Christmas in the DPRK

As COVID-19 continues to spike all around the world, this year’s Christmas celebrations are looking drastically different from previous years’ holidays.

Along with everyone else, our own family’s Christmas has been impacted by the pandemic. Despite a country-wide mandatory two-week quarantine, our eldest daughter traveled from the United States to Asia to be with us this holiday season. She had already been exposed to the coronavirus in America, and as a result, endured two weeks of quarantine just prior to her departure. Once she arrived on the Eastern Hemisphere, she was subjected to an additional two weeks of self-quarantine in our home. Thankfully, all of her COVID tests have been negative, and she is now finally being reunited with the family just in time to celebrate the holidays.

Many of us are used to large family gatherings, holiday parades, and Christmas parties this time of year. Unfortunately, the current worldwide pandemic has put a halt to life as we have known it. With extreme social distancing measures in place, we are prevented from gathering in large groups, and the holidays can seem comparatively forlorn.

Our family knows what it is like to yearn for meaningful social interaction. Out of our ten plus years of living in North Korea, there was only one Christmas in which we were able to celebrate together with other foreigners inside the country.

Winter Along the Daedong River in Pyongyang

Initially, we spent our first five years in the NE Free Economic Zone in North Korea. Then, the opportunity opened up for our family to move to the capital city. By the time we were able to celebrate Christmas in the DPRK, we had been living in Pyongyang for four years. Up until that point, we were secluded from the rest of the foreign community, residing on a compound on the west side of town. However, most embassies and foreign humanitarian organizations were located on the east side of town. Since we were half-way across town, unless we had official business to attend to, we had limited, if any, interaction with the foreign community.

Then after years of discussions and negotiations, our family was finally given permission to rent an apartment on the east side of town within the Foreign Diplomatic Compound. Our permission came through in December, just in time for us to join Christmas celebrations with other foreign Christian families.

A few members of the community had joined together to invite the extended community over to one of their homes for a great Christmas feast. We ate and laughed to our hearts content as familiar nativity songs were played and sung. It was just a simple party, but to us it meant so much more.

This was the first time that we were not only in the home of another foreigner but also given the opportunity to take part in a likeminded fellowship in the capital city. Up until this time, our team had been isolated from most foreigners in Pyongyang. We were placed under the Korean-Expat Department, and as a result, did not work under the same Foreign Department that other foreigners were placed under. This gave us both advantages as well as disadvantages. The advantage was that we were able to work in the local hospital system, treating common people, yet we were not allowed to have much interaction with other foreigners.

Winter in Central Pyongyang, DPRK

Finally, after over nine years of working in the DPRK, we were granted official access to the foreign community. Our many years of quarantine and isolation were over. And we reveled in our newfound community during that joyous, holiday season.

There has yet to be a Christmas quite as sweet as that one in 2016. Our family has had some spectacular, miraculous breakthroughs throughout the years, particularly in December, but that particular Christmas will forever stand out above the rest. Unfortunately, due to the Geographic Travel Restriction implemented in September 2017, our family has yet to celebrate again the winter holidays in the DPRK.

And so it is that this Christmas reminds us yet again of our years spent in North Korea. As our eldest rejoices over freedom from her doubled, two-week quarantines, we reminisce of our four years of living on an isolated compound in Pyongyang. And although this year did not have quite as long of a wait, we have learned not to take our time together as a family for granted. No matter how long the wait, family is one of the greatest gifts we have the privilege of cherishing this Christmas season.