Twenty-four years ago, Kim Seongeun witnessed dozens of dead bodies floating down the Tumen River, which separates North Korea from China. Ever since, he has been committed to helping people escape Kim Jong-un’s totalitarian regime.
Pastor Kim, as he is known, organises these dangerous escapes from his base in Seoul, through a charity and church named Caleb Mission. They have rescued 1,012 people since it began in 2000, taking defectors on an ‘underground railroad’ through Southeast Asia to safety. The very first to be rescued was a woman named Park Esther, a lieutenant in the North Korean Army – who later became Kim’s wife.
‘We fell in love, so I wanted to save the love of my life,’ Kim shared in an interview with Channel 4. ‘I went and looked for every way to safely rescue her and I finally did. But she also had friends and family there, so I had to help them. That is how it started.’
Their daring and normally clandestine work has recently been pulled into the spotlight with the release of new documentary, Beyond Utopia. Following the escape of one North Korean family as Kim’s organisation shepherds them through Vietnam, Lao and into Thailand, it has been described as a ‘nail-biting account’ (The Guardian) that won the Audience award for US documentary at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.
A dangerous journey
The film exposes the complex nature of the task North Korean escapees face – they don’t simply have to overcome physical barriers (making perilous journeys and dodging ever-improving Chinese technology), but social and mental ones, too.
North Koreans are told by the authorities that they are living in a utopia and have little knowledge of the outside world. Woo, 54, the mother of the defecting family in the documentary, had no idea of the difficulties they would experience. ‘I did not know about the outside world,’ she said in an interview with The Sunday Times. ‘I thought if we just crossed the border of North Korea, we could get to South Korea right away.’ In reality, the family spent days wandering the mountains and hiding in a farmhouse surrounded by Chinese soldiers and citizens who would receive a bribe for turning them in. If found and sent back, they would face ‘horrific punishment’. It was the farmer sheltering them who finally pointed them to Pastor Kim.
But before agreeing to help, Kim had to speak to the board of Caleb Mission to approve funds for a rescue attempt. At the time, it cost around $3,000, but prices have recently sky-rocketed following crackdowns in both China and North Korea – a rescue attempt is now around $20,000.
And the cost isn’t only financial. Due to falls in previous escapes, Kim himself has suffered a severe neck injury, undergone surgery to remove his gall bladder and has a metal rod in his back. The North Korean regime has sent two people to assassinate him.
‘My mother and brother went to jail in China. My son passed away when he was seven in an accident while I was on a mission abroad. I could not protect him because I was away,’ he shared with The Guardian. ‘But it meant my wife and I resolved to do even more to help orphans. If I did not have faith, I am not sure I would carry on, but I do what is God’s will.’
Driven by the gospel
Indeed, the Christian faith is both what drives Kim’s work, and a key part of the work itself. A post on Caleb Mission’s Instagram page shared: ‘We do not stop after rescuing them, but spread the gospel of Jesus Christ and help them become self-reliant.’
It’s hard not to overstate the value of this, when considering how difficult it is to share the gospel within North Korea. According to charity Open Doors, North Korea is the world’s worst persecutor of Christians. The Database Centre for North Korean Human Rights concluded in the year 2000 that ‘no North Korean inside North Korea had ever seen a Bible with their own eyes.’* Giving an insight into how Christianity is received inside the country, Woo, from Beyond Utopia, said, ‘Growing up in North Korea, we were taught that pastors and missionary people were our enemies. That they were bad people.’
But there are reasons to hope – today, the Database Centre for North Korean Human Rights believes that ‘more than 8% of North Koreans have seen a Bible with their own eyes – around 1.65 million people’. And in just September this year, South Korea overturned their law banning leafleting in North Korea*. This is good news for organisations like Voice of Martyrs Korea, who use helium-balloon launches to send Bibles into North Korea.
For now, as these organisations continue to get the gospel into the country, we can be assured that Pastor Kim and Caleb Mission will continue to try to get people out. As he said in his interview with The Guardian, ‘Once you become aware that you can save innocent lives, it is hard to stop.’
* www.mnnonline.org/news/south-korea-over-turns-law-restricting-north-korea-outreach/
