and his condition suddenly worsened though they were unsure if it was related to COVID. These are just two examples of where our refugee women struggled through COVID related hardships and needed financial assistance to get medical care for their husbands. Thanks to your generous support we were able to send help to families like these in dire need.

At the rate of the growing disparity between the urban and rural hukou in China, circumstances for the refugees and families impacted by COVID will continue to remain challenging. We will continue to love and support and minister to them by delivering food, medical care and the gospel. Thank you for your partnership to make this work possible.

The Gospel is Paramount

How Can I Help?

Crossing Borders has been operating for over 18 years. I helped to start it when I was in my mid 20s, when we were a different organization and when I was a different person. If there is one thing I’ve learned throughout the years it’s this: perhaps the most complicated question in the world is “how can I help?” Inevitably definitions of what it means to help and be helped can be completely different. Expectations of how this help will be delivered can be lost in translation.

To add to the complexities of helping, China, where we have helped hundreds of North Koreans over the years, continues to evolve. When Mike Kim first arrived there in 2001 on a missions trip, he witnessed an underground church that had to adapt to a very real threat of persecution from the Chinese government. We have seen this situation come full circle in our 18 years. At times it seemed like the communist party was looking to partner with the church in China. The constant ebb and flow has landed us to where we are today. In present day China, the threat against the church  looks more like 2001 than any of the past 18 years.

This one key variable has made us switch our tactics of delivering help along with our expectations. We have tried many things and have learned from our mistakes. But one thing that has become clear to us is that the best way we can help any North Korean refugee is to share the gospel with them. There are other ways to provide help and meet their needs but in the order of importance, the gospel is paramount.

This is not a blind reading of the Bible that I’m regurgitating or a tribal desire to see my religion win out over others. I truly believe that faith in Jesus Christ is the most practical way that we can help someone. Whether they do or don’t accept it, we still try to provide short-term and long-term aid. But we’ll definitely try to at least explain the gospel clearly to each refugee we encounter. Here are reasons why we think the gospel is integral:

Lasting Hope

North Koreans flee their country in search of material help. In China, many hope for a better circumstance in South Korea. Tragically, some North Koreans, like the first Elim House resident Cathy, are so disillusioned by the lack of opportunities in South Korea, become suicidal.

According to survey data obtained by the South Korean government in 2019, 12.4 percent of North Koreans said they experienced “suicidal impulses”  This rate is greater than double that of South Koreans who reported the same at 5.1 percent. Reported stress in daily living for North Korean refugees does not significantly change with their length of stay in South Korea. In fact, research from the Springer Report shows that stress and suicidal impulses increase with length of stay.

The gospel offers lasting hope because gospel-centered hope no longer rests on circumstances, which can shift like the wind. Rather, once confronted by the gospel people are able to place their hope on the love of God, which is unchanging. And we see the proof of God’s unwavering love as we look to Jesus’ death on the cross.

Peace

The gospel also offers peace. North Korean refugees deal with an immense amount of trauma. They have experienced traumatic events in North Korea through the famine. According to a 2017 meta study funded by the National Research Foundation of Korea, between 49 and 81 percent of North Korean Refugees witnessed at least one type of life-threatening event and about 26 percent of all North Korean refugees have been repatriated back to North Korea.

The study states that between 33 and 51 percent of North Korean refugees were classified as having depressive symptoms. Such information is aligned with the diagnosis of medical professionals Crossing Borders has brought to China who stated that numerous North Korean refugees within our network have ongoing symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (or PTSD).

How could anyone who has experienced such acute trauma have any peace?

Isaiah 53:4 says, “Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted.”

The gospel proves that God not only is concerned with our pain but that he actually took it upon himself. This does not mean that we aren’t concerned with psychological care. But it does mean that we believe the gospel has the power to heal.

Abundant Life

North Korean refugees in China live solitary lives. They suffer quietly as they hide from the authorities. But even as they hide in their homes, many suffer abuse there.

Most were tricked by traffickers and sold to the highest bidder as brides. They are trapped in forced marriages where they have no rights and can be abused with no recourse. They live as prisoners in a foreign land. Where can they run to?

We have witnessed time and time again the gospel give these women in seemingly hopeless situations hope and peace. When these women first believe in Christ as their savior, there is a joy that exudes from them that far outweighs their horrendous circumstances. We have also seen the gospel breathe new life into them. In Christ these women find acceptance, forgiveness and love.

John 10:10 says, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”

When Jesus tells us that he has already bought us with his precious blood. When he promises to never leave us or forsake us. When we look towards that day when he will wipe away every tear, what other response is there than pure joy?

We have witnessed the gospel change lives and give hope to the hopeless. We will continue to share it with whoever will hear it.