A Week at a Refugee Center

By Jay McNair

The Ministry of Unification provides support to a North Korean refugee center in the green suburbs of Seoul. They also support refugee centers across the country, but this is the one I visited. Generally that support comes in as money, guidance, computers, and similar contributions, but this week it came in the form of two interns assigned to help the center’s youth director in whatever work he needed done.

If you’ve read any earlier posts, you might recall this youth director’s character as a double-cell-phone wielding dynamo driving a minivan. Ah, fond memories of that minivan.

Master Key

It’s so nice to see these kids having a good time. Knowing that they’re just normal kids.

We’re at Hangyeorae Boarding School, the place where North Korean teenage defectors go to catch up with the crazy South Korean education system.

I watched the high school boys play soccer one night in the rain. We were supposed to go take a tour of the community garden, but when 7:00 came some boys were rounding up their friends and trying to track down cleats and a ball and we knew that the garden thing couldn’t compete. So instead a few friends and I walked up the hill to watch them play. A typical high school boys’ impromptu soccer game of Shirts vs. Skins.

One of the first things you notice is the far team’s goalie, a boy known to us as Master Key—if there is a better nickname I am not aware.