Image: Jin Hyuk
A new open door
For years, the Danish European Mission and Helping Hands Korea (HHK) have been struggling to care for the most vulnerable North Korean refugees in China. For several years after 2003, it has been possible to shelter groups of adult refugees for extended periods of time. However, with Beijing maintaining its post-Olympic crackdown on North Koreans within its borders and Pyongyang recently sending swarms of spies among refugees in an attempt to disrupt and neutralize the aid network helping defectors in China, such a shelter model has gradually proved harder to implement. It became imperative to reassess the situation, and our Heavenly Father led us to an even more pathetic segment of the refugee population. He rarely closes a door without opening a window somewhere else! 11-year-old Jin Hyuk's story illustrates what we discovered and how we have responded.
The mother was sent back to North Korea
Jin Hyuk, one of thousands of children of North Korean refugee mothers in hiding, was suddenly left alone on Chinese soil one day. Mom had been captured by Chinese police, identified as North Korean and then forcibly repatriated to North Korea. The local Chinese authorities did not care that the mother had a young son and had been performing domestic chores for years as the wife of a Chinese man to whom she had been sold for around 700 US dollars. The clear and sinister label of "illegal economic migrant" is applied to every single refugee in China, regardless of his/her marital status or domestic responsibilities.
Jin was left behind but got help
HHK learned of Jin Hyuk's plight from our evangelist partner and a compassionate North Korean refugee woman living nearby. Pointing to an abandoned hut with a partially collapsed roof near a cornfield (see picture), she explained that after his mother disappeared and his Chinese biological father had no concern for his well-being, Jin Hyuk had to fend for himself. He tried to protect himself from the weather under the remains of the thatched roof at night.
This is the abandoned hut that Jin was in before he received help from Danish European Mission donors
During the day, he foraged for food in the village garbage and eventually became ill with food poisoning as a result of these desperate conditions. On the recommendation of our partners, HHK opened a simple orphanage in the area for Jin Hyuk and four other stateless children of repatriated North Korean refugee women. We recently visited the home and were thrilled to meet Jin Hyuk himself (pictured). He and four other children with similar stories were regaining health and a sense of stability, and they had been introduced to a Savior who loves them like a shepherd. Danish European Mission and their donors are once again sharing in a dramatic intervention and the blessings that come from helping these children. Thank you so much!!!
