This excerpt is from Day 13 of our NK prayer manual. Please go to http://baekjeong.com and order the entire pdf book.

Following is part of a book about the economic crisis written by a refugee mother from North Korea. Though a few people live comfortably, the majority of North Koreans have suffered because of the economic difficulties. This article may help you understand NK's economy:

North Korea is confronting an economic crisis due to the deficiency of food, raw materials and foreign exchange. Since 1990, the breaking down of Communism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe followed by a similar breakdown of the trade system of North Korea, has created a decrease of the amount of imported raw materials and energy sources which are so absolutely important formanufacturing. This has caused the economy to shrink dramatically and the situation, especially the shortage of food, became even worse after the '95-'96 flood and the drought of 1997. At present, less than 10 % of the factories of North Korea are producing goods. Most medium and small-sized businesses have stopped operating altogether.

Due to the continuing drought and food scarcity, continuous power supply became impossible. Of course, that also affects the railway system. It is accepted as daily routine for trains to stop in the middle of the route or for service to be suspended one or two days due to a power shortage.

Kim Il-sung, ruler for North Korea's first 50 years, said in his greeting statement of the New Year, 1992,

"It is my heart's desire that every North Korean may be able to eat beef broth and rice, wear silk dresses, and live in tile-roofed houses." But Kim's 50 years' promise died out with his own death, and North Koreans are seriously starving even without being provided so much as corn and bean-paste soup. So now it is the heart's desire of the North Korean to have food, clothing and housing of any kind.

North Korea's poor situation has been known through many problems and in various ways to the outside world. The pain can be summed up in just two phrases: "economic crisis" and "financial panic." People live without essentials of life like shoes, socks and undergarments. Maybe people should not be concerned about what to wear, when there is such a shortage of food. But, think about it: There are actually a lot of North Korean men who cannot afford "inner wear". Women have to mend theirs or even have to live without any because so many textile factories and clothing manufacturers have been closed.

Yet, Kim Jong-Il spent eight hundred-ninety million dollars for preserving his father's body permanently in the same form as when he was alive. Since there are about two million tons of food shortage annually, that eight hundred-ninety million dollars could have been used for feeding North Koreans for three years. Kim Jong-Il chose to spend the money to satisfy his own desires and to keep his dictatorship, at the cost of millions of starving people's lives. Another outlandish expense is the ongoing "war expenditure" against a non-existing invasion threat from South Korea.

There was one poor woman in North Korea who borrowed some money from her neighbor to start a small business. She became a peddler in an effort to feed her children. She bought some products and took a train to transfer them. Since there were too many people on the train she couldn't stay inside.

So she climbed on the roof. A guard followed her and tried to steal the products she had bought. She couldn't believe it. And if she lost them all of her family would starve to death. So she begged and begged in tears. But the guard was stubborn. The woman was so desperate that she gave up everything and she grabbed a high-voltage cable above the train while holding the guard.

Both were shocked. The woman died instantly with a hole near her neck and the guard lost consciousness. Such sad accidents occur often due to the economic collapse.

The crisis of North Korea is not due to the economic blockade by foreign countries, as Kim claims. It is because of medieval style personal dictatorship. Kim Jong-Il advocates a so-called self-supporting economy which is about blocking foreign funds and trying to elevate North Koreans' life quality by only North Korea's own production ability and natural resources. But his false policy has been driving the North Koreans into crisis.

In these days, the majority of coal mines or steel mills in North Korea are just empty buildings. Most of the important machines or accessories inside were sold to Chinese smugglers a long time ago. In 1997, when the food shortage was so critical, almost every North Korean family sold all their metal such as copper, iron, lead, and zinc so that an excessive amount of metal was smuggled abroad. Not only was the typically metal-rich north exhausted of its supplies, but throughout the southern portion of the country, in places like Ja Gang-do and Sin Ei-ju, vast amounts of metal were traded.

The government tried to stop it in many ways. They used guns, forced confession, and all the rest. But what do the people care about all that when they are confronted by starvation? Death is death.

North Korea's economy is totally devastated and has failed. The only way of overcoming the crisis is for Jong-Il and his followers to repent of what they have done before God and the North Korean people and return to God and his words. I am praying that the North Korea economy is recovered so that joy in each family is revived and the North Koreans' wish of life is resurrected in the name of Jesus.