Tuesday, June 28, 2011

The Experience of Abraham (Part 1) - Dad's Beginnings

Today is one of those days.. One of those days you want to write an entry, but you have no topic to write about. I have been sick these past few days with Texan germs, and have not been able to do anything worth writing. In my past entries, I have mentioned that some tangent topics were a "story for next time." Well, this is the perfect time!

I guess I will begin an unofficial series by the name "The Experience of Abraham". In this series, I will basically story-tell my 20 years of life as a Christian. Just to give you a few samples, it will take place in three countries: Korea, Chile, and the USA. Now I caught your attention! What in the world was I doing in Chile? Well, read on.

Oh, wait, I have to explain why I'm calling this "The Experience of Abraham". I'm calling it this because in order for me to tell you my testimony, I have to start with my dad's testimony. And to be honest, my dad's story is definitely more interesting than my own. Anyhow, I see my dad as Abraham and myself an Isaac, because my dad went through a lot of suffering and trials so that I can know and experience Christ in such a full way. Like Isaac, I very much grew up in an environment where experiencing Christ as life was very normal and very easy to do. This isn't any of my natural abilities, but simply my parents living a life of fully trusting in the Lord. Okay! Enough prelude-ing. Let's get into it:

My dad was born in Korea on May 28, sometime in the fifties (I won't mention the specific year for privacy). I never really heard what he did when he was very young, except get injured a lot, like me. Anyhow, at the age of 18, my dad packed up his bags and traveled to the mountains to find the meaning of his life. He ran into a monk eventually somewhere deep in the mountains, and asked him what the meaning of life was. To his dismay, the monk was not able to answer his question. Frustrated that the monk with all his beliefs and meditation could not answer his question, my dad gave up of any thought of believing in Supreme Beings.

My dad entered the prestigious Seoul University as a agricultural chemistry major. During his tenure in college, he participated in many strikes and demonstrations. He truly had a heart for people, and Korea at that time had a strong imbalance of power between the government and the people. He thought that the meaning of his life was to help out the people live better, so he participated in all these activities. The Korean government feared such a movement by such radical college students and in fear of losing the battle, "enlisted" many of them to the Army. On one hand they were enlisting them, but it was a secret plot to do away with these rebellious college students. They would eventually kill these ones. My dad was enlisted with the rest of ones, and taken away. By God's sovereignty, however, my dad was able to get out of it in six months.. by failing a physical. This is funny. It is mandatory for all Korean men to serve for two years in the army -- many relationships are built and stories made during that time. My dad never really got that experience, and still today, he has nothing to share when the conversation turns to army stories. Anyhow, however funny it may be, it was all God's sovereignty. How do you fail a physical? I don't know. But thanks to that, my dad was spared of his life. Many of his comrades were killed afterwards, and the few that survived ended up becoming those in high positions in the political world. My dad still recognizes them.

We'll call it a day for now.. Stay tuned!

Part Two

Monday, June 27, 2011

My Christian College Experience Thus Far

It's already been two years.

So I just wanted to recap a little bit what has been one of my top enjoyments these past two years, especially on the corporate side. I meet with Christians on Campus, which is a sister club to Christian Students. I began meeting with Christian Students in Los Angeles during my high school years. My dad helped out here and there with the club at USC (University of Southern California), and thus I was able to meet many of the college students who were in Christian Students.

It first started out with playing basketball and table tennis with the students there. If you had asked me to go to one of the fellowships prior to playing ball with the brothers, I would have refused. But having met these older brothers in the Lord, I was less nervous to go to a Friday night college meeting they had down the street from my house.

The story goes on, and there are interesting things to point out here and there, but for the moment, I would like to fast forward to the Fall of 2009 when I first stepped into Northwestern University. Having met with Christian Students back in LA, it was a very smooth transition to meet with its sister club, Christians on Campus. Well, yes.. smooth, but only for a while. It was smooth in that I was connected with the Christians there in Chicago prior to going to college. I was able to have some sweet prayer and fellowship with some of the brothers over the phone even before I saw their faces! And I knew that Christians on Campus was very similar to Christian Students -- in their endeavoring to study the Word, their enlightening ministry to supplement the Word, and their very mutual fellowship they carried in their meetings.

The tumble came in when I stepped into campus. I was no longer a high school student who could just stand back and enjoy the flow of the riches being poured out. I don't know if you know anything about Le Tour de France, or any cycling race, but it is easy to observe that cyclists travel in packs that are in the shape of a pyramid. This is to conserve energy -- the lone cyclist in the front creates this bubble of wind shielding through aerodynamics and the cyclists behind it enjoy this kind of free boost it provides. Well, I was no longer the one standing back getting that free boost -- I was now in the position of the front cyclist.

It was a little bit hard to adjust, but the Lord really gains your heart in the times of struggle. Let's skip the struggles for now, and go straight to the enjoyment! I really enjoyed the student coordination times of Christians on Campus. Student coordination, as the title suggests, was a time we students got together to coordinate various matters of the club. There is a reason why we call it coordination instead of some organizational title. It's because during those times we enjoy the Lord! We meet every Saturday morning at 10 AM, and we sing love songs to the Lord! I have to testify, those were the meetings that I came out having fallen in love with Lord in such an intimate way. When you give up sleeping in on a Saturday morning to fellowship with other believers, the Lord is bound to respond! Anyhow, after a few songs, we like to get into the Word. Jeremiah 15:16 says that the Words were eaten. That is the very thing we do next. We take turns picking a verse we enjoyed that week and really eat it -- take it into our being. One of the best ways to do is by taking the Word by means of prayer (Eph. 6:18). I was impressed by George Muller's autobiography in this matter. But, that's another story. So after basking in this glorious enjoyment for around 30 minutes or so, we get to our earthly businesses. The upcoming bible study, the college meeting later that night, a personal need, someone who we are burdened for, etc... We open each matter up to the other members of the Body of Christ, and most importantly, we pray! We have experienced that praying every matter to the Lord is the best thing we can do. We suffered many arguments when we tried to figure things out by our own strength, only to find that our best methods are oh so short.

At approximately 11:01 AM on Saturday mornings, I head to the Plex dining hall for brunch with a heart so satisfied, I don't feeling very hungry.. well, only till I step in front of the food line.

Turtles!

This made my day today:




Sunday, June 26, 2011

First of Many

Nae eel-gee, means my diary in Korean.

Hi! My name is Joseph Bang and I just finished my second year of college. Some know me as Hansol, many as Joseph. It's a complicated story. I'll get to it later. On my first post, I just wanted to explain why I want to blog. I had just come home yesterday from Chicago (via Austin, another story), where I go to college in a smaller city by the name of Evanston. When you're home, you just want to take the first few days kind of relaxing a bit. I like to relax by looking around things - not just anything - but things that bring back memories of the past. Photo albums, old journals, videos, you name it. By my side I have a yellow, Mickey-Mouse diary that begins with an entry from December 26, 1997 - my first day in the South American country by the name of Chile (yet another story). You may wonder what I was doing in Chile. I would love to tell you, but you are going to have to wait on this one.

So back in the day, I had a strict enforcer who would force me to write daily entries recounting what had happened during that day. That enforcer was my mom and I hated writing journals. I thought my memories were invincible, and that writing journals was for girls. I much preferred to run around a few more minutes out on the block than pencil some then-what-I-thought meaningless words in pre-printed lines of paper. It even had little icons that you circled what kind of day that day was (sunny, cloudy, rainy, snowy, etc..) and a clock where you draw the arms of the time you woke up.

What I thought was so silly a decade ago remains so precious to me today. The fact that I can enter into the forgotten past is very soothing. I regret the days I went to bed without putting pencil to paper.

Which is why I'm on this blog.

I want to be able to look back on this blog a decade or two from now, and smile. I can't promise myself that I will write every single day. That's hard. I failed many times trying to do that. But I hope to be able to set some schedule so that I can at least write once a week. Maybe the next few days, I'll update daily, since I have some more time being vacation. Anyhow, remind me if I'm not updating often!

A few interesting facts of today: The president is a black man. Gas is a little over $3. The iPad 2 came out pretty recently. Food trucks have been around for a year. Stephen Colbert spoke in the Northwestern Commencement. The Packers won the Superbowl. The Mavs won the NBA Finals. The semi-annual training will be on the book of Psalms.

A little about me: I am a very normal Christian, living a very normal Christian life of loving the Lord, reading the Bible, enjoying the Spirit, and meeting with other fellow believers. I am a very biased Lakers fan. I am also very big advocate of Human-Centered Design, which is simply just a very fancy way of saying that I like to put on your shoes before I do anything to help you out. I am also a very avid reader. I used to read a lot of novels when I was young, but now I just read non-fiction books geared towards teaching some specific skill.