“Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.”
—MATTHEW 5:11
THE HOLIDAYS CAME and went. When I had left Rason, I had thought I would be home before Christmas. Instead, I was still in Pyongyang, waiting. My hopes rose when a newscast showed that Bill Richardson, former ambassador to the United Nations, was in North Korea, along with Google chairman Eric Schmidt.
This is it, I thought. This is how these things always end, with a high-ranking or former high-ranking US official negotiating a deal. But I never got to see Ambassador Richardson. Later I learned he personally carried over a letter from my son, which I received through the Swedish embassy a couple of weeks later. I assumed that Ambassador Richardson had pleaded for my release, but I was no closer to going home.
After having my hopes dashed following Ambassador Richardson’s visit, I made a calendar to count down the days until I would go home. I set the count at thirty. There’s no way I will be here more than another month, I told myself. God won’t leave me here like that, will he?
Psalm 34:22 promises, “The LORD will rescue his servants.” I prayed every day that God would rescue me, and quickly. Mr. Lee seemed to indicate that the government planned to send me home with nothing but a stern rebuke once he verified everything I’d written down during my month of detention in Rason. I prayed God would make it happen.
My hopes evaporated on February 12, 2013, when North Korea detonated a nuclear device in an underground test. This was North Korea’s third successful test of a nuclear device. The United Nations immediately condemned the DPRK’s nuclear program and issued more sanctions. Even China and Russia, North Korea’s closest allies, spoke out against the test.
North Korea did not react well to the sanctions. Newscasts talked as though war with the United States were about to break out, and everyone seemed to believe it.
“America is a bully,” one news anchor said, “but now we will stand up to him. Now he will not dare invade us.” People interviewed in the street said things like, “America launches its own satellites and has thousands of nuclear weapons. Why can’t we have one? This is not fair!” I heard people yell at the camera, “We’re gonna nuke you if you guys don’t leave us alone!”
I could tell they meant it.
The anger and hatred in the detention center increased as well. The chief prosecutor came to see me with a new threat. “You know,” he said, “people are very upset about America. They are out for blood. What do you think would happen if they knew we had an American criminal here?”
“I don’t know,” I replied.
“Angry crowds would storm this place and kill you, and we wouldn’t be able to protect you,” he said. “People would stab you and cut you into pieces, and no one would stop them.”
The guards’ hostility grew more and more open every day. They made no secret of how tired they were of me. I overheard one asking the chief prosecutor why they were even bothering with me. “Why is he even here?” he asked. “He should already be in a labor camp or be put to death.” I got the distinct feeling that any one of them would gladly volunteer to carry out the latter sentence. I was glad none of them carried guns. But then again, they didn’t need guns to take me out.
The increased tension within the detention center was made worse by the disappearance of Mr. Lee. Without explanation, he just didn’t show up one morning. Instead, the third prosecutor came into my room. I had learned his name was Mr. Min, which is pronounced “mean.” The name fit him.
I stood when he came into my room, just as I was supposed to do. I even bowed in deference to him, which I also had been instructed to do whenever an official came into my room. Mr. Min just glared at me before he dismissively waved his hand at me to sit down. He pulled out a stack of papers, which I assumed was my confession and the other papers I had written in Rason.
Glancing over them, he shook his head in disgust. “You know what?” he said. “I don’t buy it.”
“Buy what?” I asked.
“Your story. I don’t buy you saying you are repentant and sorry for what you’ve done. I don’t believe it for a second.” He gave me a cold look. “No, no, I don’t. You say you are sorry for bringing people into the country to pray, but I know you aren’t. I know that if you had not been caught, you’d still be bringing groups in. You are just sorry you got caught.”
I sat as still as I could and tried not to react.
“You know why I know this? It’s because you aren’t just a Christian. You are a pastor. You are a missionary. You are hard-core.”
“I admitted I am a pastor and a missionary,” I said in a low-key, very calm, nonthreatening voice.
“Of course you have, and I know what that means. You are just trying to get out of this mess you got yourself into. ‘I’m sorry,’ you say, hoping we will let you go, but you aren’t sorry at all. You just said what you had to say so that maybe we would go easy on you and send you back where you came from.” He paused and then said with a sinister-sounding voice, “Didn’t you?”
“I am a man of my word,” I said.
“Your word? Ha. Why should I believe anything you say?” Prosecutor Min said. He pointed down at the stack of papers in front of him. “You admitted to trying to overthrow our government and to spreading lies about our Great Leader. You signed this confession. You yourself said you are guilty of everything.”
His voice did not rise in anger as Mr. Park’s had done. Instead, he had a very cold, calculating quality about him.
“You confessed you are a liar. And now you are telling the truth when you say you are sorry? No, you are not sorry, and I’m going to make sure you get what you deserve for what you have done. We’re going to make an example of you so that no other ‘missionary’ dares come into our great nation and tries what you did.”
“Okay,” I said. I did not react. I had heard threats many times before. I was starting to get used to it.
“Now as for you and your case: Where were you born?” he asked. This was followed by more of the same questions I had answered a thousand times in Rason. “When did you move to the United States? . . . Tell me about your father . . .”
Min’s line of questioning sounded like he had decided to start the whole process over from the beginning. I did not understand why. He came back the next day and went through the same routine, and then the next day and the next and the next. Every morning I expected Mr. Lee to walk through my door, but it was always Mr. Min who came in to question me.
I started worrying about what might have happened to Mr. Lee. I was afraid he had gotten into trouble for treating me too well. Giving a dangerous criminal candy and soda can land you into a lot of trouble in this place.
For weeks Prosecutor Min came to question me every day. Each session followed the same pattern. He asked me more questions I had already answered, and then he threatened me. “You are the worst American criminal since the Korean War. You not only tried to overthrow the government but you have mobilized, trained, and sent people here to participate in such an act,” he told me. “I am going to make sure you get what’s coming to you.”
The daily grind of his berating took its toll. Not only did I have to listen to Prosecutor Min rail against me, my nights were filled with hours of anti-American propaganda on North Korean television. I felt a spirit of warfare all around me.
Late one night the warfare became very personal. I was sleeping when I felt hands around my throat, choking me. I struggled to breathe. I tried to reach up and pull the hands off of my throat, but my hands refused to move. My entire body felt pinned to the bed, as if someone were sitting on top of me. The weight grew heavier and heavier. I gasped for breath.
Finally, I managed to open my eyes. No one was on me. No hands were around my neck, yet the choking continued, and the weight grew heavier.
“Jesus!” I yelled.
Whatever had me let go.
“In the name of Jesus, get out! You filthy, evil spirit, get out!”
The oppression and warfare I had felt in my room evaporated as the peace of God filled the place. I went back to sleep and slept like a baby.
During the pretrial period I decided to put some order into my day. I wanted to have a schedule: three hours of worship, three hours of prayer, three hours of Bible reading, and three hours of exercise.
Whenever the prosecutor was not in my room, I sang praise songs to God in both English and Korean. Then I spent time praying. I didn’t have anyone else to talk to, so three hours of talking to God went by really fast. Then I spent time reading my Bible. Finally, I spent three hours a day exercising. The guards didn’t like it, but the chief prosecutor gave me permission to walk around my room.
My room was five meters wide, so one trip back and forth equaled ten meters. I started off doing one hundred laps a day, or one kilometer (about six-tenths of a mile). Eventually I increased this to two hundred laps, then three hundred and five hundred, until I eventually got up to one thousand laps, or ten kilometers, which is around six miles. I also did some push-ups and other calisthenics.
I did not get to follow this routine every day, but I tried. Having order and a schedule to my day helped me cope with the pressures I faced. However, the intensity of the pressure grew until I didn’t think I could hold up any longer. But then God showed up again in a very surprising way.
One morning during my worship time, I started to crave a certain cold noodle soup for which one of the Pyongyang restaurants is famous. I’d had it on an earlier trip to Pyongyang. For some reason I could not stop thinking about this soup. I could almost smell it and taste it. However, I didn’t dare ask the guards or one of the prosecutors to bring it to me, not with all the talk of war flying around. I didn’t even pray for something so small. Instead, I just said to myself, I really wish I had some of that cold noodle soup.
The next day, when lunch arrived, I discovered a bowl of the exact cold noodle soup I had craved. The guard told me that they had someone bring it from the very restaurant I had in mind.
I could not believe my eyes. The soup was the first meal I truly enjoyed since my arrest. I savored every drop.
A day or so later I had a strong craving for some kimchi fried rice. Again, I did not dare ask for it, nor did I let anyone know I craved it. I didn’t even pray for it.
That night when they brought in my dinner, I found the kimchi fried rice I had craved in the morning. It was almost as if I had phoned room service and placed my order directly.
The next day I craved tofu soup. When it came in my next meal, I realized it was more than a coincidence. Psalm 37:4 says, “Take delight in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart.” God was doing exactly that for me.
Over the course of my five months in the Pyongyang detention center, I counted at least forty times when God gave me the exact food I craved. By providing the food I desired, he let me know that he had not forgotten me. God not only gave me the desires of my heart but also of my stomach! He was with me, and he was not going to let anything happen to me that didn’t go through him first.
Prosecutor Min walked into my room one morning in February 2013 and started in on me as he always did. “You are going to go to trial, and you are going to get the maximum penalty!” he said. He waved my confession at me. “You are going to get what you deserve. I will see to it.”
Finally I could not take it any longer. “You know what? I’m done. I’m not going along with this anymore,” I said.
“You what?” Min asked, shocked.
“The confession, the questions, all of it. I am done.”
“What do you mean you are done? You signed this. You cannot take it back.” Min was indignant.
“I signed it only because I was promised I would go home if I did. I didn’t come into your country to try to overthrow the government. I brought people in to pray. All I ever wanted to do was help the North Korean people and let them know God loves them. The North Korean people with whom I worked will tell you that I always operated my business with integrity and respect for your country and culture. This whole mess started because I accidentally brought in an external computer hard drive that would never have been taken out of my briefcase until I got back to my home, except your people pulled it out and made a big deal about it. I apologized for bringing it in. I was not going to share anything on it with anyone in this country. So that’s what I mean by I am done. I am not going along with this anymore.”
“Are you accusing our people of forcing you to sign false documents?” Min said, seething.
“I’m not accusing anyone of anything. I’m just telling you what happened. And what happened was I was told that if I signed those papers and went along with everything, I was going to get to go home,” I said.
“You are going to get what you deserve, and I will see to it,” he growled. With that he stormed out of the room.
I let out a long sigh of relief. I guess I should have been worried about what might happen next, but to be honest, I didn’t see how things could get much worse than they already were. Whether I went along with their charade or not, I still faced a trial for crimes that carried a death sentence. Cooperating had not made things any easier for me, not that I could see. I might as well try a new approach.
The chief prosecutor came to see me the next day, along with two other official-looking men in suits. The two new guys did not introduce themselves to me.
“What is this I hear about you changing your mind?” the chief prosecutor said, his voice rising. Clearly I had made him angry. “Now you are denying everything, are you? You say you don’t have to do this anymore. Well, neither do we. We can just end it all right here and now if we want.”
He did not explain what he meant by that, but I had a pretty good idea.
“You know,” he continued, “I may just move you to a prison right now, today. We are pretty much done with this whole pretrial process.” He stopped for a moment as if he were thinking about what he was going to say next. “I don’t think I will do that, not until we decide what we need to do with you permanently. But I do think we need to make some changes. I think you must be too comfortable here. That’s why you say the things you do. You think you can just take advantage of our kindness. So I’ve decided you will receive no more letters from your family.”
Since my initial stack of letters I had received more mail every couple of weeks.
“You say you don’t want to cooperate. Fine. But I have the power to make you suffer, and you are going to suffer.” He then spun around on his heels and left, the two men in suits with him.
The next morning Mr. Lee returned for the first time in weeks. I was very glad to see him. “Where have you been?” I asked.
“I had to attend some other business in another city. It seems things went poorly while I was away. Come, let’s go for a walk and have a little talk.”
Mr. Lee led me out of the building and into an adjacent courtyard. I didn’t think he just wanted to give me a little fresh air and sunshine. My room, like the one in Rason, had cameras. Mr. Lee needed to get me to a place where we could have a private conversation.
“So what happened?” he asked. “Why did you say you are no longer going to cooperate?”
“I thought you were gone, and the new prosecutor kept telling me I was going to go to trial and get what was coming to me. And that means I am going to have to serve whatever sentence they give me. I thought that if I was going to go down anyway, I might as well take a stand.”
“No, no, no,” Mr. Lee said. “You do not understand the seriousness of the situation in which you find yourself. These people are very angry. The whole country is. They are serious when they say they may apply a real-time resolution to you, which means taking you out into the square and shooting you as a war criminal. The war with America is about to start. They are angry. If you keep this up, you will die.”
By this point I had heard so many threats against my life that I had a hard time taking them seriously. But Mr. Lee did. He truly believed my life was in danger.
“The best thing you can do is to cooperate and go along with everything to the end. You are not the first American we have held here. Every one of our previous prisoners eventually went home. You will, too, but not if you choose the route you announced to Mr. Min. If you stick with that, there’s no turning back.”
I thought about what he was saying as we walked back and forth through the courtyard. “Okay,” I said, “I will cooperate. I will not take back my confession. I’ll do whatever it takes to just end this and get me home.”
Mr. Lee looked very relieved. He let out a small sigh. “You have made the right choice, Mr. Bae.” I hoped he was right.
I returned to my room, sat down in my chair, and reflected on all that had just happened. I did not know who or what to believe. I did not know if the anger and threats were just part of a show to scare me, or if Mr. Min and the chief prosecutor meant business. The very idea that all these officials and the entire country believed war with the United States was imminent was hard for me to believe. But if they truly believe it, anything might happen to me, I thought.
As I sat there, reflecting on the uncertainty surrounding me, Graham Kendrick’s song “Knowing You” started playing in my head, as if someone had just turned on a radio. Before I knew it I found myself singing, softly at first, then louder and louder.
I kept singing “Knowing You” over and over and over. I did not know if I would ever see my family again or even if I was going to get out of North Korea alive, but one thing I did know: I was not alone. My Savior was with me. He was all I had. And right now, he was enough.