Welcome to the Hackberry House of Chosun, sermonaudio.com. I'm Bob. This is the North Korea audio web blog, the Chosun part of our website, talking about North Korea. I've just got some updates here. This one's December 9. This is right from the news. You maybe have heard some of this. December 9 of this year, North Korea has been keeping a low profile. since the November 8th U.S. presidential election, and as mass protests escalated in South Korea, culminating in the president's impeachment. Not ours, but theirs. Some of these trends are not a coincidence, at least according to a recent statement from North Korea's top diplomat for North American affairs, Choi Soon-hui, who had met with former U.S. officials in Geneva for an informal dialogue, said Pyongyang is opting to stay quiet while it waits for the results of President-elect Donald Trump's policy review. Choe also said North Korea would not take any action that will close the doors to improving relations or negotiations. While itís a frank opinion, it also might not be the entire picture. On Friday, South Korea's parliament voted in favor of the impeachment of South Korean President Park Geun-hye, who has been embroiled in a corruption scandal involving influential friend Choi Soon-sil. The National Assembly voted 234 to 56, with members of Park's ruling Senuri party voting against her. This is an event North Korea may have watched closely. given the Kim Jong-un regime's strong aversion to the South Korean president. Park has often been portrayed in North Korean statements as an obstacle to better inter-Korea relations. Any missile or nuclear provocations during the height of Seoul's domestic political crisis would only distract the country and would have given Park more leverage during this critical time. That may be why Kim Jong-un shifted his focus this week to civilian sites, providing field guidance to a newly built youth camp site, while state media touted a miraculous disaster recovery in the aftermath of floods that destroyed homes and villages earlier this year. But problems after the floods remain widespread and continue to stay unreported in official statements. North Korea has banned train travel to the disaster-stricken zone until February due to a railroad crisis, according to sources in the country. But North Korea has yet to report on difficulties in transportation or the challenges ordinary people face in the aftermath of the disaster. And there's a whole bunch of other stuff that North Korea has not reported to us, I am so sure. This is from UPI Korea. UPI Korea. Another story from them, UPI Korea Now. By the way, that's at UPI.com. This is called Korea Now. In official North Korean media, Kim Jong-un is portrayed as self-possessed. I'm sorry, the name of the story is, Is Kim Jong-un Out of Control? Now let me answer that. He's portrayed as self-possessed, providing field guidance to soldiers and factory workers alike, praising their ability to defend the nation or raise productivity. However, in private, Kim may not be so cool, calm, and composed. In an incident that dates back to September, Kim showed his capacity for being an angry drunk when he punished North Korea's military elders forcing them to stay up all night to write letters of apology for not developing military satellites. Kim must have blacked out, according to the Tokyo Shimbun. The next day he couldn't remember what he said and had no clue why the men were burning the midnight oil to tell him that they're sorry. The report also suggests the North Korean leader is hardly satisfied with the lightning pace at which weapons development has been taking place. According to a U.S. government official, Pyongyang conducted a test of a sub-launched missile in December, but may have opted to keep quiet about the activity during a sensitive transition period in the United States and South Korea. Another matter that could be keeping Kim up at night is widespread corruption. in an unusual directive issued in the fall, the North Korean leader called for an end to gang culture, as he called it, endemic to regional divisions of the Korean Workers' Party. Kim linked the phenomenon to corruption, a possible reference to increased incidents of bribery that keep government officials financially secure as they extort money from ordinary North Koreans, including merchants. There's also evidence North Koreans are less afraid to show their disdain for Kim, with some distributing anti-Kim propaganda leaflets or leaving subversive graffiti in marketplaces. North Korea's lack of provocations in recent weeks has not stopped South Korea from staying alert. Seoul said it is instituting a 24-hour emergency response system To assure the economy remains stable despite the impeachment of President Park Geun-hye, who has increasingly become the object of public scorn after local media reported it's likely she was undergoing cosmetic enhancements, delaying her response to national emergencies like the Sewol ferry sinking in 2014. Well, that was from Elizabeth Shim. who covers Asia for UPI. Again, you can go there at upi.com. Now, another organization that I'm in touch with, Crossing Borders. Now, there are many organizations that reach into North Korea one way or another. This one just happens to be in the next suburb over from me. I met them many years ago and have learned to trust their judgment and their activities. They write me a letter regularly. This is just their support letter. By the way, I do support them, but I don't represent them. They have given me permission to read anything they send me to you, but I don't do this because they want me to do it or are paying me to do it. I just like sharing anything I can find about North Korea. And when you find things, dear listener, I would appreciate you sharing that with me and I'll get it back to the recording as soon as I possibly can. Well, this one says, Merry Christmas. We hope you are well. And we want to share with you the work that has been accomplished through a child in our orphan care program. Name is Sungmi. Sungmi's mother abandoned her when Sungmi was a baby. She was later captured by human traffickers sold to several Chinese men who shared her. She was locked up, abused and died while imprisoned. Sungmi does not remember anything about her mother and she was later left to her aunt who mistreated her and did not want to care for her anymore. She was in our care since 2008. She's been growing in stature and spirit ever since. This fall, we moved Seung-mi and a number of our older children to an orphanage in a city with great vocational and academic schools. Seung-mi has been blossoming in her new environment. She's now attending a vocational school for people who want to be elementary school teachers. She was a good student in the past, but now she's an excellent student. She's become her school's PA announcer, and she's a part of her school's student council, and she's one of the top students in her grade. this year. This wouldn't be possible without the generous support of our donors. And again, I'm not representing them. The name of the organization is Crossing Borders. I won't tell you any more. You can Google it online and follow up with these people yourself. One other thing that I just got from them starts out, every morning I would wake up and think about how I could live another day. Then I amazingly heard the gospel. December of 2014, and everything changed. I love 1 Thessalonians 5.16 that says, Be joyful always. My friend wrote it in beautiful cursive, framed it, and gave it to me. If we were in North Korea, we would have been publicly executed for this. Now when I see it on my wall, I pray in Korean, and my husband prays in Chinese. That's from Lydia, a North Korean refugee living in China. Her life changed because she met a crossing borders worker on a long bus ride in 2014. You see how it works? Oh, praise God. It can happen here too, you know. This isn't just a missionary story. It's supposed to be for all of us. But to let you know that North Koreans, one way or another, are finding the Lord because of your prayers too. And I trust you'll continue to pray. Thank you for being with me today. I've got a long series on North Korea called North Korea Audio Web Blog. This is the last of them right here and I will continue this in the future. From time to time I just get these things that I want to share and we call it the North Korea Audio Web Blog. Come and check that out. There's also a whole bunch of pictures and photo albums right there. Just click on photos and click on the first couple of albums there and you will see hundreds of pictures updating the story of North Korea. It will bless you. I know it will. Well, God bless you. Check in from time to time to see what's going on here at the Hackberry House of Choson website of sermonaudio.com. I'll talk to you soon.