Our church supports a missionary couple we can't talk about because he is in a sensitive position (i.e. this reply), and has adopted a North Korean girl just recently granted South Korean citizenship ... an extremely long and hoop jumping experience.
I'm married to a Filipina, now American citizen and I have direct insight into some elements of a third world country.
I'm also involved with our local school board elections because I had been elected for four years and left to be an activist against them AND the public school system I could not be as a sitting member.
What strikes me most about Yeonmi is her statementS regarding having never learned a vocabulary to even describe common, human development and fully beleiving SHE was normal, and the rest of the world ISN'T.
THAT is exactly what is happening to our kids in the public school system
I was struck by those words, too. She was right about isolation. I grew up “poor”, but I didn’t know we were “poor” until I was invited to a friend’s house, and saw a difference. I went to a school where uniforms were required, so it never showed up in the classroom.
Her description of seeing people dying in the streets and not knowing about compassion was eye-opening to me.