ON NOVEMBER 8, 2014, I finally left North Korea after 735 days of detainment. I now hold the distinction of being the longest-held American detainee since the Korean War.
On the flight home the first meal I ate was a grilled cheese sandwich and some French onion soup. To me, they tasted like America.
After stops in Guam and Hawaii, we landed at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, near Seattle, Washington, nearly twenty-one hours after we took off from Pyongyang.
As I deplaned, I saw my mom walking toward me. I walked as fast as I could and gave her a big hug.
“Hi, Mom,” I said.
My sister, Terri, came running up behind her, followed by her husband, Andy, and two of my nieces, Ella and Caitlin. I tried to wrap my arms around all of them. Tears flowed. For two years I had dreamed of this moment, and now I was finally back with my family and friends. After seeing them and embracing them, I finally realized that I was really free.
After a brief reunion, Terri told me a lot of reporters were waiting for me to make a statement in the press conference room. I told her that I would make a very brief statement. I wanted to thank everyone who was involved in getting me released as well as those who signed petitions and interceded for me daily.
At the press conference, I said that it had been “an amazing two years.” But I did not explain why. What I wanted to say was that God had been amazingly faithful, and his grace was sufficient, and his compassion for the lost is everlasting.
As I look back a year later, I realize that in North Korea I learned God’s faithfulness, experienced his grace, and witnessed his compassion in ways I never had imagined before. I learned to trust God and to hold on to his promises. When I was weak, he was strong. He kept his word, and his word was absolutely binding. As he promised, he never left me nor forsook me. Although I had moments when I was depressed and had lost hope, and I sometimes felt abandoned and forgotten by the world, God was there. Even when I doubted God’s promises, he was faithful. When I needed it most, he reminded me he was there. He spoke through scriptures and supernatural encounters and even by giving me something as simple as a bowl of cold noodle soup. He truly is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
Before my arrest in North Korea, I had thought I understood these things, and I had thought I knew God intimately. But through enduring hardships with him, God took our relationship to a whole new level. I discovered that when you hold on to God’s promises, they truly do give you hope—and hope gives life. As Psalm 119:50 says, “My comfort in my suffering is this: Your promise preserves my life.” Yes, Jesus was my hope, and he is the hope I’ve built my life upon.
During my captivity I also learned I must give up my rights if I really trust God. My life must be about his will and plan, not mine. He is sovereign God, and his plan is always better than mine. I learned to stand at his feet during the time of trial and hardship. I learned that Jesus is worth living for. He is even worth going to prison for. I would not have learned that otherwise. I finally realized what it means to rejoice in suffering, especially suffering for the sake of his Name. I received the rare honor of suffering disgrace for his Name. I experienced the power of Acts 5:41, which says, “The apostles left the Sanhedrin, rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name.”
My two years in North Korea also taught me what it means to have compassion for those who live in darkness. People in North Korea have no access to information from the outside world, no freedom to travel, no freedom to speak their own minds, and no way to choose their own religions. More than one person told me that they have to trade their freedom in order to sustain their way of life. They prefer the safety in the dark, under the protection of a totalitarian regime, to the dangers freedom brings. That’s why someone like me, who raises questions about the structure of their society, is a potential threat to the nation.
Since they are cut off from the rest of the world, the people in the DPRK are often forgotten by the world, yet they are remembered by God, just as he remembered me during my captivity. He has compassion for North Korea, just as he poured out his compassion on me. In my conversations with the interrogators, the prosecutors, the guards, and even Mr. Disappointment, I felt the heart of God. He loves them. He cares for them. He remembers them. He sees their tears, and he hears their cries. During my two years of detainment in North Korea, I felt the heart of God longing to restore his people once again.
I am eternally grateful to the hundreds of thousands of people who prayed for me every day. During my press conference, I said, “I am standing strong because of you.” Because of the prayers of people around the world, I was able to endure my trials and continue to have hope to be released. Those prayers not only brought me home but also enabled me to stand strong. My victory was our victory. I not only came home but I came home stronger than ever. I felt as if I had been on a personal retreat with the Lord for two years.
But now these prayers need to continue. The Lord also reminded me that people of God should not forget the people trapped in darkness, such as those in North Korea. We must always remember the forgotten people through prayer and through acts of compassion. I organized tours to bring three hundred Christians to North Korea to pray, believing that someday the spiritual wall that surrounds the country will fall. I ask the hundreds of thousands of people who prayed for me to now pray for North Korea as well. Their prayers carried me through the darkest time of my life. Now we must pray for the release of all those living in darkness.
In North Korea, more than twenty-four million people live with no knowledge of the one true God. I can still hear the question of the guard in Rason ringing in my ears: “Where does this Jesus live, in China or in Korea?” He is not alone in the darkness. More than a billion people worldwide still have not heard the gospel. They do not have a Bible in their own language. We must remember them, pray for them, and build a bridge to them through which we can share God’s love and compassion.
I pray that I can still become a bridge to connect North Korea to the rest of the world. I pray that someday the DPRK will welcome a missionary who can openly share God’s heart for their nation. As I write this book, I dream that missionary might be me. I am thankful for the compassion and care that was shown to me by the staff at the hospital and at the labor camp. Someday I hope to return there and thank them in person. But I don’t want to be the only bridge. I hope and pray that Christians around the world will remember and embrace the people of North Korea and, through prayer, become a bridge of blessings that only come from God. May God be their God, and may they be his people.
“This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel
after that time,” declares the LORD.
“I will put my law in their minds
and write it on their hearts.
I will be their God,
and they will be my people.
No longer will they teach their neighbor,
or say to one another, ‘Know the LORD,’
because they will all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest,”
declares the LORD.
“For I will forgive their wickedness
and will remember their sins no more.”
—JEREMIAH 31:33–34