Faith & Life

For a Friend of Mine

Some elementary school students went on a field trip to a car factory. When the students entered the factory, a man shook his hands, calling the name of one of the boys. He was an employee of the automobile factory. He was on his way to see his son, hearing that his school students were coming to the factory for a field trip. But when the boy found his dad, he just contacted eyes with his dad and followed the teacher with his friends. He felt awkward at his son’s reaction as he had thought his son would run to him happily, shouting, “Dad!” ‘As I’m in working clothes, he must’ve felt ashamed before his friends.’ Although the man understood…

The Power of Three Seconds!

The sun rises and sets quickly, and a month passes by at a blink of an eye. In countless hours, three seconds may seem so short, but a long time consists of those short moments. For that short time, an important match can be won or lost in an arena, someone’s life can change, and a new life can be born somewhere. Small but important three seconds! If you make good use of it, you will get a good result. Why don’t you take advantage of the power of three seconds this month? What is important is practice. If your action is followed, three seconds are enough time to make others and yourself happy. Shall we start now? One, two,…

In Lambarene Where God Has Opened Wide the Door to the Gospel

The way to Lambarene, a small city in the west, from Libreville the capital of Gabon! After driving for five hours on a rough road unpaved here and there, we arrived in the city and saw houses on both sides of the road and people walking in front of the houses. “Let’s preach the truth to as many people as possible. Let’s save even one more soul before we go back.” Everybody’s heart was burning with fervor. Our short-term mission to Gabon, a distant country from Korea, was truly a worthwhile experience. The people in Lambarene loved the words of the Bible. We had thought they would be cautious about us, Asians, whom they were unfamiliar to, but most of…

Short-Term Mission Team to Lambarene, Gabon

A Load That Is Not a Load

About 70% of the cargo that is imported or exported around the world is transported through the ocean. Ships are a means of transportation, which can carry the most amount of loads at once. There are ships of all different sizes from small ships that can be loaded with hundreds of containers all the way to mega-sized ships that can be loaded with 24,000 containers. However, no ship, whether small or big, returns empty after unloading all the cargo at its destination. When a ship is light and its lower part does not sink properly, the center of gravity rises, making the ship more likely to tip over, and the propeller can be exposed above the surface, spinning with no…

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, South Korea

The Result of a Positive Mind

A man who doesn’t have any talent on basketball throws a ball toward the hoop. He throws it ten times and fails all the ten times. However, when he tries again some time later, he makes the ball into the hoop four out of ten times. What made his goal success rate go up suddenly? Actually, this was an experiment to find out the power of positive thinking. After the challenger’s first attempt, the host gathered some people, put a blindfold on the challenger’s eyes, telling him that he could do it if he had confidence, and then asked him to throw the ball. When the blindfolded challenger threw the ball, the people cheered for him enthusiastically as if he…

Happiness Comes When You Leave Your Worries Behind

Deep in the past, there was a person who was full of worries. He could not even sleep, eat, or go outside the house, worrying that the sky might collapse and the land might fall. Everyone dreams of a worry-free life, but actually lives in many needless worries and fears. It is not an exaggeration to say that a life is a continuation of worries: school grades, health, relationships, employment, marriage, child rearing, supporting aged parents, preparation for their later years, etc. Those who are physically weak worry about their weakness, and the healthy are afraid of losing their health. If they are unhappy, they are anxious about being unhappy; if they are happy, they are afraid that their happiness…

Gospel Trumpet Call Resounds in Patna, India, beyond Nepal

The sound of the gospel trumpet blown from Nepal has crossed its border and is resounding powerfully in its neighboring countries like Bhutan and India, and even in the Middle East. Among the Nepalese brothers and sisters who are carrying out their mission as part of world evangelism, several formed a team to establish Zion in Patna which is the central city of Bihar in East India. Patna is the capital city of the state of Bihar, where people’s income is lower than any other states in the vast land of India. Due to its poor living environment and serious public safety issues, even the government finds it hard to manage. What came to our minds while gathering information about…

Short-Term Mission Team to Patna, India

From Persecution to Blessing

The brothers and sisters participated in the preaching festival with one accord even in the scorching heat and the glowing sun that could peel their skin off. Their fragrance of Zion spread all over North India. I want to share a gracious story of the Shillong Church. Several months ago, as two young adult members were preaching the gospel, they were severely persecuted by a pastor and some members from a Protestant church. There were many passersby at that time. Among them, a female adult saw it on her way back home, and she couldn’t help but shed tears because she felt heartbroken. She didn’t know why she felt that way, but she was troubled as if it had happened…

The Church of God in Shillong, India

A Special Supper

An American photographer asked fifty amazing chefs what they would eat for their final meal on earth. Most of them picked simple foods such as doughnuts, chicken, fried eggs, and burgers instead of the highest quality food that they make. The reason is that those foods bring back memories about some precious people in their lives or some unforgettable experiences. In fact, one hospice hospital in Japan provides patients with one last meal that they want to eat. Most of the foods that patients choose have good old memories, and the patients enjoy the foods that bring back their old memories and feel happy, according to the hospital. For this special dinner that is held every Friday evening, the chef…

Despite More Than Seven Hundred Failures

In the 1900s, there was a man who was dreaming of being a writer. While working various clerical and sales jobs, he wrote whenever he had time and submitted his writing to a publishing company whenever he completed one. However, every time he submitted his work, he got rejected. The number of rejection slips he got for his work was more than seven hundred. Almost all the publishing companies had received his work. Since they didn’t have computers to write and edit easily back then, it must’ve been very hard to write that many novels even for a gifted person. However, as he continued writing stories despite repeated failures, his 744th work was accepted by a publishing company, and he…

Mom’s Letter

“Mom, it’s me. What are you doing?” “Uh, I’m doing my homework.” “What is it?” “Writing three times what I wrote wrong on my spelling test.” “Mom, don’t write more than three times. I’m afraid it might tire you.” “Well, I’ve already written more than three times.” This is our repetitive conversation we have whenever I call her. My mother, who couldn’t learn at school due to her difficult family circumstances, always felt the lack of learning. Recently, however, she found a Hangul [Korean alphabet] class for illiterate senior citizens. There are three classes a week and she has never been absent. As she did her homework more than assigned, the teacher complimented her and worried about her at the…

Hwang Ju-hui from Suwon, South Korea

A Doctor Who Insisted on Washing Hands

In the 19th century, the mortality rate from childbed fever was high in Europe. Childbed fever was fever due to an infection in a cut made during childbirth. Since they didn’t have much knowledge on germs, childbed fever was an object of horror, driving mothers to death whether they were rich or poor. Then, Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis from Hungary insisted that washing hands before the doctors help with the childbirth could reduce the deaths of mothers. There were two delivery rooms in the hospital he worked for. One of them was where midwives worked, and the other one was where the doctors who also took care of other patients or dead bodies helped mothers deliver their babies. The delivery room…

A Mother’s Earnest Request

In the time of Joseon Dynasty, there was a servant boy in the house of an official who was in charge of finances of the country. Although the boy grew up with poverty under the care of a single mother, he was honest and intelligent and took care of everything with no problems. The official thought that it was a waste of his talent to have him do chores, so he gave him a position and entrusted him with an important work. Then one day, his mother came to him and asked him earnestly. “I feel honored that you are using my son for something so important. But please, take away my son’s position.” Feeling perplexed that she wanted him…

The Virtuous Cycle of Love

The brothers and sisters gathered in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, for a street cleanup. Although it was a rainy season, it was sunny that day as if even the sky was cheering for us. Thanks to the weather, the brothers and sisters in blue t-shirts and yellow vests looked even brighter. The area we were cleaning that day was around a big hospital. All kinds of trash were mingled with dust, so we had to clean them up one by one with our hands. Everyone was working diligently although they were sweating buckets. The trash that we gathered while cleaning for a short period of time in the morning was over one ton. A hospital official who was watching…

Jeong Min-ji from Busan, South Korea

Even Small Defects

During harvest season every year, our Zion members give a helping hand to short-handed farmers. This time, we visited an orchard in Eoreumgol Valley, Miryang, Korea, in order to help with sorting apples. Eoreumgol Valley located on halfway up the Cheonhwangsan Mountain mysteriously forms ice between mid June and August during midsummer heat, and the ice melts in winter. So it has been designated as Korea’s Natural Memorial No. 224. Apples, produced in the magnificent natural environment and the fertile land of Eoreumgol Valley, are a specialty of the village. The farmers here are short-handed, like in other farming and fishing villages. The owner of the orchard we visited was unable to do his work because he had hurt his…

Lee Yeong-jin from Busan, South Korea

Between Determination and Action

“I will not eat at night anymore, starting tomorrow.” “I will read at least for an hour every day from next week.” “I will start working out from next month.” Sometimes we make a resolution to do something, but we don’t put it into action immediately. The thought that you don’t feel like doing it right at this moment, but that it will be easy to start it later, fans the delayed action. However, if you put it off, you are most likely to put it off again when the time you decided to do it actually comes. Then, even the resolution you made at first becomes vague. No matter how determined you are, just making a resolution won’t change…

A Great Meal

Physicist Einstein was very poor when he was young. Because he couldn’t afford to only study, he worked in the daytime and taught students after work; he often only had a piece of bread and water for a meal. One day, some of his friends visited him while he was having a meal. His friends were startled to see his poor meal. “I didn’t know your poverty was this bad.” “Me, neither. I can’t believe that all you are having is a piece of bread and water . . .” Then, Einstein replied, looking all relaxed. “Isn’t this a pretty great meal? I’m having flour, baking powder, salt, sugar, eggs, and water. What more do I need? On top of…

How to Survive in the Jungle

In one jungle in Zimbabwe, a baby elephant fell backwards as it fell into a puddle. The mother elephant tried its hardest to help its baby elephant up, but it couldn’t. The baby elephant kept losing its strength, and lions started roaming around them, waiting for the mother elephant to become tired. Right then, some other elephants that saw what was going on started gathering around them. Some of them worked together to help the baby elephant up, and the rest of them blocked the way to keep the lions away. Since even baby elephants weigh a lot and elephants use their trunks like their hands instead of using their front legs, it wasn’t easy even for several adult elephants…

Say “Thanks to You” instead of “Because of You”

Both “because of you” and “thanks to you” tell the cause-and-effect relationship. However, their meanings are diametrically opposite. “Because of you” has a negative connotation like blaming someone, but “thanks to you” has a positive connotation like having a thankful mind and respecting others. Frequent use of “because of you” causes resentment and dissatisfaction, but a habit of saying “thanks to you” stops blaming others and gives positive perspective. Even when you go through trials and pain, try to think, “Thanks to someone,” then you’ll certainly find something to thank for. Try to speak “thanks to you” instead of “because of you.” Thanks to “thanks to you,” you will be happy. Tip If someone in your family makes a mistake,…