On Tuesday, July 14 GRX had its first North Korea event, a Seoul Train screening by LiNK.  I along with eight others plus three LiNK volunteers watched this moving documentary.

I was both delighted and disappointed by the number that attended.  Delighted because just a few minutes before the screening was scheduled to start no one had yet come.  Delighted because the screening was done so last minute.  Disappointed because I know I could have and should have done a better job of scheduling and marketing.  When I did a similar screening in Boston over twenty people came.  I think the big difference was that screening had people from various churches but here my network is still small and I know very few people at other churches.

Though I have seen Seoul Train many times the documentary still moves me.  I am so appreciative of Jim Butterworth and Lisa Sleeth for producing this documentary.  I actually met Jim a couple of years ago and treated him to a nice lunch as a way of saying thank you.  He’s a great guy and lunch was a lot of fun.

Seoul Train is not an easy documentary to stomach because it is a series of real life tragedies, one after the other.  This documentary was made in 2004 and I know a little more now than when I watched it before about what happened to some of the North Korean refugees.  This knowledge made some parts of the film a little more difficult to watch.  For example, if you want to know what happened to the first group of refugees in this film, watch this interview of the missionary who led them.

But as difficult it was to watch it always inspires me to help the North Koreans who cannot help themselves.  North Korean refugees have no rights.  If they return to North Korea they will be brutally tortured and/or killed.  If they stay in China they must live in the shadows, at the mercy of traffickers and other exploiters.  They depend on the generosity of missionaries and other human right activists.

Pastor Dave Chae and I will debrief later to talk about the positives and negatives of this screening.  At the end of the screening I asked people if they might want to help in terms of doing other events like this or to get together to pray but I did not receive any response.  They are probably still trying to digest what they learned.  The encouraging thing is three people bought the Seoul Train DVD and one person bought Mike Kim’s Escaping North Korea.

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Related posts:

1. Seoul Train Screening in Silicon Valley
2. LiNK 2009 Benefit Gala
3. North Korean Refugee Now Dancing