100 Things I Love About Korea - #22: People: Wayne Arrellano

   How do you share what God is doing your life in just one page? It's quite hard. So rather than sharing what is happening now, I'd rather share the lesson I am continually learning.

   Unlike many of my friends and colleagues, I didn't grow up in the church, and although I had two parents, only one was biological but both were real. I knew nothing of God and in many ways I didn't know much about happiness. I'm half Filipino and half American. I lived in the Philippines until I was 7, at which point I moved to California and learned how to speak English. I mention this only to say that I never really felt accepted anywhere and so I never felt at peace. 

   I  eventually grew up to be a California Kid but it wasn't until I moved to the hills of West Virginia, when a very cute girl in my class asked me to go to her youth group did I ever step foot inside a church willingly.  From that moment on, life changed. I was sixteen years old.

   Among many things, what changed in me was this. (Cheesy, I know) I felt like I found a home in God's heart and in mine there was peace. This peace has become my most closest companion. 

   I had peace when I started living alone and had to pay rent when I was only a sophomore in high school. I didn't know enough about doubting God to be afraid or to be worried. God's peace was ever present in my life.
   When it was time to choose which university to attend...the inexpensive state schools or the very expensive private Christian schools and then finding a way to pay the costs, I had peace.
   When time came to decide what kind of future I wanted. And when the time came to decide if I wanted to answer a call from God to work with the youth in some form. I knew my answer when my heart felt that certain yet mysterious peace that can only be explained as God's. I like to say when I can sleep at night about a decision I've just made, then I know that is the right decision for me.
   And when time came to decide to come to Korea, and then remain in Korea, that's right. The same peace was there. (Actually, a funny story about that...as I was praying about what is up next, Pastor Josh asked to meet with me and so we went to the gym together to work out. During the workout, we made small talk but mainly we just focused on lifting weights and running on the treadmill. Afterwards, in the community shower, he shared the the reasons why I should stay in Korea. It was then I felt the peace I was so certain of...strangest place to find.
   Everyday I wake up knowing that I am right where I need to be. Despite the current circumstances surrounding my work, I know that KNU is where I belong right now. How do I know. In my heart, there is peace and a certainty that God is with me.
   And that my home and acceptance belong in God's heart and among God's people.  So, let me leave you with the Scripture I live by.  Philippians 4:6-7:

6 Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. 7 Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.

And Luke 12:25:

Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life (and there is a footnote that reads "or an inch to his height"). If I could do that, I would be a giant. 

God bless.
Thanks +Wynn Arellano!

100 Things I Love About Korea - #19: People: Dianna Kriegh

This month our church members are sharing testimonies during the worship service.  This is Dianna's testimony from last week.

I came to Korea with a specific plan. I was going to stay one year, improve my Korean language skills while teaching, and then leave for a graduate degree in East Asian history. Soon after the 12-month mark arrived for me, I was telling people that I felt like God was laughing at me—good-naturedly of course—because everything I had said about where my life was going to be that fall was wrong. By that time I was living in Cheonan and teaching at the school where I still am today.

I knew before I ever arrived that God’s hand was guiding me in this and that he had plans beyond my own, and yet I’ve still found it extremely difficult to surrender my future to his keeping. Every fall I have once again pulled out my old grad school applications, reconsidered my goals, and begun the arduous mountain of paperwork necessary for entrance into highly competitive programs and the scholarships that would make them possible. Yet, every spring I have found that it’s not time to leave and as you can see I’m most definitely still here.

This fall the application process seemed more important than it ever has before. The Fulbright program, which brought me here to teach, is technically a graduate fellowship and a multi-national government grant, and it allows participants a maximum of three years in the program. At the same time that I was sure I had no choice but to leave I felt God calling me to become more involved and to invest more of myself in my students and my life here. As I was spending spare moments in the teachers’ office trying to write personal statements and essays for scholarships, I was also becoming involved with the students’ lunch-time bible study, being asked for advice and guidance, and connecting with parents who only see their sons on rare school holidays.

In the middle of all this I began to get angry with God. I felt like he was telling me to stay when both he and I knew that was impossible—even if I could stay in Korea with another teaching program I couldn’t stay at my school because it is and has been a Fulbright school for many years. As a result of this stress, by the middle of September my normal struggle with hormonal insomnia had turned into a continuous cycle of so little sleep that I watched my health deteriorate and everything in my life come to a standstill; nothing was getting done. 

On the last Thursday in September I had a meeting with Josh. I desperately needed an outside perspective on my problems, and I got it. I walked away from that meeting with advice that I was determined not to follow—the suggestion to just talk to my school about staying without Fulbright and see what they said. I of course knew that Josh had no idea how impossible his suggestion really was because it was Fulbright and not my school that would stop something like that from happening.

Less than 24 hours later a completely disconnected conversation with our school’s head English teacher led to a request that I stay past my Fulbright contract. By the following Monday, I was officially asked to sign a contract for three more years at my school pending Fulbright’s approval and promise that at the end of that time our school could return to the program. Throughout October things with my school continued to progress as we considered appropriate ways to approach Fulbright with our request and began filling out paperwork and tracking down documents for the change of my visa status that would necessarily come with the change in my contract.

I continued to have so many doubts and to worry about what would happen, but finally on the day after Thanksgiving I had a meeting with the director of Fulbright Korea. In the hour long conversation I had with her she not only agreed to allow my school to temporarily leave the program with the promise that they could return when I leave, but also she offered to help me obtain the Korean government scholarship for graduate school in Korea three years from now. Objectively speaking, there are still many things that could happen between now and July that could cause all of these plans to fall through, but I have faith that as God started this he will also complete it. I think I have finally reached the point where I can stop making my own plans, because I’ve learned to really trust that God’s are better.

Wise Love - Philippians 1:1-11

The church in Philippi began quietly, turned into a roller coaster, and then proceeded into a slow plod of active waiting.  Paul and his missionary team arrived in Philippi and just kind of hung out for a few days.  On the Sabbath, they went to the river bank - a common place of prayer for Jews when the city didn’t have synagogues.  

That’s when the action started to pick up.  A rich business woman, named Lydia became a Christian right there on the spot.  They baptized her right there right then in that river.  Then, being a woman used to getting her way, she insisted that they come and stay in her home.  

Things went on fairly normally for a while.  It seems that Paul continued his normal missionary pattern of preaching at gatherings of Jews and interested gentiles.  But then Paul cast a demon out of a slave girl who told fortunes.  Without her demonic connection to the spirit world, the slave girl lost her fortune telling powers.  Her owners were furious, so they stirred up a riot and got Paul and Silas arrested.  

Then, God rocked the jailhouse with an earthquake and set Paul and Silas free.  Except they didn’t leave.  They stayed to convert the jailer and his whole household.  But the next day, the city officials begged them to leave so they’d stop causing trouble.  After a mob riot, a beating with rods, and a night in jail, Paul and Silas understandably decided it was time to move on to another city.

But that left a group of brand new Christians in Philippi.  They came from all walks of life.  There was Lydia, the elite fashionista ... the unnamed slave girl ... and the jailer who was so limited in job options that he worked in a dungeon babysitting criminals.  This motley crew of baby Christians not only survives but thrives.  

How Can I Know If What Is Happening Is God's Will? (Talk Back Series)

Talk Back Question:  How can I know if what is happening in my life is the will of God or because of my own choices?
[This question can in on a Talk Back card at our church.]

That is a very good question to ask and the answer goes a little deeper.

Just like Habakkuk, we have to have faith in God.  We know that with the fall of human kind, sin entered into the world, and that sin can interfere in our lives.  Let’s look at 1 John chapter 5: 

“Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has become a child of God. And everyone who loves the Father loves his children, too. ² We know we love God’s children if we love God and obey his commandments. ³ Loving God means keeping his commandments, and his commandments are not burdensome. ⁴ For every child of God defeats this evil world, and we achieve this victory through our faith. ⁵ And who can win this battle against the world? Only those who believe that Jesus is the Son of God.”

In 1 John 5, we learn that if we believe that Christ is our savior and we love him, we will carry out his commands. By carrying out his commands we overcome the world!  This passage is letting us know a few miraculous blessings from God. 

1. When we confess and are saved by Jesus Christ, we are reborn into God’s family and we are His children. Just like when we were children, we follow and listen to our parents. We must do the same with God!
2. That we need to know God’s commands.  How? By reading, studying and understanding the word of God –the Holy Bible. 
3. If we follow his commands and seek God’s will, then we do not have to worry about what is happening in our lives! We know that God is in control.

Also, from 1 John 5:

¹⁴ And we are confident that he hears us whenever we ask for anything that pleases him. ¹⁵ And since we know he hears us when we make our requests, we also know that he will give us what we ask for.

These verses show us that when we talk to God, we don’t demand what we want. When we become Christians, we become slaves to Christ (Ephesians 6:6) and to God. Our will, our thinking is no longer about us!  It is about God’s will!  When we pray for God’s will, he will listen to us, and we can be certain that he will intervene in our lives.

So how does this answer the question?  Well, if we are seeking God and His will, we can be confident that no matter what happens, God will guide us.  We must pray and seek guidance and have confidence that God is showing us His will. Sometimes God is very direct, and sometimes he is not.  He did give us a free will to choose and God wants us to be happy serving Him.  Sometimes the choices may be entirely up to you!  God doesn’t nitpick out lives!  Trust in God, and your prayers. 

[Answered by our youth pastor, Adam Jantz.]