More blessings during Lent

This blog is probably full of lots of complaints of how life isn't going my way. But things have changed since my wife and I had lunch with a family from church. They introduced us to yet another family. When we came home, we were both surprisingly satisfied afterwards. This was a miracle because we have many experiences where I got frustrated because I couldn't understand the conversation and eventually my face turned into a sourpuss look. Our bliss continued yesterday as the week started on Monday (yesterday). It was what I would normally have considered a typical day. But I guess it was the change in pace from a long vacation where I wasn't motivated to prepare for classes for the coming semester. Then I arrived several hours early to teach a class at another location. I went for a long walk nearly all the way home while I waited for the time to pass. Even though I misunderstood the time of the class, I still had a good day meeting students and introducing class to them. Today I had another good day with the highlight being preaching in an English service at the university I teach at. This may be the largest crowd I've ever preached to in all the places where I have preached in Korea OR the US. I'm not sure how much students were able to understand but I heard positive feedback from one student who took my class over winter vacation. Last semester was a difficult transition for my wife and I and we are enjoying this moment of bliss. It's a busier semester, one filled with much more variety. I will post the sermon I preached and you can read it for yourself.

Good news during Lent

Does that sound like an oxymoron? There's a lot on here about how difficult my life is and how I don't see God doing much in my life. But today has been quite the contrary. Granted, I did lose my patience when I couldn't understand a real estate conversation in Korean, we made peace with that thanks to my wife and I had a wonderful day. I was told that it might get my university to approve me working at another university in addition to what I am currently doing. But that turned out not to be the case at all. I was told the number of hours I could work and that has coincided very well with what the university (the second one) has available. Granted we both wanted me to do more, but given schedule conflicts and university policies, I am pleased with the results. I guess time will tell whether or not this is of God but I think I'm going to take a moment right now to thank God for smiling down on me. But right now it doesn't feel like God is smiling DOWN at me as much as God is smiling at me, like we are in the same place at the same time. I've still got an amazing amount of energy. I think I'm going to spend some time thanking God and see if that time surpasses the amount of time I spend complaining that good things don't happen. By the way, I don't think good news during Lent is an oxymoron. To the contrary, I think God wants us to spend some time mopping the floors of our hearts, or perhaps God just wants us to submit to the Spirit's work, so that we can see God smiling at us in the same moment in time, rather than smiling at us from another location and another point in time. I've mopped the floors of my apartment, now I think I need the Holy Spirit cleaning service to do a spic-and-span job on me.

"The Help" by Kathryn Stockett

I just finished reading, "The Help" by Kathryn Stockett. I was introduced to this book by watching the movie with the same title in a movie theater with my wife in South Korea. After the movie was over, we searched to see if there might be a real book that the movie is based off of. Sure enough, there was. The book is definitely better than the movie. To tell you the truth, I have to wonder why so many of the details were changed. I guess it has something to do with the fact that the book is over 500 pages long, contents which would be difficult to compress into a normal-length movie. Both the book and the movie speak to the evils of racism without doing so in an abstract, idealistic way. It just gives you the sense of, "That's right", leaving viewers oblivious to this reality in the dark. I wanted to express this to my wife but it dawned on me that this is a reality that you can't so easily comment on without experiencing it yourself. To tell you the truth, the most tear-jerking moments for me have been in the moments where reconciliation took place. Even though I have watched the movie at least five times, I am inevitably full of tears at the moment when Skeeter's mom tells her she's proud of her daughter for bringing courage back into the family. One of the coolest things about this book is that it includes the vernacular of black Americans. I confess that when I first tried to express this to my wife, I said that the grammar was wrong. But after hearing myself say that out loud, I corrected myself to say this is the vernacular of black Americans. This story has given me hope and reminded me of my own experiences with racial reconciliation and the blessings that lie therein. I see myself the most in Skeeter and I wonder why she had to leave. I also left my scenario. I thought it would be on a very temporary basis but one choice led to another and now my life is in South Korea where I see a need for reconciliation of another kind between Koreans and foreigners. NPR.org recommends this book with the following quote on the front: "This could be one of the most important pieces of fiction since To Kill a Mockingbird...If you read only one book....let this be it." I concur with this wholeheartedly. I hope many books of this kind follow with not just a hope of reconciliation being possible but a reality.

A Houseguest

Meet Squiggy! He came to Sinae and I all the way from Ohio. This is his first trip where he traveled alone but this is not his first trip to another country. He's been all over the place. He even kept soldiers in Afghanistan company. He's quiet but his presence is an encouragement to those of us living abroad. He also brought letters from the class he belongs to which were a great encouragement to me on a day when I was about fit to be tied. He is part of an educational project which the teacher who sent him to me uses to teach her students, one of which is the oldest daughter of two of my best friends. So far we've taken over 250 pictures so even though this was originally for a group of elementary school students hopefully this will give you a little more of a chance to see what life is like in Korea for Sinae and I.

We are the World

The last song I heard tonight at an English Camp talent contest at the university where I currently work was "We are the World". I guess this song is also by Michael Jackson. I remember singing this song during Vacation Bible School when I was a child and how upset my family was that we were learning to sing a secular song in church which we eventually performed in a service while the pastor was gone. My mind went a few different directions. On the one hand, with all the references to "love" in this song and the others that students sang, I thought it could pass for a Christian song. But then I thought of how love has become this safe word that is embraced by all. And I wondered if Christians could capitalize on this message by inviting people to partake of the Kingdom that takes seriously the issues of this world. I was also troubled by some lyrics and the introduction to the song that seemed to suggest that if we would just throw money at the world's problems that those problems will go away. As one who was born and raised in the richest country in the world, which also has its own issues of poverty, I felt hopeless about the answer to such problems. One of my most highly-esteemed university professors once told me to spit on the fire if I have a burden for it. That thought came to mind. I like to think that what people living in poverty need more than money or pity is time. In my thinking people need time to build relationships with someone who says, "I don't care how much money you have or don't have. I'm not going to try to fix you. I just want to be your friend and to be a part of your life if you will let me in." Is there a counterargument to this?

A Reflection on a Performance of "Heal the World"

I'm not particularly much of a fan of Michael Jackson, whether it be his early life or late life, early career or late. I didn't even know that he sang a song about doing something about the world. And it was that song that nearly brought me to tears tonight. I'm not sure I would announce this publicly under most circumstances but since I am moving to another university, and this seems to be a way in which I can successfully express my feelings, I'd like to take a few minutes to think about it. First, I think the song was merely representative of some symbolism of what I've experienced at Korea Nazarene University over the last 4 1/2 years. Actually, the first time I heard this song was after I came to Korea and worked with one university student who was majoring in Elementary Special Education. She was one of my T.A.s for a Saturday English class we were teaching. After I heard the song, my heart was strangely warmed because it seemed to match my desire to help the oppressed. Tonight I was reminded again of the song as I watched a group of children participating in English Camp perform that song. One of the T.A.s who teach that class is one of my university students. I presumed the song came from her which reminded me of all her peers whose department I used to teach in. It reminded me of all those students learning about how to teach children or middle school/high school students with special needs and how much they want to change the world. Thinking of the fact that I have had the opportunity to interact with people who probably will change the world by changing their students' lives, gave me a sense of sorrow as I look to go to a new university and a sense of satisfaction over the last four-and-a-half years I have taught at this university.

More Opportunity for Learning Korean

I just came across a more economical way of learning Korean after reading about it at http://view.koreaherald.com/kh/view.php?ud=20120810001147&cpv=0. It is http://koreanculture.org.au/culture-classes/language-class and you don't even have to be in Korea to participate. I am learning that contrary to popular belief one doesn't have to spend an arm and a leg to learn the Korean language. That is good news especially for those of you who need to learn it for more successful relationship-building. That's where I am. I dream of the day when culture is the only barrier and not language on top of that. One is difficult enough. There are also some alternatives for learning Korean online. May I also share what I am doing in my latest craze to learn the Korean language? Out of desperation to find ways to learn as many words as possible while also improving my grammar, I am trying to learn Korean definitions of Korean words. I just finished listing definitions of all the words I don't know from Psalm 93. The next step is to find ways of intelligibly memorizing those definitions which will probably requiring acquiring the vocabulary of the vocabulary.