Faith & Life

All Joy and Happiness Are in Mother

When my son introduced his future wife to us, my wife and I liked her right away because she told us that she went to church. Since we were Christians, there was nothing more I would want as long as they made a harmonious family, living an upright life of faith. Soon after our son got married, we found out that our daughter-in-law’s church was the Church of God. Although we were unhappy about that, we couldn’t show it to such a good daughter-in-law. At our devoted daughter-in-law’s request, we had been to “Our Mother” Writing and Photo Exhibition hosted by the Church of God, and listened to the church news she often delivered to us. Then one day, our…

Lee Sil-geon from Daegu, South Korea

A True Teacher of the Nation

To establish the foundation of his country, King Sejong in Joseon Dynasty of Korea created Hangul (Korean alphabet) despite his heavy workload. King Sejong was fluent in reading and writing Chinese characters, so he did not need to create Hangeul when managing governmental affairs. Then, why did he invent Hangeul? “Since Chinese is not the language of our country, Chinese characters cannot fully express Korean words. Thus, many illiterate people are unable to express themselves when they are trying to say what is in their minds. I felt sorry about them and created a new set of twenty-eight alphabets, so that everyone can easily learn and use it in their daily lives.” Preface of Hunminjeongeum The reason King Sejong created…

On a Rainy Day

I don’t like rainy days. The gloomy weather makes me feel down, and also makes my clothes and shoes wet. Another reason I don’t like rainy days is that my joint predicts the rain more accurately than the weather center, as I’m suffering from neuralgia. But sometimes I smirk while walking in the rain. I went to school in a small town for the first couple of years of elementary school. My house was located in the center of the town, and the school was so close to my house that sometimes from the school playing field I could see my mom hanging laundry on the rooftop. Back then, quite many students had to walk for thirty minutes or even…

Choi Jae-jeong from Gunpo, South Korea

No Graffiti! Yes Clean and Safe Town! 2

Brothers and sisters in the Sydney Zion are from various cultures and races, but they are one in mind for proclaiming Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother with every small good deed. A good opportunity to shine Their light was given to us. In response to the community’s call for volunteers to roll up their sleeves and take part in the Graffiti Removal Day, we participated in the event. On October 29, 2017, clothed in bright yellow vests, we put on gloves and goggles and performed the mission to erase the unsightly graffiti on the wall of an industrial building at Blacktown. Participants came from across age groups: children, high school students, young adults, and adults, so we could share the…

Arleen Alzadon Montano from Sydney, Australia

Meal Time Filled With Love

In summer, 2019, we carried out free meal service in Saitama, Japan, as part of the activities of the ASEZ WAO—the Young Adult Worker Volunteer Group We volunteered to help a cafeteria that provided free meals to children who could not afford to eat properly for various reasons. Although it was not easy to work in the kitchen in the boiling hot weather, we joyfully rolled up our sleeves, imagining the children would enjoy the meals. Thinking that it would be good to make happy memories, we also wholeheartedly arranged traditional Korean folk games and snacks. On the day we were supposed to volunteer, we had to make some changes in our plan due to an unexpected situation in the…

Song Ji-ye from Bucheon, South Korea

Overprotection Makes Children Weak

A young man who had graduated from college visited a psychological counseling center. He was brought by his parents who could no longer stand watching their son sleep during the day and play computer games all night. Their son was old enough to become independent and plan his life, but he had no will to live. Through counseling, the counselor found out that the biggest problem was that he grew up, receiving excessive concern and meddling from his parents. This young man, who is the only child in his family, was under the thorough system his parents made, and got everything he needed even before he asked for it, and he could only hang out with the friends who met…

It Was So Close

Four years ago, the owner of a Chinese restaurant across from our Zion was changed. I wanted to deliver the words of truth to a new neighbor, but since he said he wasn’t interested in religion, I just briefly said hi to him. At the end of 2018, I visited him again after the New Jerusalem Preaching Festival was proclaimed. When he heard the truth, he wasn’t that interested like before, but I continued to see him. I was worried I might disturb his business, so when he wasn’t busy and came out of his restaurant to be refreshed, I just took him to Zion and delivered the truth. We may use the expression, “Many drops make a flood,” in…

Oh Dae-yeob from Seoul, South Korea

Create Family Mailbox!

Jeong Yakyong, a scholar of the Realist School of Confucianism in the Joseon Dynasty of Korea, wrote more than a hundred letters to educate his two sons during his exile. Another scholar Yi Hwang too sent numerous letters to his son to convey his deep love. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, the author of The Little Prince, expressed his affection and longing for his mother through letters from his childhood to death. A letter is a good tool and a best gift to convey a sincere heart. Many parents have been moved to tears by their children’s letters, and many children have corrected their mindsets at their parents’ letters. This month, let’s create a beautiful family mailbox and share family love through…

Time to Repay God Who Has Waited for Me for a Long Time

In the barren desert where it was difficult even for a clump of grass to grow, manna which God sent to the Israelites was food of miracle. However, as they ate it for every meal for forty years, they began to regard it as miserable food. My parents received the truth when I was about five months old, and they chose to walk the path of prophets a few years later. Thanks to that, I grew in much love and care from many brothers and sisters in Zion. My life at Zion was only full of joy until I became a teenager. During my school days, I started to feel unhappy that I had to keep worship services in Zion…

Seo Jun-yeong from Seongnam, South Korea

The Teacher’s Last Gift

In June 2018, people with colorful schoolbags gathered together in one place. There were various school supplies in the school bags. The place where they gathered was a funeral home. It was the day when the coffin of Tammy Waddell, who died of cancer at the age of 59, left her house. Waddell was a teacher at an elementary school in Forsyth County, Georgia, the United States. She taught her students for about thirty years, considering them special enough to call them “my children.” She said that all children had the right to learn, and she would often help the students in need. Meanwhile, her cancer returned, and she became terminally ill; then she made a request to the people…

Awakened with Mother in Mind

I visited my hometown in ten years to celebrate my grandfather’s 80th birthday. If I were to describe my grandfather I used to know, I would say, “strict and strong.” He was also very diligent, so he alone usually took care of his crops, except during harvest. That was why I was sure he was quite strong and robust. However, I was surprised upon seeing him ten years after I last saw him. He had gone so weak. He hardly moved and didn’t speak that much as well. He mostly stayed in his rocking chair and slept but when he needed to stand or sit, he needed assistance. I didn’t know what to do other than to show my respect…

Jomarie M. Supleo from Mandaluyong, Philippines

A Teacher Who Saved His Pupil

Kaden Koebcke, a twelve-year-old boy from Georgia, U.S., was diagnosed with a rare kidney disease when he was two years old. When he was five years old, he received a kidney transplant from his father and had hope that he would get better, but he had to go on kidney dialysis due to unexpected side effects. As his illness worsened in 2018, his doctor said that finding a kidney donor quickly was the only way for Kaden to regain his health back. Kaden’s family eagerly sought someone to donate the kidney. Meanwhile, Kaden received a call from the hospital that a suitable donor had appeared. The boy safely went through the operation during an emergency situation. Since the donor’s information…

Beautiful Steps to Preaching the Blessed News

We conduct a short-term mission every month to establish 300 gospel cities in Malaysia. To seize the blessed opportunity provided by God, many brothers and sisters volunteered, and our team went to Kluang District where the gospel hadn’t been preached at all. We gave thanks to God over and over again for giving us the mission to cultivate the barren land and preach the truth. Kluang District is four and a half hours away from Kuala Lumpur, the capital city of Malaysia. As we had only five days and four nights to preach there, we unpacked as soon as we arrived and went to a crowded place. The people of Kluang District had never heard about the Spirit and the…

Short-term Mission Team to Kluang District, Malaysia

Giving Love on Behalf of Mother

“Mi-suk! Come to eat strawberries.” “Mi-suk! Corns are so delicious. I’ll steam them. Come and eat.” “Mi-suk! I went to the hills and picked some salad plants and spring herbs. They are so delicious. Come to eat.” My oldest sister calls me whenever she has something to eat. My siblings are six, and the oldest sister knows how busy I am. Despite that, if she has something delicious, she never misses to call me. She has two large refrigerators and two kimchi refrigerators. A total of four refrigerators are standing side by side in her living room. After her youngest son joined the army, just the two, my sister and her husband, are at home. So it seems that they…

Gwon Mi-suk from Seoul, South Korea

Empathy, the Capacity to Put Oneself in Another’s Position

In Korea, once the phrase, “Are you hurt? It hurts me, too,” was the talk of the town. This heartwarming phrase of a character in a soap opera, who didn’t just understand the pain of the other person but shared it with her, gave a big resonance to the viewers. Actually, that phrase is not exaggerated. When people see someone else get a shot or fall or skin their knees, they frown as if they were the one in pain. Not only pain but also laughter, yawning, and itching are contagious. Why do we feel others’ emotions as if they were ours? It is because of empathy. Empathy is the capability to understand others’ emotions, opinions, insistence, and so on,…

For the Establishment of Zion in Hiroshima

In summer 2018, western Japan had a series of disasters. There were lots of victims caused by earthquakes, volcano eruptions, scorching heat, and so on. Particularly, Hiroshima suffered a huge damage by the unprecedented heavy rain. Hiroshima is the largest city in the Chugoku and Shikoku regions in western Japan. As we know, it is also the very first place where an atomic bomb was dropped. The Hiroshima Peace Memorial, which was the only building left among the buildings damaged by the atomic bomb, still has traces of black fallout and radioactivity rain on its outer wall and plainly shows the horrors of the war even after seventy years. In order to establish the kingdom of God in Hiroshima as…

The Short-term Mission Team to Hiroshima, Japan

Best Bargaining Card

Rafael Antoni Furcal gained popularity while steadily performing well after winning the National Baseball League Rookie Award in 2000. When his contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers expired in 2008, there was a fierce competition among the clubs to recruit him. The Atlanta Braves tried to persuade him the most with a high-salary offer, saying that there were many of his former colleagues in the team since it was his first Major League Baseball club. They hastily announced his return on the media. However, Furcal decided to renew his contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers, who offered a lower salary than the Braves. It was none other than a used fire truck that caught his heart. Furcal was born in…

Why We Need to Read

The brain plays a pivotal role in the body, feeling emotions, thinking reasonably, and giving orders to different parts of the body. Just as exercises strengthen the muscles and make a strong body, the brain can become healthy when it is consistently stimulated and moves. The best exercise for the brain is reading. When the Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging [fMRI] measures the brain of a person who is focused on reading, it shows a lot of blood is supplied to the whole brain. It means that the whole brain becomes activated. In fact, reading requires a complex thinking. You imagine something in the process of understanding a sentence you just read with your eyes, think of your old memories, infer…

Make Rules for Happy Home!

A happy family life is often included in a New Year’s wish list. However, happiness is not given by nature, by chance, or by itself. Happiness comes to those who try and practice. What are your efforts to make your family happy? If your family makes effort all together rather than alone, it will surely create a synergy effect. So, start brainstorming and make Happy Rules for your happy home. The important thing is to practice after setting up your Happy Rules. If you continue to follow the rules until the year end, starting this month, wouldn’t your family become happier than now by the end of the year? Tip Set your Happy Rules in detail. (Hug each other, reconcile…

As a Seed Hidden in the Frozen Land Springs Up out of the Ground

I moved to the city of Siheung to live together with my younger son. It wasn’t easy to leave a place where I’d lived for over sixty years, but I was happy to move there because my oldest son and daughter too live in that city. But one day, my oldest daughter came and said something that confused me. “Mom, I heard that there is Heavenly Mother in the Bible.” Heavenly Mother? I had been Catholic for decades, but never heard about Heavenly Mother. So I didn’t even pretend to listen, but made her leave. After that, I would get mad at her and persecute her a lot so that she would not even want to mention it anymore. However,…

Shin Dong-rye from Siheung, South Korea