An Ordinary Guy

We had a guest speaker at our Wednesday Service. He was refreshing! He started out by talking about the Korean-American man who walked in to North Korea from China and was arrested. Come to find out this guy was a friend of a friend of the speaker…. and of course he asked the question a lot of us had in the back of our mind… and that was is this guy crazy or what?

Well it seems the guy is just passionate about trying to help the North Koreans, who from reports of people on the ground, are once again digging up graves of the dead in order to eat!

Anyway what was remarkable about what the speaker said, was that when Korea was mad at the importing of American beef, hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets, to stop the government from importing US Beef. I have been in the vicinity of a few of these demonstrations, and they are a thing to behold… and not very safe to be around… a lot of passion and anger!

So the speaker said, if they have a beef with beef (pun intended), so much so that they are demonstrating/rioting and fighting with police, risking bodily harm and inflicting bodily harm on the police…. imagine what would happen if the people of the south… or maybe just the Christians, after all the two largest churches in the world are here with nearly 200K combined…got mad enough over the starving and death and sorrow taking place in North Korea, that they did something about it? What if they took to the streets and rioted/demonstrated until the border was open, or until the governments did something about it?

Just hoping….

We enjoyed a great Sunday morning service at the chapel. I was then invited to preach at an orphanage that we have been visiting and supporting. The orphanage is for mentally handicapped folks. There are young kids, grown ups and a few physically and mentally handicapped orphans. We were blessed to be invited and were blessed even more due to the generosity of the food-court manager and his folks who donated and made 50 double cheeseburgers for the orphans!

The orphanage makes some money from serving as a day care for the mentally handicapped. They allow “drop-offs” of handicapped family members who can’t stay home alone and allow the family to work or go to school.

The pastor of the orphanage has been there with no government support for 16 years! He is a wonderful and patient man.

Our guitar player/worship leader came with us and led in song for a few minutes. All I know is that those kids love God, they sang with their whole hearts, some family members were present at the service and apparently the joy and enthusiasm we were witnessing was not the usual. Through the joy and the excitement, i heard sniffles and looked to see the family members crying… not the sad tears… the happy tears, they were crying because they too were witnessing their loved ones engaging in a celebration of our Creator!

The short sermon that I was honored to deliver was from 1 John 3:1-2, from which I stated we are God’s children no matter what we talk like or look like, and that I was blessed and honored to be their brother and to call them my family! Which was answered by some amens and some more tears from the family members!

For some Koreans, having a handicapped family member is a cause of embarrassment so for them to be there and remain when outsiders were present was a positive step. What I think caused them to cry was the joy that they had not only through their loved ones joy, but that they didn’t have to be ashamed of the joy, cause we were singing and clapping and laughing and dancing along with everyone else.

We went to serve, but we were ministered to by the love of those orphans.

When I got here a year ago I noticed some folks passing out tracks to the soldiers coming out of the gates. I watched for awhile as they nearly forced the tracks into the hands of the folks coming out to do some shopping, get a meal or whatever.

As I was watching the people passing out the tracks, some of the bar girls that “work” in the local bars near the base, were walking down the street on their way to work. The folks passing out the tracks literally turned their heads and refused to even say hi to the girls.

That is what started the desperation in my heart to show these girls that they are loved by God!

After months (well a year) of praying, planning, pleading, convincing, dropping hints, enlisting confederates… we finally got the resources and the plan to give Christmas treats to the girls.

The assembly line.

The cups are filled with candy, candy canes, cookies and such and the Joy to the World thing is a Christmas Tree Ornament that tied to the bow.

On Christmas Eve. after the church service we took hot coffee and hot chocolate out along with 7 or 8 ladies to pass out the gifts. The coffee was for anyone… and the gifts we took to the bars.

You should have seen the joy on the faces of the girls, some could not believe that a stranger would give them something for free!

I think the greatest impact, the greatest change was in the lives of the ladies who delivered the treats their interaction with the girls and bringing joy to their lives ultimately brought joy to their own.

NOTE: We DID NOT include any advertisement of our church! (Our advertisement was the love of God)

I have been spending a lot of time here the past several weeks. Starbucks in Daegu South Korea.