In April 2009, Joseph Hong* received a distressing phone call. Chinese officials had arrested Hong’s mother, Rachel Han*, for a serious crime: She had organized a trip to lead 13 North Korean defectors across China to the Mongolian border. (*Names have been changed to protect individuals and their ministries.)
Hong was 23 years old at the time. His mother had been helping North Korean defectors for the past year, but Hong never thought her work could land her in jail. Chinese officials said Han could get 10 years to life in prison for human smuggling—unless her family paid to reduce the sentence.
Helping the Oppressed to Freedom
Christians like Rachel Han in China often take intense personal risks to help persecuted North Koreans. More than 1,000 fleeing North Koreans reach South Korea annually. Once they arrive there, they automatically become South Korean citizens. But getting there is difficult. The Demilitarized Zone separating the Koreas is impassable. North Korean soldiers have orders to shoot anyone trying to swim the Yalu River separating North Korea from China—where they might find some assistance if they aren’t captured and sent back.
To help the refugees, Christians in China have created their own underground railroad. They help smuggle them into neighboring Mongolia, Laos, or Thailand. There, South Korean authorities can pick them up and resettle them in South Korea. Members of the network provide food, shelter, train tickets, and money for the journey. They also tell defectors about Jesus, sharing the plan of salvation and handing out Bibles.
It’s this eternal assistance Rachel Han wanted to offer.
Rachel Han’s Spiritual Journey
She first met Christ after a difficult year early in her marriage. Han’s baby daughter—Hong’s older sister—was diagnosed with leukemia. Han and her husband couldn’t get the medical care she needed, and the baby died. When friends came to comfort her, Han cried out, “What is the point of life?” A friend replied, “Do you know this person, Jesus Christ?”
As her friend explained the gospel, Han believed. She wanted to learn more and sought a church, even though it was far away. Eventually, God provided a job for Han’s husband in Beijing. Five churches were nearby. Han attended Sunday services, Wednesday Bible studies, and Friday prayer meetings. She grew in knowledge and faith and prayed that God would use her in full-time ministry. He responded by providing an even better job for Han’s husband, so she could leave her day job.
Han began a church in her own home. Hong and Han’s other daughter led worship. Han taught Bible lessons herself, and her husband cooked lunch for everyone. The church grew to about 65. But then Chinese authorities learned of it. They wanted to monitor participation. Rather than give away a list of attendees, Han closed the house church, but she found other ways to minister. With the help of Korean missionaries, she started a Bible school. Students worked half a day to earn room and board, and spent the rest of the day learning Bible and how to plant churches. In 2008, Han began helping North Korean refugees.
Han’s Involvement in Others’ Journey
After defectors made it across the Yalu River, Han paid to house some in spare rooms in her building. She taught them Bible and showed DVDs about Jesus. Then Han took about a dozen at a time by bus to Inner Mongolia. There, they would cross the Gobi Desert on foot into Mongolia and safety. She helped seven groups make the crossing over a year’s time.
In March of 2009, Han sent three Bible students to lead 13 defectors to the border. There, authorities ambushed them. They sent the 13 defectors back to North Korea and arrested the students. They also arrested Han at her home. She wasn’t aware that what she had done was illegal, so she freely told the authorities about her ministry.
The authorities quickly realized this was not Han’s first crossing. They decided to use her to deter others in the smuggling network. If she was prosecuted and imprisoned, others in the underground network might give up their work to protect themselves.
Facing Consequences with Hope
Han was given a prison sentence of 10 years for the charges against her. “It was pretty devastating,” her son Hong recalls. But he and his father chose to appeal the sentence. At her second hearing, Han’s term was reduced to seven years. That meant she could possibly apply for release in just four years.
The jailers were hard on Han. They considered her a big-time smuggler. But instead of quietly cowering, she sang worship songs and shared the gospel with her cellmates—like Paul and Silas did in Acts 16:25-32. Three times Hong bribed a prison doctor to smuggle a Bible to his mother. Twice, the guards confiscated the Bibles. But the last time, the guards let her keep it, hoping she would read it quietly instead of loudly worshipping and evangelizing. “I don’t think she was ever quiet—she kept reading the Bible loudly to everyone there,” Hong says.
With the help of donations from missionaries, Hong hired a top lawyer for his mother. For five months, nothing happened. Hong feared he had wasted the money. Waiting was difficult. Then in the sixth month, the lawyer called and told him to go pick up his mom. The crime had been reduced to a minor infraction, which granted Han parole. She was going home.
Amazingly, since her release, local police have not required Han to report her activities. Today she serves in ministry at her church. Her husband is involved there too after seeing God’s work in his wife’s deliverance. Hong now works with a Christian group that provides humanitarian aid to North Korea. The group has built an orphanage, medical clinics, a day care, and a bread factory there.
And according to Hong, Chinese officials seem to have misplaced their whole record of Han’s case. Perhaps they want to avoid scrutiny of the file, Hong suggests.
Or, he speculates, “Maybe God erased it.”
