May 19, 2001

Please briefly introduce yourself.

I first came to Korea in 1975. I have not lived that entire period in Korea, but I have seen enormous changes in this peninsula as I’ve been a resident here for a considerable time in each of the last four decades. I first came as a freelance missionary in the 70’s, but didn’t last long under the severe social restrictions of the Park military administration for speaking freely to students about serving their fellow man as a viable career option. I was blacklisted for 13 years, during which time I attempted to re-enter Korea a total of five times and was placed under house arrest each time at the border before being sent off once again.

During the almost 11 years that I have lived in Korea in the 70’s, 80’s, 90’s and now in the new century, I’ve held a wide variety of jobs, but my volunteer Christian activities have remained at the core of my purpose for remaining on the Korean peninsula.

How did you become involved with NK refugees?

As more and more reliable information began to emerge about the drought and famine conditions in North Korea, I’d launched a NGO project called ‘Ton-a-Month Club’ in the middle of 1996 and had concentrated on sending foodstuffs to North Korean villages as best I could under the very restrictive conditions of the government at that time. As that project reached into its third year, I had growing concerns about my lack of control over where our donations were ultimately ending up. Even though we even were able to make a personal delivery of wheat flour to the Hamkyoung-pukto region in mid 1999, I realized that when I left the noodle factory, the distribution of our aid would finally rest with government officials. Like many other NGO’s, I was not comfortable with that situation.

Around the same time, I began to meet North Koreans who’d managed to make it to South Korea and found their stories to be extremely interesting and heart-wrenching. I made it my business to seek out people in the human rights network who could help me assist similar refugees while they were still in 3rd countries.

After considerable thought, analysis, and more than one fact-finding trip of my own, I came to the conclusion that assisting refugees directly essentially solves the monitoring transparency problem described above, at least for a small NGO like mine. In 3rd countries I can have direct access to the refugees and their caretakers. I have the opportunity to test the sincerity and consistency of the aid-givers. When their trustworthiness is established, I can give aid and rest assured that it will be used prudently and wisely. An added benefit is that the “donor dollar,” so to speak, can go much farther in 3rd countries and can accomplish more.

What are the NK and the NK refugees’ greatest needs these days and how is your group helping?

From my personal observation on multiple trips to areas in which refugees are staying, their greatest need, beyond simple necessities from a day-to-day basis, is recognition by the international community of the utter lack of protection of their human rights. They strike me as exceptionally vulnerable to the whims of powers that are entirely beyond their control and that have shown absolutely zero interest in their welfare and that of their children. The level of dread and even terror they feel at being seized at any given moment and sent back to a very hostile and even life-threatening environment is a situation that causes me to lose a lot of sleep sometimes.

Our donations go to purchase the most basic necessities of the refugees: food, clothing, simple medical supplies, shelter, and emergency travel funds for them. We also continue to send food shipments into North Korea whenever we can find acceptable monitoring of our aid shipments.

What are some of the biggest blessings from/hindrances to your work?

The blessings have been legion. Whenever anyone begins to put into motion the simple dynamic of giving, a whole series of events begins to unfold. Jesus said that whatever is given up to help the poor and defenseless in the name of His love, would be returned 100-fold. In stock market terms, that’s a 10,000% return on investment. Not even Microsoft, CIsco Systems, or General Electric can begin to touch those numbers!

Having said that, I should add that that 10,000% return is certainly not all in financial terms. I’m definitely not a rich man and don’t even own a car. This remarkable promise of rewards is often in the form of thankful faces of refugees or NK villagers who are so appreciative that someone cares about them. These benefits can also be collected in other indirect terms like my wonderful and happy family, meaningful work and that increasingly elusive commodity in modern life - simple peace of heart and mind. Let me add that through this relief effort, I’ve come in contact with some absolutely wonderful, courageous and sacrificial people who I’m honored to call my friends.

As you might expect, the hindrances are also considerable. Going to meet the refugees is not something for the faint-hearted. There are obvious dangers. Security officials in 3rd countries hunt down the refugees as police in a Western country might pursue fugitive animals from a zoo. It is well-documented that death squads are sent from the refugees’ home country to hunt down the refugees and those that help them. How many South Koreans have ever felt hunted in such a manner? Believe me, it’s another planet altogether.

Another nagging hindrance is the lack of interest that so many South Koreans have to helping anyone outside the circle of their family or friends. Naturally, this doesn’t apply to everyone as there are many cases of wonderfully generous and philanthropic people in the South, both Christian and non-Christian. But to be truthful, I have encountered a definite pattern of seeming indifference or a calcified mindset that so many South Koreans have when approached to help NK refugees. They often explain that they are reluctant to give as they feel that whatever donation they might give will fall into the hands of the refugees’ government. Even when I explain that I’ve gone to great lengths to eliminate this kind of non-transparency by helping the refugees who have already left their native country, so many people - both educated and non-educated - repeat this mantra of fearing that their money will fall into the hands of the North’s government. I can’t help having the impression that this type of explanation masks either an indifference to the plight of the North Koreans or just a kind of numbness to an effective strategy.

Please share some of your memorable experiences during your work in NK and with NK refugees.

Visiting safehouses filled with children who look 9 or 10 years old but who are 15 to 18 definitely has an effect on anyone, especially if you happen to be a father as I am. On my last trip, about six of these teens brought me their homeschool notebooks and waited so appreciatively as I looked over their homework and tried my best to make personal comments which I hoped would be encouraging to them. I realized very deeply at that point that most if not all of their parents had either died or abandoned them, and for that hour or two, I was a kind of surrogate father taking an interest in their schoolwork and it was a pretty overwhelming feeling and I treasure it to this day. After that little episode, they each sang songs to me and then I plunked out a little Korean tune on their guitar and it was a very special bonding time for all of us.

Also on the last trip, Dr. Norbert Vollertsen, whom I’d invited to provide medical care to the refugees, examined one North Korean man whose eye had been put out with a knife by a loan shark in the 3rd country when he was unable to pay his debt on time. The aid worker I was with felt so terrible about it since he’d not had enough money on the previous trip to help the man. Although we were able to pay off the man’s debt this time, the gruesome truth was that he’d lost his eye. How many of us have ever dealt with those kinds of payoffs? But these kinds of stories are commonplace among refugees….

What is your vision for NK?

For some reason that I can’t really fully explain, the plight of North Koreans, whether they be still in their country, or seeking refuge outside, has become very close to my heart. I am a visitor in Korea and as such, have no political statements to make, and I will leave that to others. But I am a great believer that each human being is bestowed with certain precious rights to existence and a freedom from fear that must be recognized and respected if the international community is to continue to consider itself civilized.

To that end, I will do my best to relieve hunger, pain and fear among North Koreans with the limited resources that I have as long as I can.

What is your impression of common NK personalities and characteristics? Do they differ with South Koreans’?

When they’re out of desperate circumstances, I’m very struck by the simplicity, warm-heartedness, and courage of the North Korean people. In many ways, they remind me of the simple purity that I remember in South Koreans when I first came to Korea in the mid-70’s. They can be fairly argumentative, too!

What influence (if any) does Christianity have in NK and with NK refugees?

I’ve been very struck by the spiritual fervor among the refugees. Many of them study their Bibles hours on end every day. Notably, when I left a safehouse recently and asked the teens what they wanted, I was very impressed that they clamored for English Bibles. I couldn’t help but wonder how many South Korean teens in 2001 would ask for that instead of a Sony Playstation or a DVD player?

What is your advice for anyone interested in helping?

My advice would be, by all means, do so. But I would add that the potential donor should do a little research and make sure that their giving is ending up where they want it to go. There are no such things as unscheduled monitoring trips to aid delivery sites inside North Korea, according to many aid workers who have lived there. That’s not to say that all aid is diverted, but there are enough reports about lack of transparency to cause major concern.

One final thought and I’ve found this to be tried and proven in my own life: “You never lose by giving.”

web site: www.helpinghandskorea

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 19th, 2001 and is filed under Interviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.