Forward Spring 2015

FORWARD SPRING 2015
Declare His Glory among the nations, His marvelous
works among all the peoples!
Psalm 96:3
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
Forward sPring 2015
Forward sPring 2015
Haiti . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . pg 1
Cornell Bang
Haiti . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . pg 4
Daniel Suh
Cambodia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . pg 10
Bryan Cheah
Philippines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . pg 13
Hyesoo Rho
Hello Bethany,
We are Missions Ministry and our vision is to begin building a long-term ministry that the church can continue to build upon and shape even after all of us graduate. Another way to carry out this vision is to share our brother’ and sisters’ testimonies from their mission trips. Forward newsletter is a compilation of stories and
experiences of our brothers and sisters who have gone to recent mission trips.
This Spring 2015 edition includes the experiences of our brothers who went
to Haiti this past Winter as well as an updates from our brother who is currently
serving in Cambodia and our sister who is serving in the Philippines. We hope that
as you read their testimonies, you will be encouraged by what God is doing and
that you too would be emboldened to declare His glory everywhere you go. Please
continue to keep these nations in your prayers as well as all the other nations in the
world.
Thank you,
Missions Ministry
HAITI
Cornell Bang
As our days progressed and
the discomforts of heat, dust,
and fatigue settled in so did
the routine aspects of our
day-to-day ministry. I particularly felt the numbness of
the routine more so because
I had been to Haiti so often. I don’t know where this
comes from but I guess I can
attribute it to my unfaithful
heart? It felt painful to see
and interact with the same orphans, same broken people and their same hardships.
As I look back, it feels sickening to think that a new type of brokenness/hardship or
new broken people would have made my trip better and exciting, because that’s basically what my complaints translated into. After being home for a while, I shared with
a brother about my internal issues in Haiti and he reminded me that the options of
change/choice in our post-modernist society have spoiled our appetites, produced
an entitled attitude, and undermined the daily ministries of the faithful. He went on
to explain that my heart reflected a boredom/numbness towards Christ and urged
me to repent. As I repent about my heart’s attitude towards the daily routines in
Haiti, I am beginning to see that all the faithful Christ-like people I know, continue
to do the same repetitive things faithfully in their daily lives and ministries (pastor
John, Shiyon, Steve, Eugene, Missionary Simon Kim, Pastor Vega, praise team, care,
missions, outreach, etc).
In retrospect, through this trip, it seems like God wanted to reveal my absence
of faith and how I view Him, think of Him and His truth seriously needs to change.
For example, God does care for the orphans, widows, poor, neglected, and yet in
Haiti I didn’t find any comfort or confidence in this biblical truth. I saw the same
malnourished kids put on brief smiles of joy while some of the kids kept their listless and dejected faces on without restraint. Even if the children responded in gen1
FORWARD SPRING 2015
uine joy, some did, it felt painful to leave them without truly getting to know them
and commit to them (maybe this is one of the painful aspects of short-term trips?).
I can only imagine what it’s like to have a team of Korean college kids come to your
residence every few weeks and not harbor confusion, bitterness, or sadness because
you know that they’re only here for such a brief period. Not to mention that most of
these kids have lost their parents already so the feeling of abandonment cuts much
deeper or doesn’t cut any deeper because they’ve felt it to the core already. I feel so
helpless and frustrated when I’m at the orphanages and this leads me to sinfully view
God as a helpless frustrated being like myself. One sister from the trip did suggest
that this frustration possibly stems from our worldly desire to be “efficient” and obsession with results. I feel that this may be the same attitude that I had.
What did comfort me, unexpectedly, was Missionary Kim’s honesty about the state
of the orphanages and the orphans he partners with. I remember he mentioned that
even when he goes to the orphanages (he’s been in Haiti for almost 10 years), it continues to sadden him and he sees that despite all that he does (vbs, basic needs, gifts,
etc) nothing can really change their lives except the presence of God, but he is confident that God will care for His children. He also spoke about how he himself only
gets a glimpse of the lives of the orphans when he visits, but that God sees all of their
pain and suffering when nobody else does. His honesty felt surprisingly refreshing
and helps me even now to redirect my unbelief to God and speak to Him about such
things.
Evangelism had a few encouraging moments throughout the trip. I remember
speaking with a lady who had a desire to go to God but felt paralyzed by the fear
that she would fall short of his expectations and not live like the “good” person God
demanded her to be. As we talked, the teammates and I shared about the normal
yet painful slowness of growth, but also of God’s mercy with the disciples and how
He helps them despite their failures and misunderstandings. So often when I sin, I
find myself in a similar state of fearfulness and it drives me from God rather than to
Him. I don’t know if she understood what we said, but her struggle definitely helped
me to empathize, understand and pray a bit for the Haitians.
I remember another encounter that I had with a young teenage boy and how
he wanted to become a follower of Christ. We shared about the costs of discipleship
and that he would suffer hardship if he followed Christ, but that it would be worth it.
As we shared this, I began to grow emotional as I thought about my past four years
2
FORWARD SPRING 2015
and how God continued to pursue me and reveal himself by showing me that He is
worthy. Overall, evangelism felt like a time to where I received much needed encouragement rather than a means to bless the Haitians, which I initially thought was the
main purpose. The translators were also encouraging because they would approach
anyone (age, gender, busy or not, etc) with the word and their zeal did not waver despite their fatigue. The translators struggle with the same sins as Americans as well,
but they continue in their pursuit of God because they know and have experienced
him. They definitely helped to encourage some of the team and their fellowship was
genuine.
HAITI
daniel suh
Dearest brothers and sisters:
Daily Overview
To give a brief overview of what our days looked like, our days were usually split into
two halves – one in the morning (approx. 9AM – 12PM) and one in the afternoon
(approx.1PM – 4PM). What we did during these times varied everyday between
orphanage ministries, church VBS, evangelism, and wedding ministry (which was a
pleasant surprise). We would then spend the evening debriefing and preparing for
the next day’s ministries.
Loving God, the Love of God, & Loving Others
.
Prior to going on the Haiti trip, as I had written in my previous updates, I found
being a Christian very burdensome. It was filled with doing things, following commands, serving others, etc. My main encouragement to myself was that if I persevered until the end I would make it to eternity with God. However, quite honestly, it
wasn’t the greatest of encouragements because I didn’t fully understand the goodness
of being with God. Without a full comprehension of how good and glorious eternity
with God is, the truths I repeated to myself didn’t have much power. For this reason,
3
4
FORWARD SPRING 2015
I became selfish, desiring to be catered to, wanting to be loved and served by others.
Going to Haiti, I tried to grow myself in this hope for heaven, reading 1 Peter 1:3-9
during our first day there.
Whilst reading, the verse that stuck out to me was v. 8, where apostle Peter states
that though I have not seen Him, I love Him. This just wasn’t true. I had forgotten
somewhere along the way what it meant to love God. I had once loved Him; this I
remembered. So I began to meditate on a verse that I often repeat to myself: Matthew 22:36-40.
Now, here, Jesus says that loving God is the greatest command. So what do I do? I
started to read the Word to find out what it meant to love God. Knowing that John
was the beloved disciple, I began to read 1 John when I came upon 1 John 2:5
It stuck out to me that apostle John would say that if I kept God’s commandments,
then in me the love of God would be perfected. I don’t really know why (maybe it
was what I wanted to hear), but at the time I took that verse to mean that when I
kept God’s commandments, my love for God would be perfected, and I felt that a
burden had been lifted. According to my (perhaps incorrect) understanding of this
passage, love was more than just keeping commands. Somewhere along the way, in
my head, I had made loving God = keeping His commands, and that alone. I am not
saying that I don’t have to keep His commands, because as someone who does love
God, it is the only response one could have. However, I felt that I had been working
backwards, trying to keep God’s commands without loving Him first.
With these thoughts in my mind, we went out to evangelize at a tent village. We
were split into groups of 3 and were each assigned a translator. The translator in my
group was Isaac, a Haitian preacher in his early 30s (who we also later found out
was a hopeless romantic XP). During evangelism, he allowed us group members to
lead the conversations, humbly serving us and translating with added passion. I was
amazed, because I was reminded of how much I grumbled and complained about
serving back in Ithaca. So during one of our breaks, I had to ask Isaac what motivated him to continue to serve in the midst of being jobless and homeless (he told us he
slept at his church). His answer left me speechless. He said it was because Jesus gave
His life for Him, so it only makes sense to do the same for Christ. When I heard
this, I immediately began to shake my head and couldn’t help but chuckle at the simplicity of the answer. I was sort of, to use a Korean phrase,
, which pretty
much means “MIND BLAST”. In my head I was saying, “Oh yeah?? So simple, huh?
5
FORWARD SPRING 2015
It’s not that simple!” As I continued to work with the other Haitians at the Love and
Hope Center, it became very clear that all the people were motivated by their love for
God and Christ. So it got me thinking about something that I had been praying for
since my junior year.
During my junior year, 2 years ago now, I came to the realization that I did not really love Christ as I should; if I can go as far as to say this as a Christian, I did not
fully realize just how much God’s love could be seen in Christ. So I began to pray,
asking God to reveal to me His love that can be seen through Christ. I bring this up
because God began to slowly answer this prayer after 2 years. I had forgotten about
it throughout my senior year, but God did not forget my prayers; he was faithful to
answer my prayers.
During the rest of the trip, I began to read the gospel of John to hopefully see God’s
love through Christ. And by the Spirit’s help, I began to see it. I began to see God’s
compassion for His sheep, the lost, the poor, the widow, the orphan in the ways he
healed the sick, he preached to all, fed over 5,000, etc. I cannot take any credit for
the unveiling of my eyes to this love because I’ve read the book of John multiple
times. Heck, we even went over the book of John during Bible Study at Bethany,
where I taught on the book for one semester.
I am still reading the gospel of John and I am seeing that God’s love is not only
one of action. I realized this as I read of Jesus’ reaction towards Martha and Mary
when their brother Lazarus dies (John 11). This chapter is probably known even by
non-Christians for having the shortest verse in the Bible v. 35: “Jesus wept.” And in
v. 33, it says that Jesus, upon seeing Mary and the other Jews weeping, he was deeply
moved in his spirit and greatly troubled. To me these verses are sweet melodies to
my ear. I’ve come to know that God acts out of love for His people. He keeps them
on the narrow path, He fights on their behalf, He disciplines those He loves, but to
know that He weeps for those He loves…this is something that brings me to my
knees and in tears. That my King, my God would weep for me…
This was especially comforting as I realized that I have additional misconceptions
of God’s love towards me. I had become convinced that God performs acts of love
and bears with me because He must keep His promises and for He is jealous for His
glory and not because He genuinely loves me. But to know that He delights in His
children and weeps for His children...this is a God I would want to stay with for all
eternity.
6
FORWARD SPRING 2015
Now, naturally, because God has revealed to me more of His love for me, I have
grown in a desire to love Him. Even in human interactions, we all know that it’s
easier to love those who love us. And, surprisingly, it has caused an overflow and
desire to love others as well. I don’t really understand the mechanisms behind how
this overflowing thing works, but it is somehow working. I have actually been excited to return to Ithaca and serve again, whether it is through praise, Amazing Race,
or small groups. Part of it is to see if what I learned in Haiti about God’s love and
loving others in Haiti will translate, but another part of it is out of a love for God and
out thankfulness for what God has done for me through Christ.
Die to self and live as Christ did, daily
Before going to Haiti, I had written in a previous update about Tim Keller’s quote on
selfless love equating thinking of myself less. I went into Haiti desiring to put others before myself just as Christ did and this was something that I was reminded of
daily, whether it was with the team, Missionary Simon and his family, with Haitians
during evangelism, at orphanages or at churches. In Christ, God has given us a perfect example of a man who is wholly pleasing to God and someone who loves God
perfectly. Missionary Simon additionally reminded me after our first orphanage
ministry that we are to follow Christ in His character.
That night as we were debriefing Missionary Simon gave us a sobering reminder that
our main goal as a mission team is to reflect Christ’s character for those hours that
we are there. We should reflect Christ’s love for the orphans and His children while
we are there. Our main goal is not to perform our skits and songs flawlessly to perfection, but it is to allow the orphans to see Christ’s love for them through our mission team, whether it be through a smile or an embrace. For me that was very convicting to hear and was a helpful reminder as we continued our ministries because at
times our ministry would feel routine and would be physically draining. Reminding
myself that my goal was to faithfully reflect God’s love and Christ’s love, not merely
to perform helped me think of myself less.
With the team and Missionary Simon’s family, I was encouraged by everyone’s desire
and willingness, whether conscious or not, I do not know, to be like Christ, serving,
encouraging, bringing joy to those around them. Seeing Missionary Simon serve us
and speak to us every night despite his apparent fatigue was especially humbling for
me. Being surrounded by brothers and sisters who desire to be like Christ helped
7
FORWARD SPRING 2015
me and grew in me a desire to do the same for my team members and the Haitians.
I’m sure our love towards one another was not perfect, but it seemed it, for the most
part, and seeing everyone striving to keep the second part of the greatest command
was encouraging.
“Forget about Haiti in a Month”
.
During one of our last debriefs, Missionary Simon said something that continues
ringing in my heart and mind; it was to forget about Haiti in a month. Now, out of
context that probably sounds wrong. I mean, we should continue praying for Haiti,
for Missionary Simon’s ministry, etc. He began to explain what he meant. He gave
an analogy of hikers on a mountain. God is at the top of the mountain awaiting His
children. His children climb their way up towards God and often stop at rest stops
along the way. However, too often people remain at the rest stops looking back, admiring how far they’ve come and reminiscing on what they’ve gone through. They
too often forget that they have not yet made it to the top and become complacent.
Missionary Simon was encouraging us to continue moving on up this mountain not
dwelling on Haiti. He prayed that we would meet God in such a new and amazing
way that within a month, our experiences of God/with God would be faint memories in light of all the new experiences. He told us that if we do not change upon
arriving back in the States, continuing to be unloving, hating our enemies, that we
should not even mention that we ever went to Haiti. He had seen too many people
talk about how they went to Haiti years ago, still clinging to that as if the Haiti trip
would be their salvation. He urged us that our mission actually begins upon arriving
in the United States where we are called to reflect Christ’s character and be a light in
the midst of the darkness. This is a constant prayer of mine upon my arrival back.
Learning to Pray
.
I think one of the things I’ve learned to do since preparing for Haiti until now is to
pray and not only for myself, but others as well. Learning to pray for the burdens of
other team members, learning to pray for the Haitians, learning to pray for Missionary Simon has been a blessing. Also, having been on the receiving end of prayer for
missions, I have learned to participate in missions even whilst in the States through
prayer.
8
FORWARD SPRING 2015
Trust God and Just be Faithful
This is something that I kept repeating to myself during the trip. Being a short-term
trip, there wasn’t much we could do for the orphans, poor, etc. other than to reflect
Christ’s love. At times it was frustrating and truly heart breaking, especially at the
orphanages and when we talked to hardened Haitians during Evangelism. However,
I would need to remind myself that all I can do is be faithful, which is difficult in it
of itself. The rest is in God’s hands, and I must trust that He will do as He wills.
Thanks to….
I thank God once again for each and every one you, my supporters, who were with
me from the first day till the last through prayer. I pray that we would continue to
keep in touch, spurring one another on towards God until the Last Day.
I also want to thank this winter’s Haiti team. It was such a joy serving with you and
as I told you guys at Haiti, it truly was the highlight of my year. Each of you has a
special place in my heart and may we continue to meet together sharing how we are
experiencing God in new ways.
With faith, hope, and love,
Dan Suh
9
CAMBODIA
Bryan Cheah
Dear friends and family,
As February draws to a close, I’m still dumbfounded by how much can happen in such a short
amount of time. You may think I’m saying this because I’m the one on the overseas adventure, but
trust me. After 7 months, life gets very normal.
Despite this sobering reality, God has been doing
mighty things daily through IJM and even in my
personal life.
People
I have a disciple named Sonam who I’ve been meeting with for 5 months now. He’s a young guy and a new
Christian who traveled from Nepal to work in Cambodia.
Because he works in a Nepalese restaurant most of the
time, he rarely has time to fellowship with other believers and so I meet Sonam at the restaurant every Saturday
afternoon to spend two hours with him in Bible study,
prayer and discussion. We are going through the entire
Bible together and are currently finishing Acts, then
moving onto Paul’s letters starting with Galatians. While
he is my disciple and I enjoy sharing wisdom with him,
over time Sonam really has become a dear brother in
Christ to me. Sometimes I teach him for most of our time, and others I pour out my
struggles while he listens and comforts me. We’ve become close friends, and recently
he’s been at a loss of words when trying to thank me for giving my time. I can never
make it clear that this is my duty and my joy to do so, but we’ll get there eventually! Pray that Sonam will mature in his faith and receive all joy from his relationship
with Jesus!
10
FORWARD SPRING 2015
I also have a friend named Maxime who I hang out with nearly twice a week. He’s
been such a blessing and comfort to me, and God taught me through him how to
like people and enjoy their company again. For a time in college, I actually forgot
how to be friends with non-Christians and couldn’t interact or connect with them
in a way that didn’t involve speaking the Gospel message in our first conversation.
I thank God for restoring my capacity to be patient with His saving work in people
and to genuinely care for Maxime’s whole being (not just his spiritual being [y’know
what I’m talkin’ bout church]). I’ve already shared the Gospel with him, so pray for
God to draw Maxine into a relationship with Jesus!
Work
With the big J3 Conference over,
my boss has me launching the justice student movement in Cambodia. What exactly does this mean?
IJM wants to sustain the gains
we’ve achieved in Cambodia’s public justice system, and another strategic way to do this is by investing
in university students. We aim to
expose students to issues of interpersonal violence against the poor,
equip them with knowledge and resources to address these issues, and
encourage them to commit their lives to seeking justice for the weak and vulnerable
in their communities. This is an exciting new project that I am pioneering, and it’s a
big one. God has already connected me to leaders involved in student ministries and
Christian dormitories, so I am learning a lot about the Cambodian students’ perspective – what they know, what they want, what they’re receptive to, and what they
don’t groove with yet. It’s overwhelming admittedly, and I’m supposed to host an
event to kick everything off before my internship ends! This is big, but I have some
ideas and am genuinely excited to see how God will mobilize students in the university here to own their not-so-distant responsibility to prevent CSEC from happening
in Cambodia.
11
FORWARD SPRING 2015
I plan to engage with Christian university students first because they can most readily identify with every aspect of IJM’s vision, and thus receive training faster and be
equipped to advocate for justice among their peers. This first event I mentioned is
intended to be an intimate orientation session where IJM invests in a small number
of students to establish a core base community committed to learning about biblical
justice and spreading it through discipleship in the church. Justice in discipleship.
Discipleship as justice. This is my vision for the university students in Cambodia.
Pray God continues granting me wisdom, strength, resources and relationships to
begin engaging university students on issues of interpersonal violence and inspiring
them to commit to ending CSEC in Cambodia!
Me
As for what’s next, I’m still not totally sure but God has given me clear directions
to take. I’ve been exploring the summons to pastoral ministry for some time now,
and having spoken to my pastors in America and after reading some books, I now
understand and appreciate the office of the pastor with more informed weight. I
am still exploring it, but what’s changed so far is my timetable. At first I was okay
with entering seminary right after my internships ends in June, but now I have a
stronger preference. I want to work for IJM full-time (wherever they assign me) and
at the same time serve in a local church and develop a home church relationship.
From what I understand, prolonged involvement in a church is an effective “proving
grounds” for whether a man is seriously called by God to lead Christ’s church. I don’t
believe I absolutely need to have had this home church relationship before beginning
training for pastoral ministry, but after what I’ve learned, this is what I want too. So
I’m just being very plain about all of this so you know exactly what’s flowing through
my mind. If you have any advice/encouragement/rebuke(?!)/comments, please let
me know and let’s chat!
Thank you for listening to me and praying with me everyone. If you’d like to keep up
with more detailed updates from me, just pass me your email at [email protected] or
find the group “Team IJM Cambodia 2014” on Facebook.
Be sure to update me with how you’re doing too when you can – I miss you all!
Blessings,
Bryan
12
PHILIPPINES
hyesoo rho
Hello everyone!
Again, thanks so much for all of your emails, kakaos, snapchats, facebook messages.
I really appreciate everything you guys say to me, and the conversations I’ve been
able to have have really been lifting me up. :)
Another reminder that I update my blog http://hey-brooke.tumblr.com with snippets that I don’t repeat here.
WHAT’S MY LIFE LIKE NOW?
After all of the craziness of December & January, I have a very regular schedule now,
which makes the weeks go by very quickly --
FORWARD SPRING 2015
things but they aren’t true. I’m getting a glimpse of how hard ministry really is. The
harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.
God has still allowed me to see some progress to encourage me. But I know the credit is not mine to take.
@ Good Shepherd (a house for sex trafficked girls)
A few weeks ago, it hit me
that I’ve been gaining a real
rapport with these girls. This
amazes me - when I first
came, they were too shy to
speak to me because they
have a poor grasp of English. But now, they’re far
more confident in speaking
English-- even if they don’t
know the words, they try.
Monday: Sabbath (Monthly meetings at RBR - drug rehab)
Tuesdays: Art Lessons with the Home School Girls
Wednesday: Good Shepherd Refuge House, Weekly 1:1 Discipleship Meetings with
Kim
Thursday: Korean Lessons
Friday: Prayer Meeting, Music Lessons with youth
Saturday: Small Group with the youth, YG Meetings
Sunday: Church, movies with the youth
“Giving up” is a familiar concept to every one of these girls. They are all at Good
Shepherd because at some point in their lives, they gave up. Running away from
home, abuse, negative financial situations, reality, etc... So, seeing them endure in
speaking English, learning math, and playing guitar... It’s a true shift in their character that I’ve witnessed even in the past few months. And some of them have even
grown to be attached to me, which I hadn’t expected too much...
I’m not sure if you can tell, but I really appreciate the ability to have this consistency.
It’s really helpful. The missionaries here emphasize this, because you are able to see
your impact when you show consistency in your actions. And along those lines...
The nun running the facility speaks very highly about our group... And it looks like
she wants to continue our partnership with them (Rick has only been going there for
about a year) and even do more activities with Rick’s ministry.
SOME PROGRESS I’VE SEEN...
@ Bible Study (weekly Bible Studies I run on the book of John with the local youth)
Disclaimer - I wish that I could tell you that I’ve seen people turn to Christ left and
right, I wish I preached and people were transformed,... I wish I could tell you these
These Bible studies have grown to be my favorite part of the week, even though it
took a while to find a format that worked. In the beginning, many of them didn’t
13
14
FORWARD SPRING 2015
FORWARD SPRING 2015
come... one of the main youth members actually told others that “it was
boring” and that he wouldn’t come
unless one of the funny girls came.
Discouraged, hurt, and exhausted
of their expectations for me, I took
the encouragements of Jiji to heart
and strove forward with even more
tenacity. Even if he rejected me, the
others didn’t. My natural people
pleasing tendencies make me feel
like I need everyone to like me, but
this doesn’t make for effective ministry, and this doesn’t glorify God.
And now, many weeks in, I see that many of the youth value the weekly hours we
spend together, and I can see a difference in the ones who have come consistently
every week. They are more curious about the Bible now, and try harder to find the
right answers on their own. Even though their English is good, they’re far from fluent so they still have difficulty reading some of the passages. So it feels awesome to
be able to unpack the scripture with them.
@ RBR (Drug Rehab - photos are not allowed here, so here is a photo of my notes
with the girls’ names)
We only come to this ministry monthly,
but it’s my favorite ministry. Maybe it’s because it reminds me of ICM/Philly and of
Hana Missions/Paterson. Once a month,
Rick preaches, we prepare follow up questions, and split the large group of men
and women into smaller groups. Because
of the time constraints, we are unable to
choose our small groups - we get whoever
we get. Except... for me. Because I am the
15
youngest in the group, I am consistently placed with the women, of which there are
less than a dozen.
Over the past few months, I’ve had the privilege of building up a relationship with
these women. They’re from richer families, (you need money to have a drug addiction here, and you also need money to be placed in a rehab) so they are very good at
English. I see them warming up to me a lot now, and they share more openly about
their lives and their hopes.
I know SO little about drug addiction and recovery. After all my weeks in Philly,
because I’m not trained and I haven’t had first hand experience, I’m so uneducated.
But I’ve received good guidance and somehow the girls still trust me enough to open
up to me. One of the girls is actually a Filipino American from New Jersey! My heart
goes out to her the most. I hope that when she returns that I can continue my relationship with her...
@ Korean Lessons
of good progress, especially with Mara.
I feel like these Korean lessons are the biggest part of
my ministry here because
these girls are the ones who
don’t have any solid faith
even though they do believe
in God. I’ve had a good relationship with them from the
beginning, but it’s really cool
to see them improving so
much at Korean. My korean’s
not perfect either, so I struggle sometimes, but I see a lot
Even though many of these girls only want to learn because they are obsessed with
kpop, for some of them, there is a real goal here. They want to take TOPIK, which
16
FORWARD SPRING 2015
is an exam that will let them work in Korea as temporary migrant workers (OFW Overseas Filipino Worker)... OFWs earn more money than they would back in the
Philippines, and often are an important source of income for the families here.
& WHAT’S BEEN ON MY HEART...
So many things.. Here’s just a few...
I want increased intentionality. And the energy to follow through as well. I really
have only like a month left with these youth, because I am taking next week off because a friend from Korea (leigh) is visiting me. Despite all the time I spend with
these youth, I still don’t feel like I’m bold enough with them! Especially the ones who
aren’t involved in the church, and don’t have a real relationship with God...
present vs. future... I have a very hard time simply ENJOYING & LIVING in the
present. I’m always thinking of the future, always planning, scheming, whatever. Part
of it comes from my architecture background - you don’t do anything without knowing how it fits into the big picture. And after listening to Jiji, I don’t think this is necessarily a bad thing, but I need to know how to control my thoughts and how to let
go when God says “stop”.
I’ve also had so many soooo many thoughts on the future, but I won’t bore them
with you here.. Just know that I too am surprised at where God is leading me. (And
maybe at.. how normal it is??)
COMING UP:
March 28 & 29: Amazing Race Auditions
March 29: Tubonghan HS graduation
March 30 & April 6: RBR
April 11: Amazing Race w/ the Youth Group
April 17: My Last Day.
Thanks again for praying for me. I love hearing from you guys so shoot me some
updates!!! :)
17