Faith & Life

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…

Family

In this weary life, I was looking for a place to lean on. One day, my younger sister visited me and recommended me to attend the Church of God. It was the church that I went with her at the invitation of my sister-in-law two years ago. Unlike me, who had stopped going to church after hearing slander from people around me, my younger sister started her life of faith in the Church of God. I was reluctant to go, but since my sister asked me sincerely, I went with her and became a child of God. A month later, I moved to another region and started having Bible studies in earnest. I didn’t know that the Bible was such…

Hongcheon, Korea

What Is Important to My Mom

When I came back home from meeting my friends on a Sunday evening, my mother had several layers of bandages on her pinky finger. “Mom, what happened to your finger?” “I got a little cut while doing something.” Glancing at it, however, it wasn’t just a little cut, and so I asked her to see a doctor quickly. But she said it wasn’t serious and she could go tomorrow. She said so as if nothing really happened, so I thought she was okay, but that was not the case. When I came home after work the next day, her condition was really bad. It was not just her finger; her whole hand was wrapped in bandages. When she went to…

Lee Sun-mi from Seoul, Korea

Home & Mother

On a day off, which I don’t usually have, I was busy doing all the house chores that had piled up and didn’t even notice my phone was ringing. I checked my phone later and found there was a missed call from my mom. “You called me?” “Yes, did I wake you up? Did you get up?” “Of course! Look at the time!” My mom felt bad that I had been working part time for a few years to help with my children’s education fees. She said that her neighbor gave her some big and nice radishes and so she made diced radish kimchi for me and sent it. She asked me to call her to let her know when…

Kim Hyang-sun from Uijeongbu, Korea

Adhesive Bandages for His Loving Wife

Newlywed Earle Dickson had one concern; it’s about his careless wife. She often cut herself or got burns on her fingers while cooking. At that time, as he was working in a company producing surgical tape, he could treat his wife skillfully with bandage and tape. But he wasn’t relieved at the thought she would be flustered if she got cuts when alone. ‘I would feel relieved if she alone could easily give herself first aid.’ So he began to produce adhesive bandages for his wife’s convenience. On the basis of his experience of treating his wife, he cut the tape in proper size, laid folded gauze in the middle of the sticking side, and put down a crinoline band…

Lost Memories

When I was a kid, I liked animated TV shows a lot. Whenever I came home after school, I was always excited to watch them, and whenever they ended, I felt so sad. I tried to figure out how to save those episodes so that I could watch them over and over again, and I learned about video recording. There is a square hole on a video tape. When I covered that hole and recorded the show, what was originally recorded was deleted and the animations were recorded over it. We had various kinds of video tapes: my kindergarten talent show, bowling guide, foreign movies, my parents’ wedding, etc. I started recording animations with them. Of course, I was only…

Hong Sun-tae from Gangneung, Korea

According to What You Have Done

No one idles away his days, not doing any work. When a man is born, work devours him until his last breath on earth. Even people who seem to do nothing, they eat, sleep, and think. While all people are doing work whether small or big, some people achieve great things that no one else can. They are the ones who have quickly learned out that human life is too short and precious to end, repeating the same things every day. They have clear goals. That’s why they don’t dissipate even a day. They make efforts to live meaningfully, discerning things they do in general, things they must do, things that are good to do, things that are unnecessary, things…

Mother’s Errand

I am the second child in my family; I have an older brother and a younger brother. We live in different parts of Melbourne in Australia, and our parents live in Adelaide which is nine hours away by car from Melbourne. We cannot go visit our parents that often due to our work, but our mother travels such a long distance whenever we get sick or something happens, and she looks after us. One day, my older brother got a flu. My mother would have made a trip to my older brother’s house right away, but she was also sick and busy taking care of something else, too. Late at night, my mother called me. “Yeon-uk, could you make some…

Jeong Yeon-uk from Melbourne, Australia