If Jesus and the disciples were baekjeong, (outcasts, lowest dregs of society, worthy of misery and death) why am I not? I say I love Him, know Him. But even if I travel to a restricted country, I am usually honored in some way. If these thoughts are beginning to irritate you at times, maybe you are being called alongside the baekjeong of our own day, like this one in modern North Korea:

I was a boy living in the shadow of death, starving and despairing in North Korea. Before I escaped from that land, I lived with my parents and a younger brother. But without rations or food, my family was about to starve to death. So my parents left home to make money. They said they would be back in a couple of days. They never returned. My 14-year-old brother started to cry out for food.

I stayed home and sent my brother to our grandfather's. But he soon had to come back 모아18 when grandfather died of an illness for which he could do nothing. Shortly after, my brother also died after suffering in the house with no parents present. My heart wrung. I felt it unfair, so I wept a lot. The world seemed pitiless and my parents, reproachful.

Left alone, I waited for my mother and father, but eventually had to wander around for food, begging sometimes, picking anything off the ground that might be useful. I drifted into various towns by train. One day, I got off at a station, and decided to go over to China.

On a dark rainy night in 2001, I crossed the river, very hungry, leaving my parents behind in their miserable situation. I was so weak from hunger and illness, that I started to be carried down the fast-flowing stream. I closed my eyes, thinking that I would die trying to save my life! I'd never see either my homeland or my parents again. But no, I narrowly escaped death. I crossed over something solid, and when I laid my feet on it, I found it was a rock. I came back to myself and reached shore. When I look back, I see that God saved me so that I would spread the Gospel to dying North Korea, and show His love and grace.

After I survived the river, I begged for food in China. At one Chinese-Korean home, they said they didn't want to see North Koreans anymore, and threatened to report me to the police. My opinion of China soon changed. I have always heard that food is abundant in China, but I was being rejected, turned away. It seemed so unfair.

I had walked for a long time when I met an old Chinese-Korean couple. I begged for food. They asked if I was from North Korea. When I said yes, they took me home, gave me food and money, and told me to go to church. I thanked them and walked to another town instead.

I met North Korean kids there, and started to live with them. We sustained our lives by begging for food from Koreans at parks and bridge-heads. This is illegal activity. One day, my friends and I got caught. While in jail, I met a Christian defector. I thought it absurd that he would be praying and singing praises in a prison, but he was.

It was the first time that I had ever seen someone praising an invisible being. Oddly, I felt joyful and strong whenever he would sing. He asked me where I was from and told me to believe in Christ. He said that these hardships would not happen if North Koreans would trust God. He gave me an address and as soon as I was released, I went there.

That is how I came to the house of the Lord and accepted Christ. But the story does not end there. My illness re-appeared and since then, I experienced God's love and grace even more, as I have come to fellowship with this Jesus who died for us and gives us grace to endure all things...

Our young brother goes on to tell his desire to serve this Jesus and tell others of Him. Aren't you proud to know the baekjeong? The earth is filled with them. One day Heaven will be too.