Home!

I am so excited to be back home in America. Last week I attended the Sungdong UBF's Summer Bible Conference. Then it was the struggle to pack all my luggage as I realized I accumulated more and more things as I stayed in Korea. I think I brought more than 150 pounds of things. Although it was great being able to go to Korea for seven weeks, I am sooo glad to be back home. Somehow America feels more like home. I just feel more free here!

Two of my prayer topics before coming to America was to adjust well to the time differences and not to get sick during the whole process of going to the Summer Bible Conference there, packing, traveling, and then going to the International Summer Bible Conference here just after two days. God is good! When I went to Korea, I had a hard time adjusting to the time differences and I think it took me about a week to get over the jetlag. The first two days, I took a nap from two to eight pm or something similar to that. However when I came to America, I didn't take a nap the whole first day! I believe God is helping me really adjust to the time differences. Praise God!

I also drove for the first time after a while yesterday. It felt really weird at first but now it feels normal.

After a while, I started thinking in Korean. Since in the Korean culture you say "an-young-hae-sae-yo" and bow every time you greet an older person, I automatically keep bowing when I greet people. Also whenever I couldn't understand someone and said "neh," which mean "yes" in Korean, people would automatically repeat themselves. Actually I said "neh" a lot and I keep saying it here now too...

Busan

On Monday and Tuesday I traveled to Busan with Yejee. On Monday we went to the Haeundae beach and on Tuesday, we toured Busan. It was really pretty!

Week Five!

I came back to Seoul last Sunday and I've spent most of the weekdays at the center.

On Monday I spent time with my cousins Hye-jin and Dong-in. Our plans got cancelled because of the heavy rain, so we went all the way to the end of one metro line and ate chicken galbi. Then we went all the way back and watched a Korean movie. It took an hour and a half each way!

On Tuesday I met up with Sarah and Sam at my center and we went to the Children's Grand Park with the pastor's wife. (Her name is Esther Lee and missionary Esther was her Bible student a long time ago.)

On Wednesday I went to Dongdaemoon with two people from the center and bought a bunch of pens. Then I got a call from Sarah, saying her plans got cancelled for the day. So Sarah, Sam, and I met up at Dongdaemoon and went to the Jeong's house! We've been to the their house so many times and each time, they are so welcoming!

On Thursday, I got contacts. It's taking time to adjust and I realized I don't mind wearing my glasses.

One word to summarize Friday would be ping-pong.

On Saturday I watched "Pacific Rim" with a family at the center and went biking at the Han River! I thank God that whenever we were biking, God stopped the rain.

Last week and early this week, I listened to some of the Grace Retreat messages and this quote kept repeating in my head. "It’s an unknown fact, Pheoby, you got tuh go there tuh know there." This is a quote from Their Eyes Were Watching God when the main character, Janie tells her best friend Pheoby that listening to other's experiences is not enough. You have to go there and experience it yourself. In the same way, I don't want to just listen to other's testimonies about what God has done in their lives. I love listening how God works in other people's lives, but I want to experience God myself. Therefore I don't want to be content in hearing how God works in other people's lives and I hope it is the same for you! I was thinking about how in poverty-stricken areas, we can see God heal and do crazy miracles. Yet, it is hard to see the same kind of miracles in the United States? Why is that? I believe we get content with all these other things in our lives. It is extremely important to hunger for God. I realized that lately I haven't been hungry for God. Consequently, I am giving the enemy ground in places he shouldn't be. God offers us his daily bread every day, but it is our choice whether to take it from him or not. The enemy lies and tries to convince me that there are other things more important, things that I should worry about when really, all I have to do is trust God's sovereignty. 

Two more weeks in Korea! Tomorrow I'm going to Busan with Yejee for two days. (:

(Sorry, no pictures this week. I haven't been carrying my camera around because of the rain and I realized how much lighter my bag is without my camera, haha.)

Leave the Past Behind by David Zerfoss

     Without realizing it, we often carry something around with us everywhere we go. We bring it out in our conversations, and it shows up in our attitudes. Whatever that thing is from the past may never have really existed, yet its power lives inside us and keeps us from moving forward.

     Listen to people talk throughout the day, and take note of where their conversations are grounded—in the future, in the present, or in the past. Where would you guess most conversations draw from?

     The answer is the past.

Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing!Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland. — Isaiah 43:18–19

     Some of us take our past — and, therefore, stress — with us everywhere we go, towing it along behind us. Why do we do it? It’s familiar to us. It’s that warm and fuzzy bag of stories we like to take out and share with our family, friends, and coworkers. This comfortable past is often our “best friend.” It’s who and what we know best. It’s like a worn-out easy chair or an old pair of shoes that fits us and feels just right. But God commands us, “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past." (Isaiah 43:18), lest we miss the new thing He is doing right in front of us!

When people talk about or think about their past, it seems to take on the characteristics of a real-life being. The past cannot breathe, talk, think, or do. However, it is immensely powerful and can take over our future—if we let it. It’s like the sirens on the shore, luring you toward the rocks over and over again. Focusing on the past will certainly limit your choices for the future.

Reflect upon your present blessings, of which every man has many; not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some. — Charles Dickens

For a lot of people, I know the past holds a difficult childhood, an abusive marriage, or a financially draining job loss. Yet no matter how painful our past may have been, for some strange reason we often choose not to let go. In order to get on with our future and simplify our lives, we must choose to make a clean break and leave the past behind.

There’s an engaging Peanuts cartoon where Lucy is apologizing to Charlie Brown for missing a fly ball during a baseball game. She’s sorry she missed the fly ball and says it’s because she started remembering all the others she missed. “The past got in my eyes,” she says.

     Many of us know people who are very reasonable—they have very good reasons for why they can’t move forward in life. Take for instance a person who has endured multiple bad relationships or marriages. He is certain that because of these relationships, he’s stuck in the terrible spot he’s in today. Isn’t it difficult to watch that person once again become attracted to the same type of person with whom he just ended a contentious relationship?

I’ve got my faults, but living in the past is not one of them. There’s no future in it. — Sparky Anderson, Major League Baseball Manager

     Carrying the past forward to the future will provide us with only one thing—incremental change—in our lives. “Unreasonable” people make a choice to create transformational breakthroughs, without “reasonable” ties to the past.

Each of us has a powerful choice. We have the ability to create our own simplified future by starting with a blank sheet of paper and a heart surrendered to God’s will for our lives.

We must always obey the mandate — 'onward, onward, onward.' — Charles Spurgeon

Choose to leave the past behind, and begin living a life filled with new possibilities!

This is something I read the other day, and it really stood out to me. I feel like without realizing it, I can often hold onto the past -- the bad and the good. However, God calls us to "forget the former things" because he is always doing something new!

back to the roots

Observations:

1. Whenever I take a shower at someone's house, I only seem to find small towels. Maybe it's to save space?
2. It frustrates me how the fitting rooms don't have mirrors on the inside. You have to go out and look at the mirror in front of the door. So I don't know how what I tried on looks until I go outside where there are people waiting for me.
3. The driving is pretty crazy. People go through red lights. Oh, I just realized they don't have stop signs! Or maybe they do and I don't recognize it because it's not an octagon with "STOP" on it. Most of the cars I've been in have a GPS installed in them and most of the drivers park backwards rather than forwards because there's not much space.
4. Light switches for the bathroom are always on the outside of the bathroom. I was wondering why this was so, but I realized it's probably for safety reasons.
5. People really like to hold your hand...which makes me uncomfortable when they don't let go after a long time.
6. Some parts of Korea really reminds me of Mexico. I think Korea reminds me more of Mexico than America. 

Sceneries like this remind me of Mexico! All these mountains. 

I spent majority of my fourth week in Korea in JeonJu and Namwon, the southern parts of Korea. It was good going back to my mom's roots, seeing the places she grew up decades ago. It's hard to imagine my parents as kids living in Korea! They probably never imagined living the rest of their life in the US when it was hard for them to just go to college.

I had a lot of time last week so I read a novel titled Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close which I enjoyed. It's been a while since I read a novel on my own.

And here are some pictures...

The farming place where they grow watermelons, melons, tomatoes, and peppers. The fruits taste  really good!

Melons

Look at the intricate details of God's creation.

Next to all the peppers.

2nd aunt, 1st aunt, me, my cousin (who's the same age as my mom)

2nd aunt, 1st aunt, me, cousin's wife

I really like this picture of them!

My mom's elementary school.

They used to have class outside when it was too hot inside.

I felt such like a tourist. Gwang-hal-lu in Namwon.

The family I stayed with! The one in the middle (my cousin's daughter...what does that make her in relation to me?) is coming to America with me.