Category: Thoughts

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Enjoying the little things in life

Reflecting on how JJ and Anna play and what makes them happy reminds me of this topic.  Those two are so full of life that it’s a joy (and painful due to loud noises they produce! ) to see them happy and play.  Yet, it’s the simple things that make them happy.  Eating anything from cereal to p&b sandwiches for breakfast to “jjoo-jjoo-bah” and juice.  Sleeping and playing in guitar case, to making a bed out of sofa cushions.  Their take on life is just so refreshing.  And remembering how expressive and animated JJ is confirms again and again that I need to enjoy the simpler (and smaller) things of life.  Life stops for no one.  So I’m gonna just enjoy the life that God has blessed me with and not worry (at least try hard!) about finances or jobs or whatever tries to get stuck in my head.  Why?  ‘Cause I won’t have today to enjoy tomorrow.  Don’t live to regret things.

Carpe diem!

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Be good to your pastors

What do you think is the most stressful job? I’m sure being a parent is quite stressful, along with being a teacher! But just as stressful is a pastor!

Both my father and my only brother are full-time pastors. They don’t get paid well. I grew up being a PK so I know first-hand how much stuff one has to do as a pastor. Well, my dad has been a long-time gungho pastor that proves that you don’t become one without 1) being called to be a pastor and 2) if you want to make lots of money! O_o

On top of all that, pastors these days must be well versed in computers, good in public speaking, be sociable and peacemakers. Even if everyone was helpful, the job is very stressful. My father, bless his heart, has become bold, has weak heart, and high blood pressure. And I attribute most of that due to stress. And where does stress for pastors come from mostly? People. The sheep. Members.

So treat your pastor out to lunch or dinner more often. Take better care of their family. Be more attentive to their needs. Give more of yourself to the church. I know Pastor Shawn will want me to delete the following stuff once he finds out, but there’s a LOT on his heart. And we as his sheep should help him in all that we can. Put more of your time into serving others. Take off from his plate. In the end, taking care of our pastor and his family is taking care of our own church. God bless. If he gets worn out, so will the church. Especially pray for his migraine headaches. Let Satan have nothing on him.

To me, pastors are my heroes.

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“There Is No Me Without You” – A look into tragic reality in Ethiopia, poverty, and orphans

Our required reading is a book by the title of “There is no me without you” by Melissa Fay Greene.  I’ve been putting off the reading for some time now… It’s not that I’m just lazy.  This book scares me.    Why?  The author tells of her travels and stories of her accounting of Ethiopia and she captures the reality of the country’s situation so well, it should scare any normal person!

I had very difficult time getting through the first chapter.  It’s not that it’s boring.  It is just that it’s sooo tragic!  If there is any decency in the reader, he/she shouldn’t be able to get past the first chapter without tears, trying to hold back how tough life is for so many people.  It’s just mind boggling how poor so many are around the world, and especially in a country called Ethiopia.

If anyone complains of being “poor” or anything close in resemblance, read the book!  Then you will realize that you are richer than 70% of the world’s population!    I don’t know what little person like me can do.  I can only pray that God would use a person like me to show compassion to such people.  In the end, I pray that this mission trip will only be a beginning, a reconnaissance trip to see how we can be of help over long term.

Haregewoin is true hero.  I dare say that she is “bigger” than Mother Teresa.    Read this book!  Please!!!  And get involved most of all…

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In reflection of the VT tragedy…

Since the VT tragedy, it’s been hard… and reflective. And with Pastor Shawn’s message on the “Good Samaritan”, I felt encouraged to share…

What can we do? In the end, all humans want to be accepted for who we are. Not judged. Even if we have “evolved” to be less “racial”, we as humans will always find things to be prejudiced about, be it social status, intellect, outsider etc…

Well, I wanted to share that though I may not have been a loner, I still identify better with being an outsider. I was never a part of the popular crowd in high school of mainly white population (and no, I’m not being racist in calling Caucasians as white, so don’t get off on it please) in northern New Joisey. I was a nerd back then… Math Team member, chess team member, I didn’t hang out with popular crowd. It wasn’t till college that I discovered that it’s ok to be who God designed me to be, and to accept myself for who I am, and not try to be something that I am not. It was more important in being a child of God first and foremost.

Since then, I have been comfortable in being a nerd or a geek, rarely shriveling from it or trying to deny/hide from it. Instead, as some of you know about it, I have made it a calling and life-long mission to accept people for who they are… and esp. trying to be friend to the friendless and leaving the judgment to God.

I feel no different today than before the VT tragedy. Sure Cho was an extreme case, but who isn’t when people continue to shun others out for one reason or another. If Jesus hadn’t been my friend to an oddball like me, who knows where I would be today?! So I challenge you… no, I beseech you to go past your first impressions of people… and to make that extra effort to be a friend to the friendless…

The last thing I want the church to be is some kind of “social elite club” that Jesus so condemned against.

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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.

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Another reminder from “Purpose Driven Life”

As we are going through Purpose Driven Life again for the 2nd time, I came across a rather shocking reminder… It’s from the end of the Chapter 10: The Heart of Worship.

“There is a moment of surrender, and there is the practice of surrender, which is moment-by-moment and lifelong. The problem with a living sacrifice is that it can crawl off the altar, so you may have to resurrender your life fifty times a day.”

Being a habitual creature, I found this to be too true. But it hurts so much each time… it’s like being shattered like the jar of clay each time… totally broken. The only thing I can do is to ask God to help me get up again and again…

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Sickness & Pain this Lent Season

As we remember what Jesus has done for us this Lent season, one thing became rather clear: that many of us are suffering from some kind of sickness.

In review, Pastor Shawn and Chung have just recently been suffering from migraines again after at least two years of no migraines.  They get it to the degree where Chung tends to faint, and Pastor Shawn can’t do anything.  Ken, myself, and starting this year, Soojin have been suffering from severe allergies.  Soojin and I had it to a degree where we ended up with sinus/upper respirtory infections.  Anna and JJ had stomach virus where Anna’s was more severe and had to be taken to ER for dehydration.

What does this all mean for us, especially in this Lent season?  It’s a small (a very small one at that) reminder that Jesus had to go through even greater suffering in order to save us.  40 days of no food, bleeding and dying on the cross, and 3 days of loneliness in hell.  All so that you and I could be saved.  Our own sicknesses are a very minute reminders of how great a suffering Jesus must have gone.

As we have been praying this Lent season, may we all be able to remain thankful… that we were given opportunities to get a tiny taste of what it must’ve been like for Christ in His suffering, and that we should do our very best to endure the suffering… for He came out victor over death.