Korean Trip

Wednesday, I returned from Korea and crawled into bed at 10:00 P.M. At 1:30 A.M. I was fully awake. I worked through about forty e-mails, had a workout and spend an hour with Jesus. Yesterday, I didn't get to bed until 9:00 P.M. and at 1:00 A. M., here I am, can't sleep. I don't mind, seeing I can devote a little time to you, but I am not very efficient the rest of the day. (I doubt my brain is working even now.)

An Aside

I had a little accident yesterday. Bill, my farm manager and VP, called me to come help put the plastic on the big greenhouse. All went well, until I had to pick my battered body off of the ground. It goes to show how fast anything can happen. Bill was up a ladder fastening the plastic down and I was directly below him holding on to the plastic so the wind wouldn't blow it away. The brace holding the ladder upright broke and Bill's two hundred and fifty pound frame came crashing down on me ladder first. At first, I though I was pretty banged up. My head hurt, I took a direct blow on the shoulder, my thumb was sprained and my forearm was scraped like I had fallen off of a bicycle on pavement, all wounds superficial, thank God. I think, however, that Bill got the worst of it. I suspect, by the limp and the pain he is feeling, that he has a hairline fracture in the lower leg. He thinks he'd have a broken leg if I hadn't broken his fall. For my part, I thank God I saw it coming. I might have been crowned good. We'll recover. 

Korea: I often wonder why God organizes these adventuresome jaunts for me. My unmistakable nothingness makes it amazing to me. I never feel like I am worth the price of a ticket. Isn't God gracious? 

In Korea, I preached three times at a convention highlighting Supporting Ministries. I had the sense that the people didn't expect much from our little delegation. (Markus Yaudas, Don and Rumiko Johnson and I.) That is always a blessing. When God works where it isn't expected the element of surprise works wonders.  It is all of grace. There were about ninety people there. I can see already that the attendance will double next year. The impact was tangible.

After I preached the sermon The Power of Peace, the master of ceremonies, a great singer, both he and his wife, dug up a scripture song on peace. John 14:27. He asked me to sing it. If I didn't turn every shade of red, I don't know why.  Preaching is one thing, but singing, even if I could, is so stressful that I usually choke on the first three words, but I was trapped. Can you see my insecurity? Why am I so self concerned. If I don't sing well, that would be pretty normal, don't you think? Would the people send me out of town on a rail? However, it seemed to me to be immature to refuse no matter how I (or my kids) view my singing abilities. So, I sang with all I could put into it. (My back was to the audience, which helps a lot, by the way. I was seated on the front row, and the singer brought the mike to me there. I didn't turn around. Good plan.) And you know, I survived it, even the audience survived it. Now the horse is out of the barn. If you need special music, let my know. I don't come cheap, but then again how much can you pay for real quality?  (Kidding, just kidding. I won't charge that much.)

No beds in Korea. At least, I didn't see any. No chairs in bedrooms in Korea. No shoes in house either. The floors are heated, which at first blush feels so good. But then, sleeping on a hot floor on a thin mat makes you feel like an egg in a frying pan. You throw off the blanket and freeze on one side and fry on the other.  The food was mostly good, but Korea is the only place where I found some dishes totally disgusting. Seaweed, for instance. You can't chew it down, and it tastes like fish, ten days old. At one time, someone served a sweet bean soup with these little balls kinda floating in it. The beans were okay, but the balls were like slimy, soaked in lie bubble gum. That is how things are, when the host goes out of her way to serve a special treat, it usually turns out to be too foreign for the lucky recipient.  On our last day, we ate at the Eden Valley Vegetarian restaurant, in Seoul. The food there was exceptionally good. 

The country is mountainous and rocks are strewn from aft to fore. The people are as rugged as the country side, but very loving in their bossy ways. The whole trip was an adventure. We visited several projects in way out places, in the freezing rain. The number of people influenced by Self-supporting Work in its past heyday was astounding, but the original work has lost its first love. We spent hours in meetings and long discussions, trying to re-organize so as to plant a seed of life in the dying ministries. Time will tell whether we succeeded to any degree. 

Just one more thing. I was given the privilege of preaching to the lifestyle guests at our main institution, Gilead Valley. Better than that, I anointed a young man from L.A. who is dying of cancer. He is very spiritual and ready for any eventuality, but his poor mother tore at my soul. Her only son, her baby is dying. He was given three weeks to live, three months ago. At the LSC's in Korea they don't do treatments. They feed and exercise people and teach them a new way of thinking and living. What I saw was that God uses that too. It seems to fall short of the mark, but because they are doing what they know, God's blessings attend their efforts. What a lesson to people who won't act unless they feel they've got their act together. The LSC was full up. So much so that we had to stay in a motel at a discount. The original price is $80 per night. No bed, no chair and hot floor. Go figure! At another home LSC, the young lady who ran it does it all on a donation basis. Her place is always full also. Do you think God will let her fail? The Bible emphasizes giving at your own expense. The promise is, "it shall be given unto you, pressed down, shaken together, and overflowing." I love it! God's reality trumps our temporal reality if we will believe it. 

So ends another adventure. Where to next, Lord?