Why is the military dictatorship on a rampage in North Korea? Why have innocent people in North Korea died without any word? The reason is that Kim Jong-il thinks he is higher than God and reigns over the land. For me, I praise and worship God, who chose me out of 23 million North Koreans , out of six billion of the world's population, and is training me.

Before, I could not find anything to be thankful for, but now I am thankful for everything around me because I have met the new Shepherd in my life.

I was born as the youngest daughter, in beautiful North Korea. My hometown was in a lovely setting. The home in which we lived was a thatched- roof house with a well that was over 10 meters deep and had really cold and refreshing water even in mid-summer.

Because I was the youngest child, people often think I received a lot of love by my siblings and parents, but this was not the case. Since we were so poor, I didn't get that much attention. My mother suffered a lot from supporting so many children by herself.

Often we were hungry. I still remember vividly when my older brother climbed a pear tree to pick unripe pears for me when I cried with hunger. The pears hit my head, and I ended up crying even more.

After my childhood, our family had to move because my father had been demoted. In fact, we had to move out in the middle of the night.

I went to four years of elementary school and then on to middle school. When my father passed away, our family moved again. I graduated from middle school and went on to college. I graduated college with the top honors in three years. I was then assigned to an elementary school. I was promoted to senior teacher with an elementary school teacher's license.

In the meantime, I met my husband and started a family. We moved because my husband was transferred. For awhile, I actually had a happy home with a son and daughter.

I worked for a time in an office job, but because of health problems that occurred from giving birth, I had to stay at home . Then government assigned me to yet another duty when I was able.

The economy of North Korea began to suffer severely. Then my husband died of serious illness. I tried hard to support my family, but if the whole country is poor, how can one family be well off?

My son was an athlete. But when he returned home from his training, he was a mere malnourished skeleton. Looking at my starving son, my heart was broken. I could not feed him even a bowl of rice.

The government stopped food rationing in 1996, so everyone was barely managing to live off the roots of grass and the bark of trees. I would hear every morning that someone's father died or someone's child died or a whole family died. There were countless human remains on the streets.

They say that "even a king becomes a thief in the face of hunger."

I had to take action. I left my crying son, who wanted to come with me, and bought him five kilograms of corn noodles, a half of a kilogram of salt, and two kilograms of radish leaves. I told him that I would come back in five days. I then crossed into China. How could I know that that would be the last time I would be with my son? I still choke back tears when I think of him.

I tried to find my relatives in China, but I found that one had already died and some had gone to South Korea. I was at the end of my rope. Fortunately, one of my distant relatives helped me find work. I experienced the saying, "It is better to be a dog than to live in a strange place without a country." But I could endure all kinds of suffering and pain motivated by thoughts of my children and my land back home.

I tried to find another job, but I was caught by the Chinese police. I was sent back to North Korea in handcuffs. I had betrayed my country and its citizens.

In a forced training camp that specializes in brainwashing and hard work , I labored from 5AM to 10 PM. I also had to sit through speeches on ideology as part of my re-education each night. They did not let me sleep and made me stand up all night if I would not publicly confess my faults. They hit me and I had to say, "I was wrong, I committed a capital crime."

I was given only a few dried radish leaves and a bowl of corn-meal soup a day.

While starving, in coldness, in the forced training camp, I found out that my son was already dead. When I received this piece of news, I fainted. I had to stay in bed for five months in the training camp.

After my release, they allowed me to recover and be nursed at home. Training camp officers came to check on me every day, and officials came and asked me who I met and what I talked about with people in China. Because of the constant harassment, I decided to escape to China again. I made my way to China, but again was caught by Chinese police and sent back to North Korea. The only thing that I had done wrong was crossing the border because I had no way to meet my basic living requirements.

I want to try to share my experiences about my time in the concentration camp, but they are indescribable. North Koreans wince at the mere mention of "work camp"...

... We ate only a bowl of corn soup which had less than 100 kernels. We had to make bricks and cement and carry stones from 7 AM to 7 PM. The manager of the work camp said that people who betrayed our country deserved to die and should not be pitied. Even dogs in the work camp lived better than we did.

People in the camps die every day and while I was there, scores of men and women died. Guards wrapped the dead bodies with straw bags. North Korea is stained by the blood of many people who have died without tombstones. I bow to honor the many deceased who while starving and exhausted, died without complaining.

Because I was extremely hungry, I ate bean leaves, pig grass and all sorts of other grasses which are not supposed to be edible. My job was to run with a stretcher and if I slowed down to walk even a little, guards would hit and kick me. They would hit me with the butt of a gun and blood would spurt from my head. There was no one to hear our complaints.

It is likewise indescribable how severely guards treat pregnant women. They would mock them saying, "You are carrying Chinese men's babies," and then kick and hit them. They even made pregnant women do the same harsh labor as the rest of us. When they gave birth, guards put the baby's face down and let them die. The pregnant women were forced to resume working right after giving birth with a bloody lower body. How tragic it is for those dead babies who had never been wrapped in cloth and had never sucked their mother's breast!

There was a family who tried to escape and was caught. Guards beat the wife in front of her husband, and hit children in front of their parents.

For others, they would tie girls' hands together and would trample and cut their hair at random. They were beasts beyond imagination. The detention room did not have any heat and there were layers of frost on the wall. Peoples' fingers and toes would become so frozen that they could not even stand up.

I was escorted from a work camp to a detention house. There , I had to get up at 6 AM and go to bed at 9 PM. All that time I had to sit, putting my hands on my knees and bending my waist at a 45 degree angle. If I moved my body just a little, guards would hit me with a square wooden stick until it broke.

I was in a death cell. Twice a month, criminals were executed by firing squad. Condemned criminals had to prepare the wooden post which they were tied to when they were shot. How my heart felt for them when I saw the criminals carrying the wooden posts and going to their death. It is something that someone who has not experienced it can understand. When the guards would come to the death cell and call the criminals' names on the day they were to be executed, my heart would freeze with terror and some people would even faint.

The criminals who tried to escape to South Korea or who were caught on the way to South Korea had to suffer more than other criminals. Even those criminals' families and relatives were forced to go to the state security department prison or were sent to an uninhabited island.

A woman who tried to go with her son to South Korea to find their relatives was arrested and sent to the state department detention house for eight months. Then, she was sent to a cell designated for life sentences and I have not heard from her since.

Finally, on February 16^th, 2002, Jeong Il Kim admitted that people who tried to escape from North Korea, escaped because they could not meet their basic living requirements, not because they were rebelling against North Korea. Consequently, he ordered the release of those who had tried to escape and had been caught. As a result, everyone in the forced training camps and work camps was released .

As I look back upon that time, I realize it was all a part of God's plans.