Together the churches we represent claim half the people in America. American interfaith compassion in Pyongyang is new. The chasms that separate our nations are old. With mixed emotion we look for hunger but don't see much. All bodies are covered against the cold.
Faces shown in public give away little of the nation's condition.
We think our visit is a positive sign but learn from a co-worker that our presence is also an embarrassment, a reminder of trouble. They now have bread. Harvest food and the arrival of aid from governments and groups like LWR have reportedly checked the starvation that we glimpsed in pictures last summer. That improvement is today's good news. The bad news will come again tomorrow.