Tim Peters, FCF Project Manager of Helping Hands Korea (center), embraces four young resettled North Koreans at HHK charity fundraiser in Seoul, dedicated to raising support for the rescue of other trapped refugees in China.

Tim Peters with fellow activists Hwang Jeong Yop, the highest level government official to have ever defected from the North Korean regime, and Dr. Norbert Vollertsen, German doctor who served in North Korea for 18 months.

Operation: God's Sparrows
Helping Hands Korea, Seoul, South Korea

On July 4, 2003, four young North Korean refugees gain their independence upon entering a foreign consulate in China. At the last moment their safe passage is almost thwarted, as Chinese police try to drag these four teenagers out of the building in order to arrest and deport them back to North Korea. The refugees tearfully yell out that the media is watching, and ultimately struggle free.

Keep in mind that such refugees are routinely imprisoned, tortured and often executed in Stalinist North Korea, branded enemies of the state.

Waiting for word, like mission control, are operatives of Operation: God's Sparrows, a rescue operation that assists North Korean refugees hiding in China. Involved in this endeavor: City on a Hill, Helping Hands Korea, Faith Community CRC, and Orange Korean Church.

They receive the phone call, "They're safe". A rush of emotions and thoughts: the courage of the contact in China who risked imprisonment, hearing about the struggle with the Chinese police, receiving the gratitude of the overjoyed refugees now free.

For the full story, click this link: Operation: God's Sparrow's

Note: The teenagers mentioned in this article declined to have their pictures taken lest their families back home in North Korea get into trouble.

Above abridged article excerpted with permission from a Chosun Journal article (July 2003).