Influential Music of my Past

I grew up with pop music… of the ’80s including Korean pop like Lee Mun Sae and Lee Sun Hee. Then I grew up and became a Christian. Slowly but surely, my music taste also evolved from mix of pop, classical, and jazz… into… something more. Here are the bands that have affected me the most since, with the year that I was introduced to them.

Pray for Rain (aka. PFR) 1991
Third Day 1995
Switchfoot 1997
OC Supertones 1998
Five Iron Frenzy 2001
Relient K 2005

Other bands of noteworthy are Sanctus Real, Thousand Foot Krutch, DC Talk, Petra, Newsboys, and Sixpence None the Richer.

Relient K and mae Concert

So thanks to Joy and Joanna, I found out that these two bands were coming to town! 
This was back in February or so and I was ecstatic to go as they were some of my recent favorites… in addition to Thousand Foot Krutch, Sanctus Real, and Kutless.

However, it was turning out to be rather a difficult day… with John & Joann’s baby June’s 100th Day celebration and Yong Baek & Jenn’s baby Lauren’s 1st birthday, on top of all day rain, things were … challenging.

Still, I managed to leave at 8:20 pm or so though the concert started at 8 pm.  Soojin graciously drove home separately taking the kids home and I made it to downtowon’s Verizon Theater.  But with no cash, I had to find a street parking in the rain.  By the time I got in, it was about 8:40 pm or so already and I was worried that I had missed mae’s opening act.    However, when I called Joy to join the gang of Chris and James, I was pleasantly surprised that the opening act that just finished was not mae, but Sherwood!! 

When mae came onto the stage, I was again surprised that their “energy” was nothing like their album!  They were… “louder” than they sounded on the album… expecting more of British-invasion-like band sound, I was glad to find out that they were more like Thousand Foot Krutch in live.  And then came the Relient K!  I was thoroughly enjoying it at this point…  I almost lost my voice that night as I was singing as loud as I could along with them.  That’s the way I enjoy the concerts… I have to be able to sing along with them.  Otherwise, why bother coming, right?

However, I did feel a bit… out of place.  99% of the audience was under 20… heck maybe even under 17!    All these kids jumping and such… I did my bit of share of head banging and such but nothing compared to them!  I was there to the end as the others left just a bit earlier… I was soooo hoping that they would play “Less is more” at the end but… oh well.

On Sunday, James made a comment on the likes of how he expected me to be the type that sang hymnals all day.  LOL…  Well, I was even more glad to help him break his stereotyping!    Thanks again Joy for “organizing”.  My ears were ringing a bit for the rest of the night…  but I enjoyed it.

Resurrection Day

Portrait of Christ

Part II

New Morning
And a New Day
That teased the hearts of the Ladies
For hope.

The Birds sang of Unprecedented Miracle.
Angels spoke of Resurrection.
In front of an
Empty bed,
What once held our Savior
Now shouted with Joy.

Confused women
But full of wonder and delightful shock!
Ran only knowing the only thing they knew how…
To share the joy!

Earthquake was his name;
A LORD’s Messenger,
Quicker than a lightning
So might in power
Proclaiming
The only thing he knew:
Of the LORD’s
Disappearance…
From the wretched tomb.

The sky that once gloomed
With judgment was now
Warming the earth
Giving it nurturing energy.

That Day was different.
The Nature knew that.
Yet, we the foolish
Couldn’t comprehend still
What had happened
Being so limited in heart.

Then appeared He
To the Magdalene
To comfort & strengthen,
Yet the faithless believed not
Her testimony.

Later on the road to Emmaus,
Did He appear to two
Where Jesus shared Scriptures
With them encouraging
And teaching them.

Jesus rebuked Thomas
Who couldn’t see with his heart & faith
Yet, He blessed them.
But He showed love
To Peter to show him
That He still loved him,
And He gave Peter what he needed so much:
A Second Chance.

The once Humiliated and Abandoned Son,
Now full of Glory and Honor,
Spoke only of Peace to His Children
And returned unto rightful Father’s Arms
Telling us to wait for that
Time when He shall
Return for us all…

Good Friday

Portrait of Christ

Part I

Imagine, if you will,
The last few days of Christ.
Before the Crucifixion.

Barabbas released;
Unfair for the fair.
Christ to the Cross, the rotten wood.
To be given the worst death sentence
Of His time.

Thorny crown on His head
Deeply piercing for blood.
Mocked as a “fake”
With a purple robe, made fun of.

Bearing His own heavy tree
To the hills of Golgotha.
Barefoot.  On gravel.  Bleeding.
Sweat dripping down mixed with blood,
Stenching His white clothes.

Crucified on the third hour
With His title over Him.
Spat at.
Ridiculed at.  Insulted.

Loneliness.  In Anguish…
Darkness filled the sky.
So dark that the earth shook.
And at a tremendous rate,
The sins of the Past,
The Present,
And the Future flowed
Vehemently into Him.

But the worst was not over
For God had to abandon Him.
“Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?!”
So He screamed to the Heavens
About to be handed over to
Isolation in Hell.

Yet, they still had to torture Him.
Offered vinegar as a drink to worsen His thirst
To a man who lost one pint too many.

In His pains & sorrow,
He cried out loudly…
It echoed to the eight corners of the Earth.
And…
His head fell.

The tearing of the curtains
Showed the Father’s anger.
The nature brought
Calamity for
It even showed mournful heart.

…And as if that wasn’t enough,
They had to put a spear through Him
To shed only more blood
And split His White clothes
Amongst themselves,
To satisfy their greed beyond their soul.

Humiliation.  in front of everyone.
Torture.  smeared into His pure body.
Mockery.  of disdain and indifference.
Pain.  that was humanly unbearable.
PAIN!  The Father’s Abandonment.
Isolation.  beyond anyone’s Imagination in Hell.
Abandonment.  no longer feeling Father’s Presence…
His Vitality.

Now,
One who was always full of Spirit
Was now full of sin.

Learning to adapt

In my world of occupation as an engineer, it’s not enough to just know your field.  Knowing maths and physics is not going to guarantee your job in the future.  Everybody knows that in this ever evolving job market, one needs to continuously learn new things.

Exactly what does that entail?  Just take a look at the programs I had to learn over the years…

CFD related:  DPLR, Overflow, FieldView 10 and 11
Programming language:  C, Fortran 77/90, Pascal, Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications (VBA)
Scripting:  Perl, C-shell script, FieldView script
OS:  Windows, Unix, Linux
CAD Experience:  MSC/NASTRAN, CADKEY, EDS VisView 4.1
Web:  HTML, Macromedia Dreamweaver MX, Cold Fusion, Microsoft Access Database
Publishing:  Adobe FrameMaker 5.5, Microsoft Office, Adobe Acrobat 4.0/5.0/6.0
Other:  Microsoft Project, Microsoft Visio, Computer hardware & software

So what does that all mean?  Just as I have to keep learning and adapt to the working world as it continuously seems to expand, so must our spiritual lives.  Always finding and seeking ways to see God in different light, learning of Him in new ways, placing Him outside the box…  Why?  Because God is infinite and to think/believe that after certain amount of time, that we know Him well enough, is to fool and deceive ourselves.  I must continuosly look for Him in this world, seeing His big and small miracles working in people’s lives.

Tomorrow is Good Friday… Thank you God for your gift of sacrifice.  Amen.

God is amazing… simply amazing!!

So I didn’t know that airline ticket price wasn’t so expensive! That’s what I get for missing the first meeting… but to this day, I thought that tickets were $5k per person!! That’s what expedia and others were showing, if at all!

So at every 10 pm, when Soojin and I prayed for God to help us raise $35K somehow!! Well, I also slowly started sharing that with some co-workers… Carlton, being one of those few…

Today, for those that were there (Joanna, Christine, and PS) know that I wanted us to pray for Carlton continuously as he seemed still w/o spiritual home… After praying for him, PS and I hung out at “It’s a Grind”… and all of a sudden, I get a call from Carlton at 10 pm!! And he starts sharing how God wanted him to give some money to church or something… and as he started praying, 5000 got stuck in his head… and as he prayed, he felt led to give that money for our mission trip!!

If PS wasn’t there right next to me, I’d have thought that this was a dream!! Wow… I was just dumbfounded… God had caught me off guard… waaaay off guard!! I was very encouraged, least to say, that God had raised that amount just like that! Another proof that if He willed, it will happen in an instant!! Praise God indeed….

Wow… so I asked PS if I didn’t have to mail out support letters anymore! Of course, I would still… Just wanted to share awesome news!

Donate for Ethiopian Mission Trip ’07

Well, this year, by God’s grace and mercy, our church is going to Ethiopia! And with the help of my dear wife, Soojin (mainly caring for the kids while I’m gone!), I’m going too! If you feel led, please consider giving to this worthy cause… I promise I won’t squander it! You can donate to our church PayPal account…