Looking Back In Time To My
Friend John
Still Faithful To This Day
During my entire
life I have had few friends and of the few I have
had the one in the red shirt next to me (in this photo
taken in 1989) is a friend who has been closer than
a brother. In January of 2010, after more than twenty
years he appeared out of nowhere making contact by
e-mail and from that time on he was a source of blessing
and fellowship that I never knew could exist in this
world.
He reappeared in my life just before
a deep plunge back into a once pure reflection of
their northern family that I had been part of for
more than eleven years. I stayed in contact during
the horror of the event and even though it took place
on the opposite side of the world, he stood by with
helpful guidance to get me out and back to firm turf
in Alaska.
He is the most thoughtful and sensitive
individual I have ever met, going as far as to consider
the difficulties of recent life events. Without hesitation
he sent a very generous thoughtful gift to help me
with getting a business started, funding sufficient
to enter a local Alaskan game based upon the timing
of river ice break up and even the funds sufficient
to bring my wife out for a wonderful luxurious supper
at a famous restaurant here in the Interior of Alaska;
yet with this unimaginably wonderful gift, my friend
John didn’t stop there for this was just a foretaste
of something greater to come.
Not long after this, John began to make
suggestions that I come down to visit him at his home
for a very thoughtful vacation away from the difficult
life I was living as I made every effort to adjust
to a way of existence lived in the west that I had
left behind eleven years ago. For almost one year
I struggled with the switch from the pure Korean culture
I had grown used to in North Korea to the base morally
retrograde society of the west with all its fears,
family decay and extremes of degeneration that even
included the unthinkable reality of child abuse.
Since returning to the west, my life
has been shielded by my association with a segment
of Korean culture tainted by the west; a form of Korean
society that retains some of the basic aspects of
the purer life found in North Korea but infected by
a factor associated with issues few western people
could understand but I must make clear before termination.
From the day I returned last March 3,
2009, I have been living in association with Koreans,
though they appear the same as my North Korean family
and eat the same foods and speak the same language;
they are considered by my people as more dangerous
than any of their foreign enemies. It seem that a
clarification of this issue is desperately needed
as the majority of western people can’t tell
the difference between Chinese, Japanese or Korean
let alone the very subtle difference between North
and South Koreans.
It took a trip to see my friend to discover
more precisely what happened to me during my eleven
year absence. As mentioned, my friend John lavished
many wonderful gifts on me as he sensed that I am
facing a life and death struggle with forces of darkness
that have no regard for anything pure or true. After
elaborate planning my friend John arranged a flight
to his home and country. We both planned carefully
and the day of May 26 arrived. I had to make a connecting
flight from Fairbanks to Anchorage to catch the flight
that would take me where I needed to go; however,
when efforts came to board the flight I discovered
that I didn’t have my passport and was denied
travel. Even though I was not permitted to board the
flight, all my belongings were flown to his city even
after a airline baggage handler told ticketing agents
that none of my bags were on the flight. I wasn’t
stunned by this issue but just accepted it as the
intervention of One who watches over me. My friend
John was shocked by the news that I couldn’t
make the flight and I was left to find a way from
Anchorage back to Fairbanks.
At the end of the day on May 26 I had
to make the decision to return to Fairbanks with only
a few items of clothing and my toothbrush. Just before
boarding, my name was called over the airport announcement
system. I followed the directions to meet a representative
of the air carrier that was suppose to take me to
meet my friend; upon meeting him I was informed that
my bags were found in the airport in my friend’s
country. It’s all so clear in my mind now, the
flight back to Fairbanks on that day fraught with
what appeared to be massive failures on many dimensions.
I boarded the 5:15 flight back to Fairbanks on that
very sunny warm day in Anchorage and with an incredibly
down cast heart collapsed in tears from the huge level
of stress associated with the day’s events.
I closed my eyes as the plane left the ground. I fell
into an exhausted sleep; later I tried to open my
eyes but found I was too tired to look out the window
to the clouds below. I slept on for about 20 minutes.
Later during the flight the gentle white
noise of the jet engines was broken by the pilot announcing
that Mount McKinley was visible out the left side
windows. I opened my eyes and looked out to behold
the majestic sight of the loftiest mountain in North
America just outside my window. I took out my camera
and began to take photos and the pilot slowly rolled
the huge jet over to view down on the beautiful summit.
I was able to capture many beautiful photos of Mount
McKinley but this was just the beginning of the most
picturesque flight I had ever been on. After McKinley,
the pilot dropped the plane down to an altitude about
1000 feet off the ground as he cleared the Alaska
mountain range to fly above the tundra of Alaska’s
Great Interior. In this transcendental moment the
man sitting next to me spoke and asked, “Is
this yours?” as he held out my check book which
had fallen on the floor in my hurried departure. His
face was warm and kind, lit clearly by the bright
light of the arctic midnight sunlight shining through
the port side windows of the aircraft. The colors
of the tundra with all its various greens, aquamarines
and turquoise permafrost pools and lakes was breath
taking; I was so amazed by what I was seeing that
I became mesmerized by the beauty and failed to take
any photographs.
Upon landing, my wife faithfully met
me at the airport in Fairbanks to take me home. Upon
entering our apartment I took out my cell phone and
texted the airline representative to have my bags
sent back to Fairbanks from the foreign airport. He
texted me back and asked me if I was sure I wanted
to do that. I called my friend John whose last words
in Anchorage were that there could be no changes made
to the original plans. John checked with his flight
program and discovered that they could make adjustments
but it would take three days to accomplish. With travel
plans set for three days ahead, I texted the airline
representative and asked him if he could have the
bags held until May 31; his quick response was, “Yes
sir we can.” Thus the flight date was changed
to May 31 and I laid down on the cushions on the floor
to rest without my covers or sleeping bags I had sent
on the foreign flight. As I fell off to sleep I began
to sneeze many times and my wife came out to try and
cover me up with towels, jackets and other large items
of clothing to keep me warm. I thought about my Korean
wife and her faithfulness to pick me up at the airport
and bring me home. I remember her father asking me
in Korean to please love his daughter and help her.
I knew exactly what he meant as his life slipped away
after suffering so long with a wife who was more committed
to her church than her ailing husband; I knew my father-in-law
didn’t want his daughter to wind up like her
mother.
For three days I had a chance to think
deeply about what was gong on. Was the flight I missed
simply a mistake or was it part of a larger plan to
avert something I couldn’t understand? Reflecting
upon the mystical quality of my return trip to Fairbanks,
I began to wonder what I was doing. Now in retrospect,
I realize there are no mistakes regarding God’s
amazing grace as He helped me get my priorities straight
during my visit with my dear friend John.
The solution to the complex equation
that defined the tumultuous events that began upon
my return to Alaska had to do with Perfect Love. At
the top of every web page I have a link to a definition
of “perfect actions” as those which leave
no body behind; that is nobody and no body at the
same time. In my efforts to visit my extremely generous
friend John, who lavished so many gifts upon me that
it was hard to believe it to be true, I was entering
an event that was laying down the foundation for an
actions that would cause me to leave my wife behind.
There is no doubt that my friend John went the extra
light-year to show generosity and brotherly love,
but it was leading to the very real possibility of
leaving my wife behind to fend for her self in a foreign
country alone.
The plan my friend John laid out was
a three month visit that I hoped would allow for the
development of more refined business strategies for
my sprouting personal business. However, it became
clear very quickly that I was jeopardizing my relationship
with my wife whom I have been married to for eleven
years.
Love never fails, keeps no records of
wrongs, is patient kind, long suffering; love doesn’t
leave one’s wife alone in a country greatly
lacking in moral purity to go off and visit a friend
from long ago.
Yes John is my friend who sticks closer
than a brother and my wife is God’s plan to
give me a companion and friend made from my own flesh.
When it comes down to a decision on what I should
do, my wife must come first or the Foundation Stone
upon which I stand will crush me.
It was a tough decision to prematurely
leave my extremely generous friend John with whom
I lacked no good thing, but it was essential to return
to my wife who waits for my help to gain a safe healthy
life in a country with no supportive social network
as exists intact in Korea. I must act quickly to help
her out of a very dangerous situation among the compromise
faction of Koreans who see the US as just a place
waiting to plunder. More to elaborate on this matter
in yet another entry.
∞
©
®
