Life

There are many things that I could say right now, for many things are running through my mind which need to be organized and placed on a shelf for safe keeping. This blog is about collecting those ideas and sorting them to an idol position that can be called upon by myself and also those who care to read what goes on in my head. The following ideas will potentially be controversial, perhaps to some of you, if in fact anyone reads this, and are not meant to sway or stir emotion of anger or sadness to your feelings, but rather to create something in which you can internally, or externally, debate and contradict or agree with. One of my favorite quotes is this "Reason is the natural order of truth; but imagination is the organ of meaning." ~ C. S. Lewis.

This Just Came to Mind...

"The Call" from The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian

"It started out as a feeling
Which then grew into a hope,
Which then turned into a quiet thought,
Which then turned into a quiet word."

"And then that word grew louder and louder
'Til it was a battle cry."

"I'll come back
When you call me,
No need to say goodbye."

~~~

"Just because everything's changing
Doesn't mean it's never been this way before."
All you can do is try to know
Who your friends are as you head off to the war."

"Pick a star on the dark horizon
And follow the light."

"You'll come back
When it's over,
No need to say goodbye."

"You'll come back
When it's over,
No need to say goodbye."

~~~

"Now we're back to the beginning,
It's just a feeling and no one knows yet.
But just because they can't feel it too
Doesn't mean that you have to forget."

"Let your memories grow stronger and stronger
'Til they're before your eyes."

"You'll come back
When they call you
No need to say goodbye."

"You'll come back
When they call you
No need to say goodbye."

Lyrics: Regina Spektor

This song reminds me a lot of how I felt about leaving Korea. We need to take those feelings God instilled in our hearts and spread it to those around us. While we were in Korea, it was easy to get excited, to get inspired about telling others about the vision we caught in Korea. However, it's easy to fall back to where we started and not finish well. We need to keep the memories of what we learned there fresh in our minds, and continue to pray for our brothers and sisters in North Korea.

Just The Beginning

Clearly it's time to make a change

Or I could keep sitting and waste all day

I know that it's time for me to move

I've been given this minute to use

And given this moment to prove that

What we do here is just the beginning

New life is starting at every ending

We are a part of the story unfolding

This is the weight of the world we are holding

This could be our day

This could be our day.

I was holding back

Now I've come undone

I want to touch the world

Heal the broken ones

Ending the cycle has just begun

We've been given this minute to use

And given this life to prove

To give ourselves away

For something beautiful

A million miles away

To the one who's hungry, and Thirsty

And needs some hope

To the people that are weary and

broken and left alone

I'm giving myself away

I'm giving myself away.

'This Could Be Our Day" by Addison Road.

Final Thoughts.....

Where do I go from here? Is it possible to have so many thoughts rushing through your head and yet feel so incredibly blank at the same time? I'm really struggling with processing everything I learned, heard, saw, and experienced. A week can fly by so quickly and fade into the distance so easily. I so desperately don't want to forget anything I learned....but since everything still seems so unreal, will I? I pray that God will engrave these many lessons on my heart.

The North Koreans will always have a very special place in my heart, and I look forward to seeing how God uses me to help them. Of the many lessons I learned one of the main ones that pops out at me at a consistent rate is that I'm a broken person. I have nothing to offer. My sin so often overwhelms me, and I can do nothing. I can't save myself. It's only when I surrender myself, my will, my very being to Christ that I find myself healed. When you grow up in the church it is SO easy to miss that lesson because I feel we only see a small glimpse of what Christ does best. Saving us. Binding our wounds. Showing us what a life without Him is like. One of my all time favorite songs is "Unashamed" by Starfield.

I have not much to offer you

Not near what you deserve.

But still I come

Because Your cross

Has place in me my worth.

Oh, Christ my King

Of sympathy

Whose wounds secure my peace

Your grace extends to call me friend

Your mercy sets me free.

And I know I'm weak

I know I'm unworthy

To call upon your name

But because of grace

Because of your mercy

I stand here unashamed.

I can't explain this kind of love

I'm humbled and amazed

That you'd come down

From heaven's heights

And greet me face to face.

Here I am at your feet

In my brokenness complete.

I will say it again. Here I am at your feet in my brokenness complete. In my brokenness complete. This is my constant prayer to God. That I will remain His humble and faithful servant. A simple vessel used by Him to further His kingdom and bring Him glory.

Oh how I long to do so much for the people of North Korea. I just want to rush into that poor, hurting country, hold those people in my arms, and just wash them over with love. I long to share with them how much God loves them....and oh how He LOVES them! I want them to know that He sees and understands their pain. God is hurting for North Korea and we should be too!

In South Korea, prayer is such a vital aspect of their faith. It is everything to them. When was the last time prayer was everything to you? To me? To us? When was the last time we prayed with faith, passion, and love? In humbleness before our Lord. The great 'I AM'. Faith can move mountains. Matthew 17:20 "I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you." Fellow brothers and sisters. Let's move some mountains! :)

Although I titled this last blog final thoughts......I feel this is truly the beginning. May God constantly be bringing new thoughts into my mind about this trip. God bless all of you who prayed for us!!!! :)

~Kelsey

Remember the North Korean Christians!

Do you hear their heart cries? Do you hear what they are saying? There are many faces of North Koreans filling my head all day long. They are crying for help from us.
When I wake up in the morning, I hear them, and the North Koreans are saying, "will you remember us?"

I am at home but my heart is not at home yet. We need to cry out to God for our brothers and sisters in the Lord. Until our God answers all of the North Koreans prayers, we shall seek God and pray for them continuously. Our North Korean brothers and sisters are gifts from God to us! Lets remember them.

Kim

Rewind and Regroup

I am still recovering from jet lag, my life is settling back into its grooves, and yet part of me is still back in Korea struggling for the North Koreans. My body may be back, but part of my heart isn't.

Even as we are settling back into our American lifestyles, I think none of us who went on this trip will ever be the same. This trip has affected us in so many ways...in ways we do not want to forget.

We need to remember what we've learned from this trip, and spread the vision to our families, friends, and co-workers so that they too may know what we have seen and heard.

From Tokyo to Seoul

These past few days have been a whirlwind to say the least.  First, there was June 29, 2009, which will be forever emblazoned in my mind as “The Day that Never, Ever, Ever Ended”.  Waking up at about six that morning, we checked out of the hotel and began our two hour drive over to the prayer mountain.  Several hours were spent at the mountain, praying about and discussing what we had just experienced over the last nine days.  It was an excellent time of preparation for me to start sifting through all the different lessons God had dumped into our short time in Seoul.  Then, the lady who owned the prayer mountain most generously served us HUGE portions of bibimbap for our final meal in Korea.  Finally, we made a quick trek back down the mountain for our final drive, to the Seoul Airport.  In the bus, a couple of us more musically inclined decided to serenade the rest of the group with an hour or so of singing, which was fun.  :)  Once at the airport, we all said extremely hard goodbyes to our “guides” from SeoulUSA, who took SUCH tremendously good care of us during the duration of our trip.  Passed easily through the security checkpoints, then settled onto the plane for our nine hour flight back to Seattle.  We watched movies, journaled, slept (some more than others… right, Pastor Rick?), and just reflected on the past week until the gentle bump of the rubber tires on the runway welcomed us back to the United States.  Some confusion with luggage during the transaction between Seoul and Seattle created some stressful moments during the 2 hours in Seattle, but soon we found ourselves back in time—leaving for Portland BEFORE we left Seoul!  Because apparently little Horizon Airlines commuter planes aren’t used to carting 12 international travelers’ luggage, we were delayed about 20 minutes while they balanced out the plane, but finally, at about 4:15pm, our team landed safely in Portland, Oregon.  Praise God!  Then it was a mad rush to be reunited with family members, pick up luggage, and drive home. 

 

Home.

 

I’m not quite sure how to describe how I found home to be. 

Busy and fast-paced?  No, not really, I mean, I just came back from SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA. 

Serene and peaceful?  Not the words that come to mind, as there’s the hustle and bustle of three brothers making up for the last nine days you were gone, email to check, classes to schedule… basically a life to pick back up…

 

And, as I’m sure all the other team members can attest to, the jet lag threw me off a bit.  For instance, I got up yesterday at 8am… Seoul time.  Which is 4pm, Portland time.  Oops.

 

And when I just sit back and think about the trip, about a million thoughts go zipping through my mind.  So many new experiences.  So many new friends.  So many memories.  So many lessons learned.  To understand how this looks in my head, do a google image search on the Tokyo Subway Lines.  The subway lines there are all jumbled up:  many different lines threading in and out of each other, going every which way.  That’s what’s going on in my head right now.  I have so many stories.  So many challenges.  So many inspirations, running, weaving, dancing in, out, and throughout my mind.  There’s really no order or organization.   

 

To fix that, I’m taking this week to write.  And write.  And write.  Carefully document each day spent in Seoul in detail.  Write up the testimonies of the different North Korean Christians.  Then go back and write about the different lessons I learned.  Write.  Write.  Write.  Since I showed you a picture of my brain before this time of “untangling”, now google a map of the Seoul Subway lines.  As you’ll be able to see, it’s much less chaotic.  Although there are many different lines, in many different colors, going in many different directions, there’s a lot more organization. 

 

So my goal this week?  Get from Tokyo to Seoul.

 

I think all of us on the team would really appreciate continued prayer, as we sort through all our experiences from the past nine days.  We encountered so much, and we don’t want to forget about any of it until we can get it written down.  And there’s a whoooole bunch to remember. 

 

One thing that stands out from the massive blob in my head though, is the North Korean people we met.  They made many sacrifices- taking days off of work, recounting immensely painful experiences, etc- so that we, their brothers and sisters from America, would become informed.  And not informed so that, just as Matt pointed out, we could respond to their plight “the American way” by throwing them money and manpower and “fixing” their plight.  That’s not what they’re looking for!  I believe they’re looking for unification of the Body of Christ.  Time and time again, these North Koreans have turned for help and just been let down.  They turned to their own government, and the government brutally suppressed them.  They turned to China, and the Chinese government and human traffickers took advantage of them.  They turned to South Korea, and the South Korean church scorns them.  Now, they turn to the United States.  How are we going to respond?

 

That last paragraph is pretty much the only comprehendible train of thought that is going through my mind right now.  Props to Matt for being able to write the way he did in his last post.  lol   But anyways, there’s much much more to come.  I just wanted to quickly write and let you all know that I’m still alive and long-winded! :)

 

*ck