Advance Praise for I'll Cross the River

The Lord is looking for laid-down servant lovers to run into the darkness and call in
His lost Bride. Hope's novel broke my heart for the pain and suffering of our beloved North Korean brothers and sisters. I truly believe that there is a deep spiritual connection with our Mozambican revival in one of the poorest countries of the world and the North Korean harvest in one of the darkest countries of the world. The cup of suffering North Korea has willingly taken will one day yield a cup of joy. The interwoven lives of the persecuted church in China and Korea awaken my heart to dream even more the glorious dreams of God's heart for His persecuted Bride. Our friend Hope has given us a rich treasury of stories to provoke you to carry God's healing presence all over the earth as the waters cover the sea (Hab 2:14). We must stand with North Korea to be a voice for the voiceless and a face for the silent suffering of millions. This book stirs a deep hunger for the light of His glorious love to break orth in the hardest and darkest areas of the earth.
Dr. Heidi G. Baker, Ph.D.
Founding Director,
Iris Ministries, Mozambique, Africa

Hope Flinchbaugh has skillfully interwoven two stories she carries deep in her heart—the beauty of the vibrant housechurch Christians of China and the grossly oppressive and warped society of North Korea, where unspeakable atrocities and suffering occur every day. I’ll Cross the River will both encourage and challenge you to follow Christ unreservedly and to make an impact on our needy world.
Paul Hattaway
Author of Heavenly Man
Missionary to Asia (Hidden Location)

Powerful and compelling, I’ll Cross the River captured my heart with the reality of the suffering of our North Korean brothers and sisters. It is a moving story of bold spiritual courage—I highly recommend you read it, and pray!

Carl A. Moeller, Open Doors with Brother Andrew
Carl prays over North Koreans who escaped
North Korea and testified in Washington, DC
before congress during North Korea Freedom Week.

Pastors Dennis and Kathy Balcombe & Family
Missionaries to China
I pray that the story in this book will birth in you the heartbeat of God for this nation. Hope Flinchbaugh—whom I know personally—once again has captured the heart of a nation by going deep into the lives of its people. Our hearts become knit with theirs as we experience with them their oppression and their salvation!

Pastor Kathy Balcombe

Revival Christian Church, Hong Kong

Since the 1950s, millions of Chinese and Koreans have suffered horrendously and countless numbers have died due to the dogma of atheistic communism and the policies of evil rulers. Due to this satanic ideology, Chinese Christians in the past and to this day are suffering as they obey Christ’s Great Commission. While China has reformed and improved since the implementation of the “Open Door Policy” in the 1980s, North Korea is still in a dark nightmare of starvation, brainwashing and brutal oppression of the whole populace, somewhat akin to China’s Cultural Revolution and the massive famine that was the result of the “Great Leap Forward” campaign. It is vital that Christians in the West understand what is happening now in North Korea and the plight of refugees who escape to North China. C. Hope Flinchbaugh has already written extensively about the plight of Christians in China, and this highly challenging and informative book will open your eyes to understand the power of evil and the triumph of Christ and righteousness in both nations. I highly recommend it to the Christian who has the compassion of Christ for these tens of millions in North Asia. I believe it will motivate you to prayer and action as we reach out and help our brethren.

Pastor Dennis Balcombe, Hong Kong

Revival Christian Church Revival Chinese Ministries International

I’ll Cross the River touches my heart—I am so impressed. I believe this book represents the situation of North Korea exactly so

people can understand the most closed country and the lives of North Korean citizens. Please pray for God to bless them.

Jung Min Noh

Broadcaster/Reporter Korean Service Radio Free Asia

Washington, DC

I’ll Cross the River is a timely and provocative novel based on true stories researched by journalist Hope Flinchbaugh, who’s written extensively about persecution and revival in the nations of China and North Korea for magazines such as Christianity Today and Charisma and Christian Life. With stunning accuracy, Hope details the real life drama and unthinkable choices involved with being a modern day Christian in the oppressive communist nation of North Korea. Woven into this captivating storyline is the journey of a courageous young Chinese believer named Mei Lin who is willing to follow the Lord wherever He leads her. Undoubtedly your heart will be stirred and inspired as you read this book!
Pat Robertson

Chairman/CEO

The Christian Broadcasting Network

"Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute." (Proverbs 31) This gripping story plunges into the continuing holocaust in North Korea as the mad leader starves and destroys his own countrymen. The author brings you into the courage, humanity and pathos of Chinese Christians, who risk prison and martyrdom, becoming unlikely heroes, giving rescue and aid to the desperate fugitives who risk their lives to flee this hell on Earth. Charles Stock, Senior Pastor

Life Center Ministires International

Pennsylvania, USA-- Hope's Pastor

Too often we forget what goes on behind the closed doors of countries like North Korea. Often things that are hidden from day-to-day life get ignored by those of us who can do something and make our concerns and our voices heard. It is shameful that such aggression and violence toward the ordinary people in North Korea is tolerated by other nations who know better. Hope Flinchbaugh wants to draw your attention to the plight of the people of North Korea and hopefully we will all respond. Kathie and David Walters Good News Ministries Macon Georgia

For most of the past 54 years North Korea’s man-made famines and disasters, regime brutality, corruption and repression, national trauma and dysfunction, as well as the unparalleled religious repression that has virtually annihilated a once dynamic and vibrant Church has been largely hidden from the world. Isolation has been the dictator’s best friend! I am so thrilled that a writer as skilled and as passionate as C. Hope Flinchbaugh has chosen to write on this subject. Because she bases and builds her plots around the testimonies of North Korean refugees, she manages to give her readers a painfully accurate insight into North Korean suffering. By exposing the truth, she is also contributing to the end of isolation.

Elizabeth Kendal, Journalist

World Evangelical Alliance Religious Liberty Commission

Australia

Tragically, because of the lack of access to North Korea, most people living in the free world have no idea of the horrible suffering of Suzanne Scholte

the people in North Korea. Even those few who travel to the country are carefully watched by “minders” and have no access to see the general population. Through her book, Hope Flinchbaugh has given us a picture of life for the average citizen who must struggle daily to survive, cut off from the rest of the world and enslaved by Kim Jong-il in what could arguably be described as the world’s biggest prison. Flinchbaugh, who has led a prayer team to help me with my work on this issue, rightfully reminds us that helping the North Korean people is as much a spiritual battle as anything else. Her central character, Young Soon, reminds us of the triumph of the human spirit. Emboldened by love, redemption, and forgiveness, Young Soon overcomes in a land gripped with fear, suspicion and condemnation. She embodies both the despair and courage of over 10,000 North Korean defectors who have fled their homeland. These defectors are a living testament that no matter how many years of darkness North Koreans have faced, the light of the human spirit can never be extinguished.

Suzanne Scholte (in red) President, Defense Forum Foundation

Chairman, North Korea Freedom Coalition

Young Soon has one desire-- she wants to hear her children laugh. A widow, pregnant with her third child, Young Soon cooks grass soup just to survive.

The town loud speaker, her only news source, brags daily that her beloved North Korea is prospering while the rest of the world is starving. She believes the loud speakers and is shocked when her brother, a military soldier, informs her that millions in North Korea are starving. A smuggled newspaper reveals there is food just over the border in China.

Will Young Soon be forced to abandon her communist beliefs? Must she risk her life and the lives of her children to cross the guarded Tumen River?

Inside China, 21-year-old Mei Lin launches her first missionary tour. While on a journey of miracles, Mei Lin has a heart-pounding dream of a baby crying out to her from murky waters. Who is this baby? How will she find him?

Contact Hope: northkorea@comcast.net

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