Friday, August 26, 2011

The Experience of Isaac (Part 2) - My First Year in Chile

Picking up from where we left of from last time, I was on board on a plane headed halfway across the globe. Chile was a country I never, ever dreamt of going. All I knew about it was that it was a geographically skinny country on the west side of South America. I knew nothing of the culture, the language, the people, etc...


At that time, I was only seven. I was still a bit clueless at that age, and I just thought this is what life was. On the other hand, it must have been really hard for the rest of my family. My dad, of course, was being sent away for reasons mentioned in previous blogs. I truly appreciate the fact that my dad stuck with the truth he saw in the Bible, rather than conforming to what other pastors in their concepts thought was right or wrong. Mom always took me to cool places in Korea. Growing up, I remember going to a bunch of museums and afterschool programs that involved raising caterpillars, legos, math classes, etc.. She was always looking for ways to allow my sister and I to have the best educational experiences. Well, going to Chile meant forsaking her aspirations as a educational mother. The language and the culture in Chile, I must say, it's totally upside down than from that in Korea (maybe the opposite hemispheres account to that). My sister, who is four years older than I am, left Korea in the middle of elementary school. I believe she must have had it harder than I had, because I entered Chile with a blank slate. Her, on the other hand, had to basically give up everything she learned in Korea.


First time I set foot in Chile I was fascinated. The street lights were very different from those we found in Korea, and there were these roads called one-way roads that allowed cars to travel only in one direction. That puzzled me for months. I always wondered how the cars would reach a certain destination. We moved into an apartment called the "Monte Carlo's." They were nice 2 bedroom apartments that had a swimming pool across the street.


I still remember my first meal in Chile. In Santiago, they would bake fresh bread every day. It was a kind of round loaf that was a bit hard to chew on. Dad, on our first few days or so, brought a whole bag of them home. Now, I really don't know what made him do that. I'm guessing he probably didn't know that bread was baked every day in Chile... Neither did I know. Anyhow, I have to account my love for strawberry jam to that bag of bread. Even if life was as hard as those loaves, there was something sweet you can spread to get you through it.


In the Southern Hemisphere, it's summer when it's winter in the Northern Hemisphere, and vice versa. So I got to enjoy going to the swimming pool every sunny day.. till school started.


My sister and I were enrolled in one of the few public schools in Chile. In fact, most of the schools in Chile were private with some Catholic affiliations. They required students to wear uniforms in school, if which I remember correctly, they were pretty stylish. You had a tan overcoat, charcoal slacks, a white shirt and a red tie, if I remember correctly.


Anyhow, I remember going to school without having any idea what was going on. I remember going to school and being introduced to the first graders in school. I swear that I was kind of in this weird state where I heard noises here and there but had no clue what they meant. It was pretty darn confusing. We had a spelling quiz the next day though, and I remember studying so hard for that quiz. I don't know what motivated me, but I just felt the need to prove myself out there. Well, hard work did pay off as I was the only kid in the class who got a perfect score. I still remember my teacher being so proud of me and congratulating me in front of the whole class. In Chile, 7 was the highest score you can get in an assignment, and there was this joke that went around that there were some Korean parents who were very disappointed because their child was receiving 7s only (thinking that 10 was the highest score). Anyhow, I was proud of my 7s.


Well, many things happened that year in escuela. I made many friends and began to be the top student in my school. I remember how my mom would pack me this cereal + yogurt combo pack for me to take to school, and how it would always spill on to my coat when I opened it because of the difference in pressure. I remember how I had my first ankle sprain as I was walking back from the restroom back to class. I walked it off and eventually it felt better, which I think caused me to think that walking it off would make every ankle sprain better. I remember how I was first introduced to basketball in P.E., and how we tried to make a shot in that once-impossibly-tall rim. I remember how we had this end of the year performance where we danced a Chilean traditional dance, and how onlookers were awestruck that a korean kid was dancing so well. (Okay, I don't mean to boast or anything, but it was a really simple dance..). I remember my best friend Thomas, we would always hang out together and how I went to his birthday party. I don't remember too much of the party, except that my parents came to pick me up pretty late. When they finally arrived at Thomas' place, they had a little chat with whom I originally thought were Thomas' parents. Well, I found out that they were his grandparents, and that Thomas didn't have a mom and a dad. I was still too young to understand life at that time, but I remember my heart was very sorrowful that night.

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Lateee

I wanted to make a post today, but it's so late now.. I have to go to bed.

Today was fun. This week has been very productive. So to tell you of what I've been doing this summer after that crazy month of consecutive events, I have been helping out in preparations for the Christians on Campus club with UIC and NU. For the past week, it's been mainly with UIC, since school starts early for them.

This "work" I do is almost like a full-time job. Starting as early as 8:30 AM and going as late as 9:30 PM. I have been worked. But I feel very satisfied and rested. You know why? Because it's not like any other job. It's heavenly. We start out at 8:30 PM by singing a hymn. What workplace starts your day singing praises to the Lord? Then we feed our spiritual stomachs by getting into the Word in a prayerful way. This way of reading the Word is so much beneficial than just eyeing through the lines of the pages. We take the time to prayer God's own words back to Him. Sweet times. After getting into some expository reading material, we begin our labor.

We labor by prayer. There is a quote by Watchman Nee somewhere that says something like "Why do we work so much and pray so little, when we can do so much with prayer...?" I love how everything we do, we cover it in prayer. The small details such as making the flyers for our welcome dinner. The day before, as Dion and I were working on this together, I just felt a negative feeling in my being that I was trying to work so hard on this flyer out of my natural strength and I was trying to work with Dion in a good but very natural way. We started praying, and although very awkward and hard at first, we really pulled through. We usually spend about an hour praying for the things we are about to work on that specific day. I've never prayed so long together with a group of believers, and I must say it's wonderful.

After prayer to cover everything, we begin working. Some of our freer days we like to get into some ministry material together. It's good to get fed and constituted with the truths in the Bible, so that we become competent to teach others. It also provides us much nourishment.

Our labor goes on till around lunch time, where the brothers usually grab lunch together. These times of eating together and just fellowshipping are one of the precious moments of the day. It's just so good to be with the brothers. Every lunch time while we take a rest, I see myself and another brother across the table, and I just thank the Lord for putting me in an environment where I get to hang out with brothers all the day.

Labor continues after lunch depending on what and how much needs to be done. But in the afternoon time I like to get a little bit of personal truth hunting myself. (I will talk about this later sometime)...

After that, usually go home and once I take care of dinner and chores and other things, I end up in a time like the one I'm staring at right now.. around 11:53 PM. Good night folks.

Sunday, August 14, 2011

Blending Trip to St. Louis

Just came back from an awesome blending trip to St. Louis, Missouri. The brothers and sisters I have met there will forever be in my heart.

We left from the Church in Chicago meeting hall a little after noon. We composed of myself, Patty, and the Navarrete family. As usual, the car ride with the Navarrete's was unseemingly amusing. We ended up breaking into their friday night home meeting around 8:00 PM. I may say this a lot, but I really mean this -- I appreciate being able to walk into a stranger's house and enjoy the Lord together with Christians I've never met before. This is why I love the church life and the fellowship of the Body of Christ. All the saints I met there seem like I've known since I was born.

I got to stay in the St. Louis brother's house, where Joe and Timothy lived. I truly appreciate the fellowship I had with these two brothers. Anyhow, Saturday morning, Joe and I cooked a fancy breakfast for ourselves consisting of eggs, bacon, bread and coffee. Soon after, we went to brother Julio's house. There we had some of the God-Ordained Way fellowship, which was really enjoyable and practical! After grabbing lunch together, we went gospel preaching in the loop area of St. Louis. We met an interesting fella by the name of Cody. By the way, he had a self-proclaimed middle name, "Babble." As the name states, he likes to babble a lot. For every minute Joe and I got to say something, he would speak for a good five minutes. I never had any encounter like this. Anyhow, I eventually figured out that there was no way I can reason with this guy. So I decided to get straight to the point. Romans 10:13 says that whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. I asked Cody if we can try out an experiment. He agreed. So I told him:

"Okay, I want you to call on the name of George Washington three times."

Cody gave me a face, but decided to give it a go anyway -- "George Washington, George Washington, George Washington," said Cody.

"Well, do you feel any different?" I inquired.

And as I expected, "Nope," Cody replied.

"That's right, because George Washington is dead in his grave right now, and as a dead person he can't come to you when you call on him," I said. Milliseconds later, before he had a chance to start babbling again, I inserted: "Now, I want you to call Lord Jesus three times."

Again, he gave me a what-in-the-world? look. But as I insisted, he quietly responded: "Lord Jesus, Lord Jesus, Lord Jesus."

I should have stopped it there, but I tried to say a few more things, which ended up in another 5 minutes of babbling. Anyhow, I learned from my mistakes... in the case I meet a similar guy.

We went to Cold Stone afterwards to grab some ice cream and take a break. Joe and Timothy then showed me around the Wash U. campus, which was a beautiful campus. Lord's Day morning, we met with the Church in St. Louis to break the bread, had lunch at Sweet Tomatoes with the saints there, and left shortly after back to Chicago.

Saturday, August 13, 2011

The Experience of Isaac (Part 1)

There is a reason why the title is called the experience of Isaac -- It's not two different stories, but one story of two different people. In the bible, Isaac was Abraham's son who enjoyed all the blessings that were brought through all the trouble Abraham went through. I feel like that's been my experience. Anyhow, enjoy--
---
This is where I come in the story. Or, I have already, but I haven't really talked about it yet. I was born in Seoul, Korea, May 5th, 1991. May 5th in the States is Cinco de Mayo. May 5th in Korea is National Children's Day. So every birthday I used to go to the National Children's Park. Anyhow, I never really had much of a memory till I was like 5 years old. But here's what my parents tell me --
I was born as a pretty healthy baby. They say that my first few months as a baby was pretty good. It wasn't much later when I began to have problems. I had digestion problems in my stomach, and I wasn't able to get any food into my system. I was taken to the hospital but they couldn't figure out what was wrong with me. They said I didn't have much of a chance.
It was somewhere around this time that my dad started to have his spiritual turn (one described in the previous blog) as well. That plus my health caused him to really seek God in a genuine way. I don't mean to recall this next part as a way to boast myself in any way, but I do have a real appreciation for it. Let me recount it first -- When it was coming close to the point that I was not able to make it, my parents began to pray even more desperately. Eventually, they had no choice but to offer my life to the Lord, consecrating my future just as Hannah promised God to offer Samuel to serve Him. Anyhow, I don't say this to puff myself up in anyway; rather, I have to acknowledge my parent's faithfulness to what I am now in the present. Without such a consecration made by my parents, I don't think I would be the person I am now.
Not too long after, my health began to recover dramatically. I remember my mom saying that my grandma brought some boiled (mu). I don't know what it's called in English, but it's a kind of a white radish that koreans use to make kimchi. Anyhow, maybe that's why I love bone soup with mu so much. Haha. Let's get back to the topic. That supposedly really help me get my digestion back... but you know how Koreans say that every vegetable is good for something..
I remember always feeling a little weak growing up. There are many memorable events during my childhood in Korea. But let me just tell you a few of the interesting stories I have. For the majority of the time, I lived in the Guk-Hwa apartments which was in a part of Seoul called Mun-Rae Dong. In front of the apartments there was a brick wall, of which over it, was my bus stop. I remember how my mom always used to lift me up over the brick wall so that I would catch my bus on time. I went around various kindergatens, which listing them will probably bore you. In one of them, I got in a fight with one of my classmates for something I can't remember.. it was either over a girl or for a toy. Anyhow, I remember we were in fighting stance and right then and there this thought came into mind that I should do a cartwheel, and on the way up, I would kick him on the face. So I did it and successfully kicked my classmate on the face. He started crying and immediately the teacher came over. He didn't hit me, but I felt so bad when my teacher rebuked me of what I had done wrong that I started crying as well. Anyhow, after we finished crying we became really close friends.. Haha.. Hmm.. what else is an interesting thing that happened to me in Korea? I remember one winter day I was coming back home in the bus and it had snowed. Some snow had fallen inside the open windows on the bus and one very small piece landed right on my finger. As it started melting and getting smaller by the warmth of my finger, I remembering seeing a perfect snowflake within a fraction of a second. Its six legs were very clear to my eyes. Oh, and in this one time, a friend of mine who used to live in the same apartment got some fart bombs from the store. We were fooling around in the parking lot looking where we should plant it. We decided to throw it into a curb that had some plants. As soon as he threw it and we began to ran, we didn't see this car that was coming right at us. I was running behind my friend, and my friend barely missed the car, but got his foot rolled over by the tire of the car. Now that I think about it, that's pretty hilarious. It was that same friend that took me to another friend's house where we stayed hours playing video games. I came home that afternoon later than usual and found my mom fuming with anger. She was very upset that I had not told her where I was and for being home very late. That was my first memory of getting punished by my mom.
Well, I can go on and on with snippets of stories here and there. But let's forward to December 25th of 1997. I was seven at the time, so I was pretty well aware of my surroundings. I remember it was Sunday right after service, my mom, sister and I were walking back home. There was no sign of snow anywhere and the sky was bright and sunny. It was that day that I came to the conclusion that Santa did not exist, because his reindeers were no where to be found in such a sunny day. Umm.. that has nothing to do with what I was about to write, but I thought it was pretty darn interesting. Anyhow, it was that same day that we boarded the plane to Chile...

Thursday, August 11, 2011

College Training 2011 - A Man of God

It's getting late.. I have yet to pack for my trip to St. Louis tomorrow. I'm working on the Exp. of Abraham Part 5 pretty soon.. Sad thing is I have to read my blog to see where I left off at, and then start brainstorming again. I really want to make this blog thing a every day thing. I think it's a good practice to set aside 15 minutes to just write about anything.

Anyhow, today will be a recap of the College Training which was in Fairborn, Ohio. For those of you who don't know, the College Training is awesome. It's something that I do have the words to describe them with, but don't want to use them because I'm afraid that even those words cannot capture my excitement. You just have to come and see.

This year, the topic was on the man of God as seen on 1 and 2 Timothy. I really enjoyed that a man of God is simply one who partakes of God's life and nature, to the point that he becomes so one with God's life and nature, thus expressing God's life and nature. It's so simple: just enjoy the Lord, and then you express the Lord. There are various aspects of what a man of God is. One that strikes me the most and the one I remember the best is that a man of God is a good minister of Christ Jesus. This is based on 2 Tim. 4:6. In order for you to be able to minister Christ, you yourself have to be feeding on this Christ. In fact the best ministers are those who are the best eaters.

Speaking of ministering, a brother that I'm very close to introduced me to this audio file of another brother who speaks regarding our constitution for the truth. It's a four-hour sharing of how to become really constituted with the ministry and the Word. I haven't fully had the time to dive deep into it yet, but I appreciated this verse in 2 Tim. 2:2 - "And the things which you have heard from me through many witnesses, these commit to faithful men, who will be competent to teach others also."

Here you see 5 generations of ministers --
1st: Paul "me"
2nd: many witnesses
3rd: Timothy "you"
4th: faithful men
5th: others

This shows that the New Testament ministry, which is the ministry that started with John the Baptist and continued by the Lord Jesus, Peter, Paul, John and those later in church history, is a ministry that is continually passed down. It doesn't stay with me, nor do I selfishly hold on to it, but whatever I see, whatever I experience, it's for others to enjoy!

Anyhow, I better get packing..

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

And I'm Back in Action... + Recap of Summer Training

Hi folks!

Sorry for the inactiveness this past month or so. July and a sprinkle of August have been extremely packed for me as I was 4 or 5 different places during that period of time. Well, where should I start? The Experience of Abraham (My dad's testimonies) will soon be coming. But I want to spend the next few days recapping this past month of July/August.

Here's what had happened:
July 4-9 - Summer Training in Anaheim, CA
July 18-24 - Summer College Training in Fairborn, OH
July 24-28 - Summer School of Truth Part 1 in Streamwood, IL
July 31-Aug 6 - Summer School of Truth Part 2 in Camp Grow, WI

Now there are so many things that happened through all these events, and I am so sorry to say that I won't be able to cover them all in detail, but I'll try my best to pick out the best portions to tell.. So, let's get to it --

Summer Training 2011

For those of you who are not very familiar with the term "Semi-Annual Training", it is a week-long conference where Christians from all over the globe gather together to enjoy the Lord together and study the truth. The topic for this past training was the book of Psalms and I'm very excited to say that I did not know there were so many riches in the book of Psalms. There is a specific reason why it's called a "training." Like the name states, this isn't a mere gathering of Christians for 4 hours a day to listen to messages. Nope. This is a 24/7 training where we spend every moment studying the truths given to us. And the best part is that it is so enjoyable. In my opinion, there's nothing better than being in a group of believers who love the Lord and love the Word for a week to fully give ourselves to these things. The atmosphere there is so conducive to be saturated with the ministry.

For the past few trainings (there's one every winter and summer), I've been staying in a place called the Chan's for hospitality. Not every single trainee gets this opportunity of staying at a house with 35 other brothers, so I thank the Lord that I get such a chance. The time spent with each and every brother is precious. And I know I said training above, but that doesn't mean we don't have any fun. We have some rec time scheduled into our schedule to make sure we get some physical exercise, and fellowship over the dinner table is a nice time to get to the brothers in a personal way.

If I can summarize the Summer Training in four words, it would be Christ, house, city, and earth. This was a resounding theme through out the training. Of course, Christ is the center of the Bible, and it is not surprising that as one of the components in the Bible, Psalms is filled with Christ. In fact, I think it is the second most quoted OT book in the New Testament (Second to Isaiah). The house of God and the city of God are two aspects of the church, the Body of Christ. In the beginning of the Bible, in Genesis 1:26, God created man in His own image and gave man to have dominion over everything on the earth. These two matters in Genesis 1:26 are seen through the two aspects of the church as the house and the city.

As the house of God, we express God through the enjoyment of the riches. There are many practical examples of this matter: an American man is the expression of all the riches of America. Through the eating of the rich and healthy produce of America, the American man in turn expresses those riches. A man from a third-world country, on the other hand, growing up with the lack of riches of the third world country, expresses that in turn. Thus, the members of the house God, who were created in the image of God, express God by enjoying all the riches of the house.

Many Christians stop here. And to be honest, I have to confess that many times I have stopped here myself and have wanted to stop here. There is a second aspect of the church, and this matter is the matter of the city of God. The city of God is a place where God has the freedom to rule over everything. This is how the earth should be, but sadly to say, there is rebellion everywhere against God that was created by the first rebellion. Anyhow, this is something I myself need to experience more and study more. The Lord wants to come back and have His kingdom on the earth. But in order for this to happen, there must be a beachhead of Christians who allow the Lord to have His kingdom in their hearts. In World War II, it was through one beachhead that the Allied Forces were able to overthrow the Axis Forces. Likewise, all that the Lord needs is a group of believers who give Him the utmost permission to rule within their hearts first.