Carried in Our Father's Arms

Every end of the school year in early June, our whole family was scheduled for our annual physical exams, blood tests and immunizations.  It was required by the Methodist Mission for all their missionary families who served overseas.  My mom and dad were working in Korea and every year was the same.  Our little arms were poked with a cocktail of so many disease fighting vaccines we were in agony for days.  Typhoid, tetanus, cholera, yellow fever, diphtheria, and more whose names I can't remember.  We would get feverish, our arms so heavy and painful that sometimes we'd have to lie in bed until we recuperated.

Korea was a very underdeveloped country when my parents first arrived in '57, and by the time I was in elementary school in the 60's, it had rapidly grown, yet most of the country still had no organized sewage system.  You don't want to know how they dealt with their toilet waste.  I'll just say that what we called the "honey bucket truck" didn't smell anything like honey.

I remember one particularly hot June when I was in so much pain from our many shots - I was about 6 years old.  My dad always tried to cheer us up with a special treat, and he had extravagantly bought us a patio table and chairs with an umbrella for outdoor picnics.  He announced it to the three of us kids as we all moaned our thanks from our beds, and then he proceeded to put it together in the living room downstairs so we could all appreciate it.  My brother and sister hobbled down the stairs and came back up excited that Daddy had bought us this cool new thing, but I was too weak and sickly to move.  My dad scooped me up and carried me down very gently and showed it to me, even though I couldn't even lift my head from his shoulder.  He then carried me back upstairs and laid me down in my bed.  I was amazed at how strong and happy he was even though he had had the same vaccinations as we did.  He could actually carry me when I couldn't even stand.

Many times I have thought of God's strength being sufficient for us, that He can easily carry us through tough times when we are out of strength.  I always remember that night with my fevered head on my dad's shoulder as he carried my up the stairs and my gratefulness that he was able to do what was impossible for me.  My relationship with my dad wasn't always so picture-perfect, but I know God imprinted that on my memory so clearly for a reason, and over the years that image of my dad's kindness being like God's, pulled me through some pretty unhappy moments.

Now I have many more examples in recent memory of God coming through for me and doing the impossible, that I don't refer to that one of my dad much any more.  I have real proof that He is alive and actively answering my prayers.  But God knew that I'd need that boost, that image in my head to push me forward until the day that I really knew how great God was on a personal level.

Maybe the kindnesses and acts of faith we show today, are being imprinted on someone else's mind by God Himself, with the hope that they too will push forward to finally know Him.  I think we should count on it.

Above is a picture of me and my dad on his many trips through the Korean countryside overseeing the construction of new church facilities.  This one here is a new orphanage site outside of Seoul, around 1965.

Let the poor say I am rich...

When my mom and dad knew that they were to be sent to work as missionaries in South Korea in the mid 1950's, the first thing they did was go to school. They studied Korean language, history and church growth classes. For two years before they even set foot on Korean soil, they were immersed in the preparations of a lifetime of service to the church in Korea. It was exciting and dangerous and challenging for them to arrive with two little children (I wasn't born yet), to adjust to that war-torn land.

As years went by and I came along, their Korean language skills improved tremendously, my dad could navigate through the most treacherous streets in his Land Rover, negotiate out of a traffic ticket with any Korean policeman, and befriend practically anyone he met. They were constantly going to church meetings, grand openings of Christian schools, or new churches out in the countryside, making long speeches surrounded with Korean church officials. The church, the country, the service to those people was their life...but not mine.

I learned to love some of the food and parts of the culture, but every time we'd see an American TV show on the US military channel, I would long for that far distant country that was supposedly my own. The Korean toys and dolls of 1968 were so poor and uninteresting, and the clothes were so odd when I compared them to the Sears catalog my grandmother would send us every six months. My siblings and I would dream of chocolate ice cream, American hamburgers, real pizza with real cheese, everything American. In the process, I began to resent the fact that I was stuck in a third world country while my cousins got to have what I thought, was the best of everything.

Only years later did I come to realize how shameful my attitude had been, how much of a blessing it was to experience another country, to have the opportunity to learn another language and to have the honor of being a part of the work of God. I had a rich and extraordinary childhood, but in the cold winters with the air thick with the smell of rotten fish from the open markets, with roads full of frozen mud puddles and lined with beggars, I just couldn't see it.

Now I am so thankful that God gave me that past, and I feel a sense of grief when I see others who have come to the US, whose hearts and minds still cling to their countries and refuse to learn the beautiful lessons that God has for them here. I was a selfish child who wanted what I couldn't have, and I've tried my best to make sure my children never hold those attitudes no matter where we've lived. I just wish others who have it so easy could understand.