The day begins
as I woke once again on a bed inside a storage room
in a now abandon dormitory building in downtown Inchon
City in the northern part of Korea. It is a dismal
compartment with fewer amenities than a prison cell.
My belongings lay scattered here and there on various
objects stored in this room like an old piano, cloth
drying rack and a mattress on a rack; a pathetic situation
that one brother in Christ so clearly knew is my own
fault.
Seeds of preparation scattered here
and there in hopes of redemption seem to be growing
on this cloudy morning in Korea just 5 miles south
of the North Korean border. It is a day to reflect
upon the events that have caused me to see my own
reflection in an awesome storm that grew out of a
serious spiritual error on my part.
To recapitulate the events that began
on February 8 just a few weeks ago, I had been teaching
children in Alaska who were in great need of the basic
aspects of love and companionship that Korean children
take for granted. Being concerned for my ability to
avoid periods of time where my ability to meet them
is interrupted by the usual Spring and Summer breaks
when school closes and most teachers happily leave
in some kind of thought that reflects a joyful escape
from these precious children, I made preparations
to fill this vacant time with student contact by going
to Korea where schooling is a never ending event.
My concern with being away from students
was compounded by fears of not having enough income
to deal with my financial responsibilities that occur
like most people on a monthly basis. With these “worldly”
concerns, I signed a contract with a school in Korea
in an effort to bridge these matters. Everything went
well getting the contract signed, returned and processed
with flight plans made for February 10th. Even the
visa to go to Korea was highly unusual as I was granted
an F2 visa which is reserved for foreigners who go
to Korea with “landed immigrant” status.
Even with these highly unusual events which to me
seemed like clear signs that I should go to Korea,
something happened just two days before my departure
that was highly unusual.
I remember this very powerful incident
and associated events that made my preparation for
departure appear as a direct violation of God’s
will and directives through the Holy Spirit. It is
so clear to me. On February 8th in the afternoon I
walked to the cloths closet to pick up a shirt that
I had planned to pack for the trip to Korea; it was
the very first action I took to actually go to Korea.
When I touched the cloths hanger I was struck by a
very power sense of stress and confusion. I tried
to shake it off but the further I went to carry out
this action of packing the more the stress and confusion
came over me. Soon I found myself sitting in the dining
room chair wondering what was going on. I prayed to
God that this stress and discomfort be removed; shortly
after this prayer I received a call from a long lost
friend with whom I attended a Bible School in Canada
in 1985 and subsequently visited me in Alaska in 1989,
After 20 years there was a lot to chat about.
This call was a wonderful event for
me as I missed my friend with whom I share many similar
interests and joys associated with wandering the great
splendour of God’s beautiful wildernesses. His
call came in the midst of my packing efforts like
a refreshing breeze in the middle of a hot blowing
sand storm; or more like a sheltering oasis from the
sand storm that I was allowing to develop by my initial
actions to keep a contract promise and be a good steward
of funds spent on air travel which all wound up being
actions that were in opposition to God’s ultimate
will. After a 4 hour conversation with my friend John
I used the remainder of the day to get part of my
disorganized packing done.
The next day (the day before departure)
John called again but it was routed over to my wife’s
phone and I missed his call; if he had called and
we spent another four hours catching up on time missed
in the last 20 years, I would have failed to pack
all together and have missed the flight and the mess
I’m in.
Two hours later….
I went out of my storage room to deal
with some issues that required a number of international
calls, met one of the Korean pastors who stayed in
this big dark dormitory now empty of students who
went home for this holiday weekend.
The good news is there appears to be
a clearing in the storm in my life caused by my failure
to do the right thing. It is crucial to understand
that this terrible life event happened because I was
trying to keep a promise made to a school contract
as well as making a great effort to not waste money
by failing to keep a flight reservation. In all the
preparations to find a school in Korea, sign the contract
and secure a visa; these were unmistakable miracles
that occurred. I had applied to the school several
times but was rejected once in September and again
in October. During this time, I continued to teach
in Alaska on an itinerant basis having the most rewarding
time with students who didn’t have a tenth of
what Korean students have. During the Christmas –
New Years school break I wrestled with loneliness
being away from students. It was during this time
of loneliness that I contacted a recruiter for Korean
schools and he suggested a particular school for which
my qualifications fit very well; in the end this school
providentially happened to be the same school I tried
to apply to back in September and October.
I received the contract which did have
some very unusual wording regarding matters of mandatory
church attendance on Sundays and the prohibition against
foreign teachers from assembling for meetings outside
of the school at any time but figured it had to do
with its particular “Christian” stance.
I filed the contract, received a countersigned copy,
applied for a visa received an unusual F2 visa with
a strictly limited time frame of 90 days which wound
up being 60 days by the time of departure.
All the above is a promise and agreement
involving my word and finances that I must say were
a part of a sum of money I set aside to aid others
in need. When the day came for my departure, the Holy
Spirit VERY clearly and emphatically told me to WAIT.
I was caught between keeping my word and losing funding
for travel and obeying God. I failed and I failed
miserably as I pushed on into a pit fall that ultimately
meant a return trip to the very brink of hell itself.
I found myself pleading for God’s
forgiveness and mercy as my arrival took me from an
airport to a small room in an empty cold dormitory.
I have moved from the borderline comfort of a small
dingy room designed for students to the unimaginable
confines of a storage room with no wash facilities
or place to put clothing. I’m taking my bath
in a wash room designed for custodial care takers
to wash their mops and washing my clothing by hand.
Everyone I tell about my living conditions are totally
incredulous; they tell me that the school is violating
contract agreements by putting me in a storage room.
The sum total of this entire disaster
is the result of my simply not following the direction
of the God’s Holy Spirit. What good can come
out of such a mess? Well many good things are coming
to light from this fiasco; the first and most important
is that there is an awesome Almighty God with powers
to be feared, a God who shows His love by disciplining
His children who fail to obey. Yes, there is an awesome
fearful power that He controls, a power to cast souls
into hell or sweep them up into heaven. He is a God
to be feared but He is also the God of Love. He is
a God of mercy with the ability to forgive and restore
those who are truly repentant and contrite of heart.
For those who call on Him, He will save them even
from death itself.
At this point I write out of the depths
of a humbling situation that I put myself into out
of a conflict of desiring to honour and keep my word
to a school and Korean children when it came into
conflict with His higher calling to care for His little
lambs in poorer situations than Korean children. God
is also very economical in every thing He does even
to the point of turning my errors into something of
value. This trip to Korea has opened my eyes to something
that is happening to western people which they have
no understanding of; I can’t write about what
“this” is right now but suffice it to
say that something is happening that needs to be exposed
to the full light of God’s all knowing presence.
I write what I write here from the bowels
of a dark place and situation because I have faith
and believe with all my heart that this fearful awesome
God is also my Father in Heaven and He will forgive
and restore this prodigal son to His service with
a renewed clarified vision of just what happened to
me during my previous eleven year stay in Korea. My
precious Lord willing, I will finish what I began
to write about last Spring before “something”
caused my attention to shift from exposing a very
sinister process that is happening in the west, to
wasting my Father’s precious time.
© ®
