Courage and Hope in the Midst of Persecution

C. Hope Flinchbaugh’s “I’ll Cross the River” is a fictional account of the heart rending drama taking place in North Korea today. Her novel is a composite of stories drawn from real life testimonies and interviews of refuges and persecuted Chinese Christians near the border of North Korea.

“I’ll Cross the River” is based on the lives of two women and two interwoven dreams. Their lives converge as God’s plan unfolds. Young Soon, recently widowed and pregnant, is facing a struggle to provide for her two starving children. She is steeped in a heritage of loyalty to a man god, Kim Il Sung, and is bombarded with Communist propaganda. Through the testimony of her brother, Young Soon is drawn to the God that loves. She dreams that her unborn son will grow up in another land. Learning that in conditions beyond North Korea children were not left to starve, Young Soon decided to risk her life and defect with her new born infant and young son.

Mei Lin, a young Chinese evangelist, felt called to make a mission trip deep into the remote mountain villages China. She had a dream of a baby crying from the muddy waters of a river. Her dream left her unsettled, and she took the dream as a message from God and interceded in the behalf of a young boy and the baby as they reached out to her for rescue.

Although this is a fictional account, Flinchbaugh writes with such realism and passion that I felt I was reading an actual biography. I was staggered by the horror of statistics that tell of the four million children who have died of starvation in North Korea since 1995.

Flinchbaugh’s writing is sensitive, compassionate and articulate. “I’ll Cross the River” is a wake up call to prayer and a call to action. The reader is provided with suggested resources and suggestions for ways to get involved in providing hope in this human tragedy. This is a book that should be read by Christians everywhere, and should be made available in every library in America. “I’ll Cross the River” is an important book for concerned Christians.

978-0768426489, Destiny Image