New baby!  Se Min…

One more pic

Sun Ah in the morning

Da Heen and Jung Ho driving together… they look like a couple

Smile!

Kids playing in mud

Jung Hyun adding water to the muck

Kee Baek and Jung Ho… they would soon have mud all over their hair and shirts… good times

Our home’s guinea pig… I call him “Munchie”

Ji Woo and Jung Hyun watching Munchie eat

Some of the kids trying to put enough force on the see-saw to lift me up… cute little Jina in the front

  

Ji Woo

With Da Heen and Ji Woo

 

God bless!

Sex, Food, and Rest…

While watching Planet Earth, a fantastic collection of videos of creatures around our world, it became clear to me that nearly every living creatures’ purposes in life are:  eat, rest, and reproduce.  There really isn’t much else to their life, and this goes for pretty much every creature out there. 

While counseling people throughout my few years serving in college fellowships and then at church, its been saddening to realize just how many people have been sexual abused and/or are under sexual bondage.  The percentages are staggering, for both men and women.  It seems nearly everyone has had their time or is still enduring their time of darkness.  And for those who are deeper into bondage, their lives are becoming more and more… well… animal-like.  Satan has made everything out to be for their selfishness and their lives revolve mainly around food, rest, and sex.  Satan hates that we were made in the image of God and would rather us look like we were made in the image of pigs or some other animal. 

Those who struggle with their purity have to understand that our lust cannot be fulfilled unless Satan is feeding it, and he will only give enough to keep us hungry and frustrated for more.  Satan doesn’t want to fulfill us.  He is like the white witch in the movie Narnia, just hand-feeding us our lust fulfillment until we’ve given over the things of value in our lives and are imprisoned to him. 

Its not our self-discipline/flesh that can overcome, its the Spirit living within us that gives us victory.  He is greater than Satan and any of Satan’s dark works.  We have to continually feed our Spirit through reading the Word and prayer in order to overcome.  Either you’re feeding your flesh with the things of this world or your feeding your Spirit with the things of God.  Either you’re just another animal on this earth or you’re a child of God.  Turn your eyes and desires to Him and God will give you victory!

Psalm 119:9 – How can a young man keep his way pure?  By living according to Your Word.
Romans 12:2a – Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

Younger Kids’ Camp Pictures

Group pic with some of the kids and Sa Rang dorm father… in English, Sa Rang means “love.”  So a number of the older kids call him, “Love teacher.” 

I spent a lot of time lifeguarding in the water and rescuing the littler kids who would get scared at times while sitting in the rafts… this little one is Ji Woo

A bunch of kids trying to capsize a raft

Spinning little kids round and round

Sun Jae and Ji Hoon

Kyoo Min dorm mother… she was born in August of 1986… makes me feel old

Chae Hyun

Throwing Soo Yun (she loved this)… I love Kyung Hwan’s reaction in the background

Joon Hyuk, Da Heen, and Jung Ho

Da Heen and Joon Hyuk with Kyung Mi and Love teacher

Some of the boys hanging out at night before bedtime

Some VBS time

Mini Olympics for the elementary kids… trying to get Joon Hyuk across on the backs of the kids

The kids also had raft races

Not all the kids had fun though… Hae Ran and Jung Hwan after their raft capsized… heehee

The kids playing some sort of handball type game

The littler kids also had their own “Mini Olympics.”  It was more like a little obstacle course…

Min Seung running through a hula hoop

Jung Hyun hula hooping

 

Ji Won’s turn to run… these kids were cute to watch, only one or two kids finished correctly, the rest would start out right but then get confused and run around happily

Dal Woo worn out after a long day

God bless!

It is not a human right to stare not fight while broken nations dream
Open up our eyes, so blind, that we might find the mercy for the need

Singing, hey now, fill our hearts with your compassion
Hey now, as we hold to our confession

It is not too far a cry to much to try to help the least of these
Politics will not decide if we should rise and be your hands and feet

Singing, hey now, fill our hearts with your compassion
Hey now, as we hold to our confession
Woah-oh-oh, God be the solution
Woah-oh-oh, we will be Your hands and be Your feet.

Higher than a circumstance your promise stands, your love for all to see
Higher than protest line and dollar signs, your love is all we need

Only You can mend the broken heart and cause the blind to see
Erase complete the sinners past and set the captives free
Only You can take the widows cry and cause her heart to sing
Be a Father to the fatherless, Our Savior and our King
We will be Your hands, we will be Your feet
We will run this race, for the least of these
In the darkest place, we will be Your light
We will be Your light
We’ll sing

We will run we will run
We will run with the solution

Hillsong United – Solution

This past week I was at Christian camp with my kids.  Monday – Thursday lunch was a junior high and high school camp for a few church youth groups along with our kids and then Thursday afternoon to Saturday was an elementary and kindergarten camp for just our kids.  The camps were fun and provided good bonding opportunities.  My kids are lacking spiritually though and weren’t into worship as much as the kids from the other churches.  I was glad that they were at least able to witness some “cool older kids” from other churches worship from their heart.  Anyway, here are pictures from the first camp, most of them were from our play time since I only took my camera to one of the worship and small group times.

Some of the boys gathering for the first worship… Korean camp style, no chairs

My orphanage’s pastor, Pastor Lee, giving the opening message

The praise team… they’re a praise team from some university in Seoul and some of them are only 19 or 20 years old… made me feel old.  They were good though.

On the second day we carpooled to a local gymnasium for playtime

One of the weird games we played… the kids had to keep big pieces of ice in their mouth and whichever team had the most ice remaining after 5 minutes or so won

Soo Min is the boy to the left… he will reappear in a couple pictures…

Do Hyun and Young Jin (boys to the right) preparing for tug-of-war

Soo Min tug-of-war action shot… 

In this game the boy had to run across all his teammates backs across the gym and then back

My boys laughing

At night we had a campfire and played a few games… Kyung Mi took this picture of me, two of my small group boys (Do Hyun and Min Ho) carrying Sun Ran… she had to fight against another girl and whoever would pull off the panty hose from the other’s head first would win… we won, of course

On the third day we spent some time playing in the pool… which mainly amounted to sneaking up and dunking each other

Taking down Kyung Soo

Soo Jin’s turn… this girl just wouldn’t learn not to splash at me.   Don’t worry, the kids all had fun.

Some of my boys egging me on… I’m a bit stronger then them so they would attack me in groups of four or five… those cheaters…

Preparing to take him down

With most of the girls from my home

 

More playing

My small group during the camp… my friend Kyung Mi (far left) led and I helped out

This girl from some other church asked me to marry her but then found out I’m about 10 years older and made a face like, “Oh, he’s that old???”  I’m getting old…

The kids

I’ll post pictures next weekend of the cute munchkins from the second camp.  God bless!

Prayer Request:  All this coming week I’ll be with my kids at a Christian camp.  Monday – Thursday is for the middle and high schoolers, Thursday – Saturday is for the elementary kids.  Please pray for kids to be saved, for God’s presence to be felt in a powerful way, and for blessed bonding time.  Thank you!

Pictures!!!  My friends Semy and Jiae have visited a couple times recently.  The first three are Semy’s pictures from a few weeks ago and the rest are from yesterday…

With Sun Hee, Jiae, and Soo Ah

Jung Ho

Hyun Hee Kim, Semy, Min Seung, Da Heen, and me

Yesterday’s pictures (I buzzed my hair)… Sun Hee, Eun Ho, and Soo Ah… Sun Hee was suddenly distracted by the TV

During our second attempt Hae Hyun jumped in front… Hae Hyun is still recovering from liver cancer… she has a great attitude, but her body still needs more healing.  Please lift up a prayer for her…

New girl Ji Woo!  She arrived last Tuesday night…

Jiae with Ji Woo

Soo Ah playing with Jiae’s camera

Kids watching TV…

 

Eun Ho sandwich (with Soo Ah)

More kids (and Jiae) watching TV

Just turn on cartoons and the kids settle down immediately…

The kids use each other (and Jiae) as pillows

 

I sat down to join them and Soo Ah sat on my lap… within minutes she had fallen asleep…

Sun Hee and Jiae (Jiae has specifically been praying for this girl for a couple years now)

With Jiae…

God bless!

 

Spiritual Skyscrapers

Since moving into Korea I’ve noticed a number of a construction sites where seemingly nothing was happening.  There were just tall walls around the area advertising what would eventually be there.  Then, seemingly overnight, a huge building would appear in that lot.  What had taken so long to set up and lay a good foundation took only a short amount of time to be built.  I had never thought about how important a foundation is for a building, especially a tall one.  The taller the building, the longer and more extensive the foundation has to be.  In fact, the soon to be tallest building in the world, the Burj Dubai took a couple years for its foundation to be built, but now is adding levels to the building at a clip of a level every 4 days (although the levels are smaller as it goes up). 

So it is with being a Christian.  The higher you want to go, the stronger your foundation first must be.  Those who try and do too much with a weak foundation either end up only achieving little (like a small town-home) or they collapse under too much pressure.  Its only those who, with patience in waiting on the Lord and discipline in their daily growth, end up standing out in this world in a mighty way.  Even though the apostle Paul was a grown man who had a ton of learning and leadership experience when he was first converted, he still needed at least TEN YEARS of personal growth with the Lord before he was ready for his first missionary journey, at the tender age of around 42 years old.  Sounds crazy right?  But he was the one who would end up spreading Christianity throughout the known world and writing most of the New Testament.  You could say that of all Christian followers since Christ that he is the greatest spiritual skyscraper.  His foundation was strong enough to hold up insane pressures of ministry (2Corinthians 11:23-28) and even execution. 

Make our foundation strong Lord.  “Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord” – Psalm 27:14. 

Baby Room!

Before the pictures, here is a short video of the baby room.  Enjoy Sun Ah’s laugh (her dorm mother is saying playfully, “I’m gonna get Sun Ah!”). 

Young Ho… the hairy baby (he is our youngest)

Hyun Woo… the sleeping baby

Hee Sung… the smiling baby

Sung Joon… our chubby baby

Sun Ah… our attention loving baby… she just turned 1 a couple weeks ago, the oldest of the babies

 

Jina (almost 3 years old now) and Sun Ah

Sung Joon

Young Ho

Hee Sung

Hyun Woo a little closer… if you look close you can see the imprint of the blanket on the upper part of his cheek (he had just changed positions)

Sung Joon

Young Ho

Hee Sung is still smiling…

Sung Joon

Sun Ah

Young Ho and Sun Ah

God bless!