Faith & Life

Grit Score

At Harvard University, they had a study on 130 students. They designed a study and asked students to run for up to five minutes on a treadmill with the maximum speed set. Running was over just in few minutes, but the study lasted forty years. The research team had longitudinal studies on the participants every two years to check their recent state. As a result, the study confirmed that their level of vocational achievement, social satisfaction, and psychological adjustment were proportional to the grit score. Grit is a psychological term expressing patience and enthusiasm of pushing a little bit more when they reach the limit. It is found that the students, who received higher grit scores by not giving up…

For Eternal Life

Gulliver’s Travels is a prose satire written by Irish writer Jonathan Swift, which begins with Part I: A Voyage to Lilliput and leads up to Part 4. This satire was adapted into a children’s story and has been read by many children. When I was a teenager, I had a chance to read the full text of Gulliver’s Travels and there was a very impressive part. The third nation Gulliver goes to after traveling in Lilliput and Brobdingnag is a flying island, where he hears from a high official about the Struldbrugs, people who are immortal. Gulliver starts to admire them, but he soon changes his mind. At first, Gulliver envied them at the thought that they would stay young…

Choi Jae-ung from Incheon, Korea

The Reason That God Allowed a New and Beautiful Temple

London Zion has recently moved to a new location where we could accommodate more brothers and sisters in the London area. Giving thanks to God for Their grace, the young adult preaching members of London Zion made the determination to preach harder even late at night, to fill the new Zion Father and Mother have given us. One night, during the weekday, as it is common in the UK, there were not many people in the streets around. However, believing Mother would send us to our lost brothers and sisters, we went out to preach. We saw a young lady walking fast on the opposite side of the road. We asked her, “Have you ever heard about God the Mother?”…

London, U.K.

Mom and Light

When I was little, my house was located in a deep mountain valley. My village had only fourteen households, and there was no bus there. I had to walk forty minutes to go to the elementary school, and it took me almost one hour by bike to go to the middle school. The high school was too far to commute from my house, so I stayed at the school dormitory. During the week I stayed in the dorms, and on the weekends I went back home, where I received rice, side dishes, and pocket money to spend the following week. Every Saturday, I had to hurry to go back home. There was the bus that went near my neighborhood, but…

Ju Jeom-yeol from Yangsan, Korea

Human Body, the Greatest Gift

A single car has about 25,000 parts, and a Boeing 747 has over 45 million parts. Then, what about the human body? Our body has about 10 trillion cellular tissues, 25 trillion red blood cells, and 25 billion white blood cells, and the tongue alone has 9,000 taste cells. The heart which weighs only 300 grams beats over 100,000 times and pumps 7,200 liters of blood a day and flows continuously through blood vessels in the body at the speed of 216 km/h (134 miles/h). Every day, the lung breathes in and out nearly 20,000 times and breathes in 10,000 liters of air. The brain which is 2.5% of the body weight has 14 billion nerve cells and 7 millions…

Only After I Became a Mom Myself

I was born in a remote village in Gangwon Province. There were many good things about living in the countryside, but I wished I would have many chances to eat delicious foods that were only sold in downtown. My favorite days were the national holidays and my birthday, when my uncle visited us with snack gift sets. Knowing how excited I was about special food, my mom prepared delicious food on my birthday every year. I moved to a city when I entered middle school and lived with my sister, who is two years older than I am, until I got married. My mom felt so bad that she couldn’t take care of me as she let me, her youngest…

Gi Geum-ju from Chuncheon, Korea

When We, Who Are Different from Each Other, Are United

A sigh came out when I opened the refrigerator door. There were sesame leaves and a little bit of bean sprouts, which were left over after I cooked spicy chewy noodles; some carrots and baby vegetables, which were left over from when I cooked bibimbap; and some water parsley, crown daisy, and a cabbage. A little bit of all kinds of vegetables that were left over was taking up space on one side of the refrigerator. After wondering how I could utilize those ingredients that would go bad if I left them in the fridge any longer, I decided to make buchimgae [Korean pancake]. It was perfect menu for the weather, for it was drizzling outside. There are many different…

Lee Hye-gyeong from Seoul, Korea

Wrong and Different

8 What is it? It looks like a driving course to a traffic manager. It is a code to those who work with equipment. It is the number eight or the infinity symbol to a mathematician. Everybody is right. Nobody is wrong. The answer can vary according to perspectives. There are seven billion people on the earth, but none of them look the same. Even twins look different. It is not just about looks. We all think differently, speak differently, and act differently. Being different doesn’t mean it is wrong. People may not agree with you. The way some people speak may be unpleasant to your ears. Their behaviors may get on your nerves. But if you think, ‘They’re just…

In the Place Where God Wants Us to Be

There was a very special day for me though it must have been a usual day for others. It was when some smiling members from the Church of God in Peru let me know the existence of God the Mother. That day, God opened my heart and allowed me to receive a new life. My husband who came home from work too listened to the truth and received it, and my younger brother became a heavenly family member as well. Before, I attended a Protestant church since my childhood, where I tried to preach the word to people though I didn’t really know what preaching was. I also asked my husband several times to come to church with me and…

Doris Espinoza Huachaca from Sao Paolo, Brazil

God Has Come

More than ten years ago, I became a member of the Church of God. The words of the Bible were marvelous that I led my two sons, who were elementary students at that time, and my second older sister to Zion. I learned a certain amount of the Bible and heard compliments from the members, so I was confident that I had faith. However, I could not accept God who came with the ordinary physical body that was not different from ours, so I eventually left the truth. Ten years after that, the trials came without notice and even broke my will to life. I was totally exhausted in body and mind, and even the words of people whom I…

Baek Eun-hui from Gimhae, Korea

Only If We Preach Boldly

I work in a dental college hospital. To display God’s glory at my workplace through good deeds, I tried to be faithful to my work at every moment and tried to look vibrant even when I was tired. Meanwhile, there was a Bible seminar at my church. I wanted anyone to listen to it, and so I invited an intern. But she said she would come next time and left although it would’ve been better if she could come. I thought it wasn’t a big deal, but finding that people were talking about it the next day, I was taken aback. Fortunately, thanks to my boss who had had a good impression of me since I joined the hospital, nothing…

Seoul, Korea

Hiking

“Mom, can’t you take my backpack?” One holiday when my husband went away on a business trip, I decided to go hiking after much thought over how I would spend time with my child. However, she whined from the moment we began. “Is it too heavy? We’ll get to the spring soon. Be patient a little more. Let’s take a rest there.” My child, who was not accustomed to hiking, felt burdened to even carry her backpack that just contained her own things like drinking water, snacks and so on. I was reminded of myself in my childhood days. Shortly after my younger sister was born, my mother gave birth to twins. With the newly born crying babies and my…

Cho Eun-jin from Changwon, Korea

Breathing of My Soul

“Mom, the doctor said that I have pneumothorax, and that I might die if I don’t have surgery right away.” I received a phone call from my son who went to hospital for having breathing difficulty. Then the doctor talked to me over the phone. “Hello, Ma’am. We just took an X-ray, and he is in a critical condition. He needs to have surgery right away. We will have him go through the admission process and get things ready for an operation, so please come right away. We will start the operation as soon as you arrive.” My mind went blank when I hung up the phone. ‘Pneumothorax?’ I pulled myself together and quickly searched for pneumothorax. It is a…

Kim Eun-mi from Cheongju, Korea

Beautiful Mind and Touching Words

My first eight-year-old son is easily frightened. When he went to the bathroom or needed water to drink at night, he had to wake me or my husband up. One day, however, he woke up at dawn and went to the bathroom alone. I wondered how he could do that, so I pictured his movements, giving my ear to the sound. Soon, he closed the door of the bathroom. ‘Oh? Is he not my son?’ Puzzled, I got up and went to the living room. It was him who came out of the bathroom. “Sol! How come you closed the door? Were you not scared?” “I closed it because I didn’t want to wake up my family with the sound…

Jeong Eun-yeong from Uijeongbu, Korea

The Goodness of a Person Spreads

I believe everyone has ever, at least once, been attracted on the street to sweet smell of new bread wafting through the air. This smell of bread does not only stimulate people’s appetite but also make people kinder. The researchers at the University of Southern Brittany in France recruited eight volunteers and let them drop one of their belongings outside a bakery and a clothing boutique. As a result of about 400 times of experiments, they found out that when the volunteers dropped items outside the bakery, 77 percent of strangers stopped to help recover the lost item, but only 52 percent of strangers helped outside the clothing store. A similar experiment had taken place before, and it showed that…

Division of Housework Has an Amazing Power

Cooking, doing the dishes, laundry, cleaning, arranging, recycling, taking out the trash, grocery shopping . . . The housework repeats every day, and it’s not even that noticeable even if you do it, but it’s very obvious if you don’t do it. Although the housework seems simple and trivial, quite a lot of families have conflicts because of it. ‘Why can’t he help me with the house chores?’ ‘How can she ask me for help after I came back from working all day?’ ‘Mom will take care of it’ . . . The problem is not the housework itself, but the difference in understanding among family members. Sometimes, you don’t feel like doing housework, and they seem like trivial and…

Happiness That I Learned in the Military

When I joined the military, my parents didn’t look sad while seeing me off. I entered the training center, thinking, ‘It’s good that my mom and dad didn’t get too emotional.’ But on the day we had the completion ceremony of the basic training, my parents ran to me, looking like they were about to cry, and gave me a hug. That was when I realized that my parents were actually hiding their feelings at the admission ceremony. Ever since that day, I tried harder to get myself adapted to the hard trainings, thinking that they would be very concerned if I couldn’t adapt myself there. I called them four or five times a week at least to ask them…

Kim Seung-hyeok from Busan, Korea

Respond with “Of Course!”

When someone asks you for a favor or makes a suggestion, replying with a simple “sure” is perfectly fine—but responding with “Of course!” can be even more meaningful. Those words go beyond basic agreement; they convey the message, “For you, there’s no need to hesitate.” That sincerity makes the other person feel not only grateful that their request was accepted, but genuinely happy as well. Such warmth often inspires them to extend kindness in return. This month, try responding to your beloved family with a cheerful “Of course!” and experience the joy that flows from wholehearted generosity. Tip When responding to a request “Could you bring me a glass of water?” “Of course!” When agreeing with someone’s idea “This is…

Where Life Sprouts

To preserve the environment, 28,000 trees were planted throughout the Gunpowder Valley watershed in Maryland. However, the trees need to be continually monitored and maintained for the first three to five years of their life. So, our Baltimore Zion members partnered with the local conservancy organization to help maintain the trees. Under the instruction of the guides, we checked the young saplings one by one to see if they were growing well and removed invasive plants around the trees. We stabilized the trees by reinforcing the tree tubes and stakes and by adding more soil to where the soil was swept away. Although it was hard work especially on such a hot, humid day, everyone cheerfully worked together to complete…

Melissa Hutchins from Baltimore, MD, U.S.

Wind Chill Temperature

There are two ways to know the temperature: the actual temperature measured by the thermometer and the wind chill temperature felt by the body. The wind chill temperature is produced on the basis of wind strength, humidity, and solar heat including the air temperature. Apart from these, individual’s physical difference responding to the heat and cold also adds to it. Those who are sensitive to cold may shiver with cold despite warm weather; those who are sensitive to heat are likely to be insensitive to cold weather though others feel cold. There is also a wind chill temperature felt by heart. Despite the same condition, people sense it differently. A warm spring to me can be still a cold winter…