Beginning of India...

[아름다운교회]

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	Beginning of India...
I come from a family where both of my parents live with me. I've lived in both semi-rural places like Grand Rapids, and large cities like in the heart of Seoul. Right now my home is Toronto—city to one of the most peaceful nations in the world. My concept of money is quite, how would you say—"undeveloped" and I pretty much lack any type of instincts that arise and are necessary in the desperateness of survival. In other words, I have no clue what it means to be in poverty, starving, and live only trying to survive each new day that comes and goes. Most significantly, I have, from birth, been raised in a family full of Christians—devout Christians: pastors, decons, elders, you name it. The only things that caught my eyes as I was growing up were rich people downtown riding their fancy cars to dine in super fancy restaurants, and people in the church sanctuary praying, singing songs, and working beyond standard understanding in the church for God. The thing is, I never got to ride a fancy car or eat out at restaurants in the penthouses of hotels. And I never asked to be dragged around from this church to that church to pray, sing, and “serve” every Sunday. I thought I had the bad end of the bargain, deprived of all the joys of the world. But when God came to me and invited me into His family, my once impoverished life became full, complete, joyous and wonderful. To be in the arms of someone who loves me more than I can imagine—to have made an eternal covenant with the almighty Father, to have been found from a place of misery from my own self-absorption—transformed my life into one of thanksgiving rather than bitterness and pain. As I learned more about God and started to build a relationship with Him, I saw more of how little I am and how big He is. I began feeling so strongly how little I know about Him and His world. I began feeling more and more incapable and weak in a world so big and unknown. I realized how sheltered I have been from much of the realities of the rest of the world. The more I sought God, I wanted to know and love Him. I began to see His heart, gradually, the more I fell in love with Him. He began opening my eyes to see where His heart is, what His heart is like. While I was worried about not being able to eat those luxurious types of food, there were people in Somalia who, everyday, don't have enough to eat at all. While I complained about moving around to places I had never asked to be in, there were women, men and children fleeing their country running from location to location just to find a place to sleep peacefully at night. I felt God's tears falling on my classmate who was struggling to write a paper in English, his second language. God was weeping for my other friend who, a non-Christian, felt isolated in a community full of born-Christians. That same heart was crying for the many people suffering from the disastrous earthquake in Japan. And so I cried too. I cried and cried. I groaned inexpressible groans. It was so perplexing that I asked God how it was possible that I was shedding so many tears for someone I thought I didn't even know very much at all, for people I had never even met before. But the tears kept falling and most of the time I had no words to articulate what I was feeling. One day I came across the CCM song, 아버지의 마음, and deeply related with it. The lyrics of this song express every bit of what my heart was saying: 아버지 당신의 마음이 있는 곳에 나의 마음이 있기를 원해요 아버지 당신의 눈물이 고인 곳에 나의 눈물이 고이길 원해요 아버지 당신이 바라보는 영혼에게 나의 두 눈이 향하길 원해요. 아버지 당신이 울고 있는 어두운 땅에 나의 두 발이 향하길 원해요.  나의 마음이 아버지의 마음 알아  내 모든 뜻 아버지의 뜻이 될 수 있기를  나의 온 몸이 아버지의 마음 알아 내 모든 삶 당신의 삶 되기를 I think God was inviting me to cry with Him; to remember His people, His world. I think God was inviting me to groan with Him for the things that He sees and pains His heart. It was so strange, though, because the more He and I shared these feelings deep inside of me, I felt that much more complete, loved, joyful, hopeful, and ready to live life. He embraced me, wrapped me in His arms, encouraged me, made me realize He understood me, and reminded me how much He loved me. And I found myself confessing more and more how I want to know His heart more; I want to be where His heart is, I want to be at the place where His tears are falling, I want my heart to grow to become like His. He was irresistible. In my everyday life, however, the reality is that I have no idea what the lives of people completely different from me are like. I still have never seen or set foot in a place where droughts, bombings, and hunger are an everyday thing. So I thought to myself, “What am I going to do?” Will I remain in this "sheltered" perspective of the world forever? Will I just live on imagining about how the lives of others are like? This is when I decided I will transfer my thoughts into action. I decided that I will go and see, as a start, something that I have never seen before. I decided to set my foot in India, where religion, poverty, corruption, insanitation are all completely foreign to what I have grown up seeing. It is also a place where cultural and natural beauty probably exceeds anything I have seen in my life. I'm still very young. I believe this is just a start in knowing more about God's heart and what He desires. My prayer is that I grow to become more like my Father; to want what He wants; to be a grain for the Gospel; to be pleasing in the eyes of my Father. Thank you all for your prayers and support.