Defectors face incredible challenges once they do make it out of the country. Even with a team of people helping them on both the North Korean and Chinese side of the border, defectors must live in hiding once in China because, if caught, Chinese authorities will immediately deport them back home.* For the more vulnerable, such as women and children, many are trafficked or forced to enslave themselves in China in order to survive.
Because of the pandemic, fleeing North Korea has become next to impossible as the main gateways between countries have been blocked and borders have become even more heavily guarded.
*Source: BBC News
Open the gates, that the righteous nation that keeps the faith may enter in.
You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you.
Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord God is an everlasting rock.
For he has humbled the inhabitants of the height, the lofty city. He lays it low,
low to the ground, casts it to the dust (Isaiah 26:2-5).
Father God, we pray that you would turn the hearts of your people in North Korea to You, and that as they turn to You, you would make their faces radiant (Ps 34:5) for awe and fear of You and their enemies would tremble (Philippians 1:27). Bring this nation to humiliation like you did the king of Nebuchadnezzar that they may know "the Most High rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whom he will ... break off [their] sins by practicing righteousness, and [their] iniquities by showing mercy to the oppressed..." (Daniel 4:25b, 27b). In the name of Jesus, Amen.