“Because he loves me,” says the LORD, “I will rescue him;
I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name.”
—PSALM 91:14
ON SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2014, Mr. Disappointment came into my room for his weekly pep talk. His message had not changed: “No one is coming for you. No one remembers you. You are going to be here until we celebrate your sixtieth birthday together.”
I did not respond. I just listened and hoped he would leave soon. His message hit me hard. Since the day I returned to the hospital, I had hoped a special envoy from the United States was on its way. Six weeks had passed without the slightest hint that one was going to come. After Mr. Disappointment left, I spent the rest of the day down and depressed.
I woke up Sunday, November 2, realizing I had to make a choice. I could either listen to Mr. Disappointment, or I could listen to the voice of God. I started to grab my Bible, but for some reason I picked up the stack of more than three hundred letters I had received from people all over the world. Mr. Disappointment had worn me down by telling me I was forgotten. Then I read a note from a family in Northern Ireland: “You are not forgotten, Kenneth, so we stand with you and your family to get justice for you. Keep looking up, Kenneth.”
Another letter from Tina, whom I have never met, said, “I pray for you to stay strong. Don’t be defeated. You need to stay strong. Don’t give up your fight.”
Nick from Seattle told me, “Remember that no one can hurt your soul. I pray that you would feel the presence of God all the time. Thank you for your courage and your love for the North Korean people.”
Tears flooded my eyes as I read. I wiped them away and kept reading. “I struggle to understand what the reason must be for you to endure such hardship,” Jennifer wrote. “All I can offer you is that your story is giving many, many people hope and a renewed sense of faith here in the U.S.” God bless Jennifer M., I prayed.
Anna wrote to reassure me, “God is good. Yes, in the midst of this severe pain, God is still good. He is still just. He is still on his throne . . . I don’t know if this e-mail will help you in any way. I don’t know if it will even be read. But just in case it is read and it serves as a reminder of the greatness of God, I thought I’d send it.”
Kelly wrote, “I encourage you today to stay committed to the ‘mission’ laid on your heart. That mission of compassion.”
Yes, Lord, I am a missionary, and I was sent here for a reason, I prayed.
I spent most of my morning reading letters from supporters I had never met. After an hour or so, I laid them down and got down on my face before God.
Lord, I need your peace, I prayed. I need your strength. You said that when we are weak, you are strong. I need you to fill me with your strength today, Lord, because I feel very weak.
The more I prayed, and the more letters I read, the less I heard the voice of Mr. Disappointment and the more I heard the voice of God. I didn’t know how much more I was going to have to endure, but I knew through God’s strength I would make it. Too many people were praying for me; I would not fail.
The next morning, Monday, November 3, I awoke at six o’clock. I had never awoken that early in the hospital, but I was wide-awake. Then I heard the voice of the Spirit of God say to me, Open your Bible to Zephaniah 3:20. I had no idea what Zephaniah 3:20 said. Hope washed over me as I read the first two lines:
At that time I will gather you;
at that time I will bring you home.
In my spirit I sensed God say, Now is the time. Now I will bring you home.
Four days later, on Friday, November 7, around 9:30 p.m., Mr. Disappointment came to see me. He had never come at such a late hour before.
“You’re going to have another interview tomorrow morning,” he said. “You need to be up and ready to go by 7:30. But this time, instead of pleading with the United States for help, you need to thank the North Korean government for treating you so well and apologize one more time for what you have done. Maybe this will be the last thing you will have to do before you go home.”
“Does this mean someone came from the US government?” I asked, hopeful.
“No. No one came. It’s just an interview,” he said.
“With whom? CNN again?” I asked.
“I don’t know. But if you do well, maybe good things will happen. Prepare yourself tonight so that you can do a good job tomorrow,” Mr. Disappointment said.
I could not sleep that night. He never comes this late. And I have never done an interview at 7:30 in the morning. This must be urgent. Something must be up. Then I remembered that a flight from Beijing lands in Pyongyang at six in the evening. Maybe someone had come on that flight, and that’s why Mr. Disappointment came to see me so late. The flight out of Pyongyang back to Beijing leaves at ten in the morning. Maybe I had to do an early interview to make the flight.
These thoughts ran through my head all night. I think I dozed off for two or three hours at the most.
Mr. Disappointment walked in right on time the next morning. He took one look around and asked, “Why didn’t you pack?”
“You didn’t tell me to pack,” I said.
“Don’t worry about it. We will pack for you.” He handed me some clothes. “Here is a clean prison uniform. You need to put this on.”
“Okay,” I said. I knew this meant that I was either going home or going back to the prison camp.
A van took me to the Potonggang Hotel, where Mr. Disappointment and a group of guards escorted me to a suite. My mother had stayed at this very hotel one year earlier when she came to see me. On the drive to the hotel, my sense of anticipation rose. The guards were decked out in their dress uniforms. I took that as a good sign.
Once we got into the suite, Mr. Disappointment told me, “Take a seat.” It was around eight o’clock.
Forty-five minutes later, three American men walked in. One was Korean American. One of the other men, who was perhaps fifty, stepped over and told me he was a doctor.
“We are from the United States government,” he said. “We are here to check on your health.” He asked a few questions about my conditions. While the doctor examined me, no one talked. I remained silent except to answer his questions. The guard and Mr. Disappointment sat back and observed what was going on.
After twenty minutes the doctor said he was finished. “Good luck to you, sir,” the doctor said, and the three men left.
I sat down and looked over at Mr. Disappointment. He seemed quite relaxed. It was now after nine o’clock. He never mentioned going out to do an interview. Apparently, all we were going to do was sit in this room. One guard looked at his watch.
“It’s okay,” I said, “I’ve waited two years. I can wait a little while longer.”
“Don’t get your hopes up too high, or you will be disappointed,” he said with care.
By noon Mr. Disappointment dismissed himself and left me in the room with just one guard. I knew the guard from the labor camp. A little before one o’clock, room service delivered a meal. The guard and I ate together, which was a first for me. I said to him, “Hey, this is our first and last meal together.”
“Don’t say that,” he replied. “You are making me sad. Don’t say that.”
Finally, at three o’clock, Mr. Disappointment returned.
“Let’s go,” he said.
I didn’t even have time to tell the guard good-bye. We rushed out of the room and down the hall. I expected to go to another room in the hotel, perhaps a conference room. Instead, he led me out of the hotel and to a waiting van. This was not what I expected. I did not know if I was going back to the hospital, back to the labor camp, or somewhere else. The van’s windows were covered, so I could not see where we were going.
When the van finally stopped, the doors opened, and I saw the Koryo Hotel in front of me. I knew this place well. I had stayed here three times in 2012, when I was still a free man and welcome guest of the DPRK. Mr. Disappointment led me upstairs to a conference room on the second floor. I did not know what was waiting for me inside. My first meeting with the Swedish ambassador had taken place in a hotel conference room. That’s also where I had called my family. I half expected to see the Swedes when the doors opened.
Instead, waiting in the room for me was the prison warden in his full military uniform. He rarely ever wore the uniform at the prison, although he was officially an army officer. A few other officials were also in the room. All wore uniforms or other official clothes.
The warden came over and said, “I am pleased to inform you, 103, that the Marshal, Kim Jong Un himself, has decided to show you mercy and grant you a special pardon.”
The weight of the world lifted off my shoulders. For two years I had waited to hear these words. Tears welled up, but I pushed them back.
“You are to sit down and write a letter of apology and a letter of thanksgiving to the Marshal,” the warden continued.
“Yes, sir,” I said with a smile. I sat down and wrote the letters in a hurry. Another official, whom I did not know, picked up the letters, looked them over, and seemed satisfied.
“Come with us,” a guard said. Another guard came up on the other side of me, and the two took me to the room next door. It was now three thirty. When I walked in I saw Matthew Miller standing with two other guards. I did not yet know his name, but I knew he had to be the other prisoner from the camp. Like me, he wore a prison uniform, but his had 107 on the front.
A moment later a North Korean delegation entered the room and sat at a large conference table. The man I took to be the leader told the others not to stand when the American delegation entered the room.
A few minutes later eight Americans walked into the room. Five took seats at the table, while the other two men and the doctor who had come to see me earlier stood behind them. The primary US envoy was James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, a cabinet-level position.
The eight Americans all had very stern looks on their faces, as if they were upset. Only after I was back in the United States did I learn that the North Koreans had left the delegation hanging for a couple of days. Up until three o’clock the Americans didn’t know whether I was going to be released to them. Looking at their stern expressions, I felt like a little child sitting in the principal’s office, in trouble. The delegation was my parent who had to come to apologize on my behalf. I felt so sorry for the headaches I had caused, but, at the same moment, I had never been more thankful or proud to be a citizen of the United States of America.
Once the American delegation was in place, a one-star general of the DPRK army walked in and shouted at the top of his lungs, “Everybody stand!”
A four-star general then entered the room. Later I learned that he was Kim Won Hong, the director of their national security bureau, and the man responsible for the death of Kim Jong Un’s uncle, Jang Song Thaek. The general unfurled a paper that looked like a piece of parchment and proceeded to read a special proclamation from Kim Jong Un himself.
“By order of the Marshal of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the American criminal Bae Junho is hereby pardoned. Signed by the Marshal himself on the sixth day of November, two thousand fourteen,” he read in a stern voice.
A translator immediately repeated the proclamation in English. A similar proclamation was read for Matthew Miller.
As I listened to the proclamation it hit me: Today was November 8. The envoy probably had not arrived until the day before, November 7. Everything had already been decided even before the American delegation arrived.
After the proclamation was read, the ceremony came to an end. The guards escorted me to another room, where I was allowed to change out of the prison uniform and into my real clothes.
The warden came in to say good-bye. He grabbed my hand, shook it, and said with tears in his eyes, “I want to see you again sometime.”
“Yes,” I said, “I would like to come back and see you as well.” I was touched that he became so emotional. The two of us had spent a great deal of time talking about a variety of topics. He was a very educated man. I guess our talks meant a lot to him.
Mr. Disappointment also came in to say good-bye. I couldn’t help but ask, “Why did you keep telling me that no one remembered me and that I was never going to get to go home?”
“I did that for you,” he said. “I did not want you to get your hopes up only to have them crushed.”
I just smiled and shook my head. “Well, good-bye then,” I said to him.
Once I had changed clothes, I was officially handed over to the American delegation. All of us were whisked out of the hotel. Matthew Miller, the doctor, and I were ushered into a waiting bus. The rest of the delegation climbed into waiting limos. I was so excited that I do not remember if we even talked on the ride to the airport. At least, I hoped we were headed toward the airport. I did not take anything for granted. I wasn’t going to believe I was actually going home until the wheels of the plane lifted off the ground.
The bus arrived at the airport a little after four o’clock. We did not stop but kept right on driving across the tarmac and down one of the runways. I looked to see where we were going, but I couldn’t quite tell. It was nice to be able to actually look out the window of a moving vehicle.
About ten minutes later the bus finally came to a stop. There, sitting on the runway, door open with a stairway waiting for me, was an airplane with the words United States of America emblazoned on the side. It was the most amazing thing I had ever seen in my life.
Now I could finally believe it. I was on my way home.
Once we had taken off, a woman asked how I was doing. “I am Alison Hooker. I work as a director of the Korea desk at the National Security Council in the White House,” she said with a smile. She said that she was a Christian who had followed my story closely.
“I cannot tell you how thankful I am to be on this plane,” I said. “It has been such a long wait. I nearly gave up hope. But on Monday, November 3, the two-year anniversary of my arrest, the Lord spoke to me through Zephaniah 3:20 and told me he was going to bring me home.”
She looked at me, her mouth wide open in shock. “We left Washington, DC, on Monday,” she said. “But we had some mechanical problems and had to make a stop in Hawaii. It took them two days to fix the plane.”
I also asked her, “Have they asked for the medical bill? How much did it come out to?” I was worried about the bill. According to my calculation, it could be close to $300,000.
She said, “They never mentioned a bill. We did not have to pay anything.”
I smiled. The last burden I carried out of North Korea was lifted.
I sat back in my seat and reflected on the past week. Monday had been one of the lowest days of my life. Yet the Lord already had his rescue on the way. I just needed to trust him.
That was the lesson I had learned across the entire two-year experience. Rather than panic or become afraid or angry, all I needed to do was trust the Lord. There were days when I had felt so alone, so forgotten. But God had not forgotten me. He was still in control of all things. He had a plan, and he worked it out beautifully in his time.
And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.
—ROMANS 8:28