While Time Remains: A North Korean Defector's Search for Freedom in America

With every word I hear from Yeonmi Park my love for her is renewed. Whether it be on her channel, by interview, or written word. The voice of the spirit within her, is in this book, so inspiring that it intimidates and provokes to jealousy any soul who has had so much more, and yet done so much less, any soul who aspires to not only listen to, but have the courage to obey, the Lord Jesus. Her decision to obey His spirit, her labor of love, of learning, her tireless effort to travel, and warn, and continuously work, for selfless cause, through all that she has been, with such magnificent faith as to face oppositions, afflictions, and the threat of loss, despite all that she has already suffered, knowing full well that the cost is nothing short of everything, and the very freedom that she had fought her entire life to obtain, is admirable, and the kind of faith that engenders such courage as we should all aspire to have. In this, she lives by Jesus's words: Whosoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it; and whosoever shall lose his life shall preserve it. Yeonmi Park is a light of the world. A beacon to inspire all those who lack courage, through faith. An example of what is possible to the young, and an admonition to those whose light is but a smoking flax.

It’s illuminating to read the observations of those not native to the US that now call the US their home, especially those that have arrived fairly recently – particularly from someone like Yeonmi Park, who, having escaped North Korea, understands what legitimate tyranny and suffering really look like. In an age where entire generations of US citizens have never had to experience any of the horrors of war, famine, dictatorial tyranny, regime-led atrocities, or any actual oppression, Miss Park’s observations about her experiences living in the US among the current throngs of anti-Constitutionalists and professional victims so prevalent in American public life today are very telling. Her experiences underscore the pressing need for a return to the classic American values of freedom of speech and free discourse, and the insidious nature of the current pro-Marxist, anti-nuclear family, selectively racist narrative of the leftist activists who have infiltrated the education industry, tech companies, social media companies, entertainment companies, and government. Americans who care about freedom and want their kids to live in a place not poisoned by misanthropy and unjustified, mental health-destroying entitlement, and who want the US to remain as a beacon of hope and redemption in the world, should give this book a read and consider the serious implications of what is being said. Miss Park’s inferences, whether tacit or overt, need to be heeded. Her book serves as a much-needed wake-up call to those that haven’t been paying attention to the creeping, gathering gloom of cultish group-think and authoritarianism over the skyline of the once bright City upon a Hill known as America.

Yeonmi’s story came to my attention through the best interview I've ever seen, where for an hour she poured out her heart to Jordan Peterson (watch it on YouTube if you can before it gets demonetized). I have never seen an interviewer weep like that on hearing the horrors Yeonmi endured and miraculously survived. Book purchases are few and far between for me, but when I learned of Yeonmi’s newest book and read excerpts, I preordered a copy. It was the least I could do. My high expectations going in were exceeded. I laughed. I wept. In less than two hundred pages I felt shock, optimism, patriotism, despair. Yeonmi immigrated to America and recently became a citizen. Among many insights, she shares here her experiences at Columbia University and her confusion and sorrow at seeing so many misled people who don’t realize how good they have it. Though Yeonmi has every right to compare her new beloved homeland with that of her old, some will doubtless remain unconvinced by her warnings that America is not too far removed from the hell she fled, our ruling class of two-faced bureaucrats and elites (supported by brainwashed ordinary citizens) inching us self-destructively closer to a new order where everyone is equal in miseries. I had no idea Yeonmi had the opportunity to plead with Jeff Bezos, with Hilary Clinton, and with many other supposed movers-and-shakers in person. She saw them cry when they heard her testimony, moved by the plight of women still suffering as she did. Yet these same elites who could buy the freedom of hundreds of thousands cowardly refused to help when they realized that they would have to stand against China to do so; for without the People’s Republic of Chains there is no enslaved North Korea. Freedom is fragile and must be fought for, never more than a generation from dying. People want to feel safe and freedom is unsafe—for if you are free to succeed, you are also free to fail. It is all too tempting to believe that in the face of so much volatility and uncertainty we should put our trust in Big Daddy Government because capitalism is evil and socialism good, because America is built by slaves and systemically racist (and also, paradoxically, a massive locus of immigrants) and must therefore be remade. Time still remains for America, for the world—but not all the time if we don’t fight.