Over the past decade, tens of thousands defectors have crossed the dangerous waters of the Tumen and Yalu Rivers into northeast China to escape from North Korea, the world’s last closed Communist state. In the hour-long documentary Crossing Heaven’s Border, Wide Angle tells the moving stories of a few of those defectors.

Pastor Chun Ki Won is the director of Durihana, a Christian missionary organization that helps North Korean defectors make the treacherous journey along the Asian underground railroad to safety in South Korea. In the six-minute interview below, Chun describes the ordeal that the defectors endure and the complex relationship that they have with Christianity. The Wide Angle website on Crossing Heaven’s Border is here.