Month: August 2006

In my last entry for CHOICE, encouraging is something difficult to do with people you spend most time with.  I find myself doing less of that with my kids.  I believe that with those you spend more time with, you see more and more of their faults than their potentials.  My take is that it is the human nature of our sinfulness manifesting within ourselves.

So I make more and more conscious efforts to see the good things that Anna and JJ do.  It’s effortless to just get mad at them when they disobey me and get hurt, or they are doing things I told them not to do.  Yet, I let pass the right things and the good things that they do.  I now take extra effort, especially in small things, to tell them that they are doing well.

Why?  Their mental well-being is in the control of me.  Being a parent, you become a world to them, and if I want them to grow up healthy, I need to nurture their mental growth as well.  You should see their faces glowing when I tell them how well they did.

I drive a lot.  If you know where we live, we drive a LOT!  From Clear Lake area (south of Houston near Johnson Space Center) to any other parts of Houston and the Greater Houston area takes lots of time.  I’ve grown accustomed to driving for at the least an hour.  Then you add factors like kids, it becomes an even greater challenge.  But in the midst of all this, I want to still make to as many church-related events and meetings as possible.  Primary reason is to support the church events.  However, secondary is to challenge others, especially the single folks.

I know that after work, the last thing you want to do is drive far.  This happened to me on this past Wednesday.  We had our share/prayer meeting but I felt so tired that I didn’t want to bother driving across town.  I still have my moments of not wanting to push myself.  However, in my life-long war against my other (older) inner-self, I laid out an offensive within me and won the battle.  I drove out to Joy and Joanna’s place for our meeting.

One of the things that I want others to see or think is this: “If Peter and Soojin can make it, so can I!”  If you think moving around after work is challenging, try doing that with two kids!  Getting to church on time was relatively easy beforehand, but now, it’s a struggle.  But the last thing any of us should use as an excuse to not make it to a meeting or service is because we feel tired or too far or not enough time.  God didn’t do that with me.  So I sure am going to try again and again to go against my other self and get to where God’s people are meeting.  I pray that you do too.

This may sound very odd.  Heck, it will just downright sound weird.  Why?  ‘Cause that’s what I believe is my calling.  In the fourth of CHOICE as prescribed by our Pastor Shawn, when it comes to inspiration, I don’t have much to give… except for a few.  In Korean word, people call me as the ???, King of Off-the-wall Humor.  I have very weird sense of humor, let alone have developed a rather … un… unique … personality.

It’s a calling to me.  Almost on an inspiration level.  What the heck am I talking about?  I believe that comedians and clowns are rather misunderstood and underappreciated people.  They have the gift of breaking the ice.  When the situation needs a soft change, clowns and comedians sacrifice themselves to make others laugh.  Such is what I believe to be one of my callings.

If others can see that even people like myself can be so odd, nerdy, and weird, I want those who are not as well accepted or received to feel… welcome.  To both inspire, but more to encourage others who feel that they are bit odd and weird to feel accepted is something only an outsider or outcast can understand.

Did I make sense?  I doubt I did to most… but to those that I did, I pray that you’d be inspired to be the you that God has created and not be ashamed of it… no matter how weird you think you may be.

When it comes to reaching out and missions, I think of my very first time I went on mission trip.After all, it was through that that God had changed my life and my perspective.

Back when I attended St. John’s Korean United Methodist Church near Boston, I was merely finishing my first year in college.My roommate, Ben Koo, had returned from the church-sponsored mission trip to Thailand.His stories and pictures had stirred up something deep inside of me, and when Pastor John J. Lee encouraged me to pray about it, I did and on we went.

When we landed in Thailand, it was hot!Houston hot!The missionary that we worked with, Achan (Thai designation for someone of respect) Yang, was an ordinary looking middle-aged Korean man but was as dark as a native Thai and spoke just as fluent.His calling was rather striking.In the poorer countryside of Thailand in Chiang Mai area live a tribe known as Mong.They are considered and treated by Thai as third class citizens.And among them, there’s a village of lepers.It’s not a hereditary disease so when Achan Yang went there and started ministering, he realized that if the kids were to have any chance in life, they had to be moved elsewhere.So he started an orphanage in the area nearby and to give them a future and raise a new generation of Thai, he hand-picked promising kids and took them down to Bangkok and to basically feed them, shelter them, give them education, as well as raising them as Christians.This story alone spoke volume to me.Our role was rather simple.We were to go simply as encouragement to these forgotten brothers and sisters (as their self-esteem was rather low) and teach English classes for the summer.The classes would go for six weeks.I have never been a fan of class system and to see them being ignored for simply being from a nomadic tribe made me develop empathy.

After the classes were done, we visited that orphanage and the lepers’ village.I was not ready for it at all.The kids were congregating around us as if they had not seen a human for years.Though we only spent a day with them, my heart was broken, and upon my return to the States, I could not erase them from my poor memory.Over the next year or so, I had begun to struggle with the concept of life-long mission commitment.At first, I had only thought of the likes of savages eating the missionaries.However, when I overcame my own shallowness, God had implanted in me desire to serve these lost kids, the orphans, as my QTs came across numerous references to how God wanted us to oversee and look after the orphans, the aliens, the widows, and the poor.

Though I am struggling to go as long-term tent-makers (missionaries that are self-supported, as apostle Paul was) after paying off my debt, I take my current days as an opportunity and reminder to the God’s calling.I tell myself over and over again that I don’t have to wait till I am overseas somewhere to help the less fortunate as God would have me do, but that it should be a life-long goal.