Faith & Life

How Not to Forget

A man went to the lecture of a celebrity. His lecture was so popular that the man barely managed to buy a ticket and enter the lecture hall. As he had expected, the lecture was very informative, and while listening to the lecture, he was highly encouraged to live a better life from then on. One thing he regretted was that he didn’t bring a notebook and pen. Because he couldn’t take notes, he was worried about forgetting the contents that he wanted to memorize for long such as cutting remarks and touching stories. After the lecture, he came across the celebrity who was about to leave the hall. He greeted the lecturer gladly. After a short conversation, he expressed…

Having Dinner My Son Prepared

One day, when my son in his fourth year of elementary school returned home, he said all of a sudden. “Mom, I want to prepare a meal for you.” “Did you have a cooking class at school?” “No. You’ve set the table for me so many times, but I’ve never made a meal for you. So I want to cook something for you.” My son said he would make fried rice wrapped in a thin omelet. I asked him if he knew how to do it. Then he said he would make it according to the recipe on the Internet. I taught him how to use the gas stove and make the dish, and then left for the hospital. He…

Park Gyeong-suk from Paju, South Korea

Getting Rid of Thorns from My Heart

There was a cleanup at the Seneca Creek State Park in Maryland. The park manager asked us to get rid of weeds and invasive plants. It was easy to pull the weeds that had dried up during the winter. When we were almost done with our project, we found fresh green rosebushes in the corner. The green bushes looked pretty, so we were going to leave them there. However, just to be sure, we asked the park manager and he said they were invasive plants and we had to get rid of them. As we were confused and didn’t understand why roses were harmful plants, he explained that the thorns of the rosebush might choke animals. Right after that, we…

The Baltimore Church in MD, U.S.

The Motto of the Rich Choi Family

In the era of Joseon Dynasty of Korea, the Choi family of Gyeongju lived in a mansion that encompassed 99 rooms, 100 servants, and a ware-house that could store up 800 sacks of rice (144 ㎏ each). There’s a saying, “Wealthy families lose their fortunes in three generations,” as the second or third generations often squander their parents’ hard-earned wealth. However, the Choi family maintained a good reputation as a millionaire in the course of 300 years and 12 generations. What was the secret? The Choi family had a deeply-rooted family motto made up of six rules: “You can be an officer, but do not apply for a position higher than Jin-sa1. Give back to society if you have more…

The Power of a Small Practice

If you set rectangular blocks in a long line at regular interval and push down the first block, the rest fall down one after another. This is called “domino show.” Dr. Lorne Whitehead of the University of British Columbia has experimented with dominoes’ hidden power. He made 13 blocks by increasing in size by 1.5 times, and measured the force that was generated when the blocks fell one by one. As a result, the force generated when the first block fell over the second block was about 0.024 μJ (microjoule), but the force increased exponentially, and it was 51 joule when the twelfth block fell over the last thirteenth block. That is even over two billion times more than the…

Expectancy Violation Effect

If a kind and gentle person suddenly treats you coldly, you feel sad, but if a cold person suddenly treats you gently, you appreciate it. That is because of the expectation you have toward the other person. Everyone has some expectation about others’ actions. If they violate this positively, your favorable impression grows. But if they break it negatively, your favorable impression drops. In psychology, this phenomenon is called Expectancy Violation Effect. A different expression of expectancy can be called a “frame of thought.” The problem is that if you create a frame of thought, it is easy to give negative evaluation on the other party. The bigger expectancy becomes, the bigger disappointment gets, but if you lower your expectations…

The Reason It Is Always Green

There is a tree that stands firm in a snowstorm, showing off its greenness. It is labeled as an evergreen, and is the symbol of integrity and firm spirit from old times, as it keeps the green color alone when everything changes. This is the pine. It’s easy to think that the pine tree leaves never fall and stay on the branch all the year round because they seem always green. In autumn, however, pine tree leaves turn yellow and pile up under the trees. Then, how can the pine tree always stay green despite the fallen leaves? Pine trees have new leaves every spring, and the leaves usually last for two years. That means the trees drop their old…

The Way to Love Your Country

Ahn Chang-ho (1878–1938), a Korean independence activist and educator, went to the U.S. with his wife right after getting married. It was from his belief that the way to develop national power was to learn new culture, broaden horizons, and cultivate talented people. He picked oranges with his countrymen by day and studied English by night in Riverside, California. One day, he felt an urgent need of improving the impression of Koreans when he saw Koreans being discriminated and despised. So he always dressed himself neatly and asked his compatriots to work diligently and sincerely. He also emphasized the importance of honesty. When he heard that Americans were reluctant to lease their houses to Koreans because they kept the house…

The Reason Why One Person’s Concern and Love Is Important

Due to the low birth rate and aging population, the number of blood donors is decreasing, whereas the number of patients who need blood transfusions is increasing. Hoping to help those in urgent need of blood, I decided to participate in donating blood, thinking that a patient is someone’s father or mother, or perhaps can be my brother or sister. Before the start of the event, I visited the hospital to check my eligibility for blood donation. Unfortunately, I found out that I was ineligible to donate blood. However, as I really wanted to be of some help, I decided to volunteer as a staff member. On the day of the event, the blood bank was crowded with people from…

Kim Seon-suk from Chungju, South Korea

Happy Family Does Not Say, “It’s Your Fault!”

While two people were walking in the street, one of them found a wallet on the ground. “Wow, I’m lucky today. I got free money!” said the person who found the wallet. Then the man who was ac​companying him flew into a rage and said, “Well, I suggested that we go this way, so half of the money is mine.” Then suddenly the wallet owner appeared. “I got you! You stole my wallet.” The one who found the wallet said as if it was unfair, “I just saw it lying on the ground and picked it up. And I wasn’t going to take all the money. I was going to share it with my friend here.” Then the person next…

People of Amazon Returned into Mother’s Arms

“The Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come!’ And let him who hears say, ‘Come!’ Whoever is thirsty, let him come; and whoever wishes, let him take the free gift of the water of life.” Rev 22:17 The Bible says that whoever wants can receive the water of life that the Spirit and the Bride freely give; however, we had never thought of the natives living deep in the Amazon rainforest; we had such a narrow perspective. In actuality, they were definitely among the 7.8 billion people, and the news of salvation was preached even to indigenous people in Brazil according to God’s prearranged plan. It started with what Brother Ivanildon said. The brother lived with indigenous people and taught them…

The Manaus Church in Brazil

The Elderly and Kittens

Elderly people in nursing homes need to be in the care of others. But the elderly at a nursing home in Tucson, Arizona, U.S., are not only being cared, but also caring others—they feed milk to kittens. An animal protection center near the nursing home was suffering insufficient manpower to take care of abandoned animals. Kittens cannot eat by themselves; someone has to feed them by holding them in the arms. The elderly in the nursing home, meanwhile, had too much free time; even the nursing home staff had a hard time in creating programs for them. The anxieties of both sides could be dealt with by forming a partnership between the two. Surprisingly, not only the kittens have got…

Say, “I’m Happy!”

Recently, have you ever said, “I’m happy”? When you do something difficult or dissatisfying, you are likely to spit out complaints. But when you do something pleasant and satisfying, you are less likely to express how happy or satisfied you are. People say, “A bell is not a bell until somebody rings it. A song is not a song until someone sings it.” Doesn’t the same go for happiness? When you are joyful and happy, do not just smile or feel it, but speak out your happiness with your mouth. Just as you would like to visit the place you’re invited to, if you keep expressing your happiness with words, happiness would like to visit you again and again. Tip…

Overview Effect

If you go up to the rooftop of a skyscraper, you can see the whole town at a glance; if you climb up a high mountain, you can see the whole city at a look; if you fly up to the sky by plane, the vast world will be seen as a land of pigmies. If you soar up higher and see the earth from space, it looks like a marble. If you broaden your view, your thoughts will change. Yuri Gagarin, the first human in space said after seeing the earth in space: “I realized that the earth is too small for us to argue with each other.” He came to have a different perspective on the struggles and…

Please People Close to You

About 2,500 years ago, there was a monarch of a small country in China. He had a worry: His people often crossed borders into neighboring countries, so the population and the tax revenue reduced. When Confucius came to visit the monarch with his disciples, he asked Confucius, confiding his troubles, “Teacher, my people run away day after day. Should I build up a great wall to stop them?” Confucius replied, “If you please those who are near you, even the people far away will get close to you.” He meant that if the monarch pleased his people by ruling them well, the news would spread to neighboring countries and even the people living far away would stream into the country.…

Realizing God’s Love

It was around the time when my sister attended a Protestant church. One day, she returned home with bruises all over her body. Shocked, I asked her what happened. She explained that she got the bruises from a religious ritual of the church. ‘How can the church that hurts the members be right? I’m sure there is no God!’ I came to distrust the church and made a conclusion that God does not exist. My sister too no longer attended the church. Time went by, and my sister started attending another church named the Church of God. I could not understand at all why she would attend a church again after having such a horrible experience, and I firmly rejected…

Kang Yeon-suk from Incheon, South Korea

To Fly in the Sky

Human beings have long wanted to fly in the sky. After inventors’ constant study, trial and error, the plane was finally born, and today there are very large aircraft flying around the world, which can carry more than 700 passengers. A passenger plane such as A380 and B777 has more than four million parts and weighs hundreds of tons. Then, how can a plane fly in the sky with this tremendous weight? There are four forces acting on the plane: the force moving forward (thrust), the force pulling to the ground (gravity), the force lifting upward (lift force), and the force acting in the opposite direction (drag). In order for the plane to take off, the lift force of the…

Going to Work at Midnight

Before dawn, a police patrol found a young man walking on a lonesome road. The police approached him and asked where he was going at this hour. The young man said, “I’m on my way to work now.” The young man who lived in Alabama was Walter Carr. Newly hired at a moving company, he had to go to the client’s house by eight in the morning. But, his car, the only means of transportation, recently broke down. The destination was 32 kilometers away from his home, which took seven to eight hours on foot. Not wanting to ruin his first day of the job, he left home around midnight and was walking on a dim road, relying on a…

A Daughter Found in Twenty-Four Years

In January 1994, Wang Ming-ching and his wife, who were fruit sellers in Chengdu, China, lost their three-year-old daughter while giving change to their customer. Even after twenty years since then, Wang Ming-ching couldn’t give up seeking his daughter and began to work as a taxi driver to find her. He put posters with pictures of his daughter inside and outside the taxi, and handed his name card to customers, asking for a report. His sad story was widely known through TV and the Internet. A woman in Jilin Province heard the story, and thought that the imagined, grown-up portrait of the little girl looked like her. Because she too was adopted when she was a little child, she contacted…

Mother’s Love That Does Not Yield to Old Age

In 2017, a 98-year-old lady named Ada moved into a nursing home in Huyton, Liverpool, U.K. The reason she entered the care home was because of her 80-year-old son, Tom Keating. The mother and her son are particularly close to each other. Tom, her eldest son, served his mother with all his heart even after all his younger siblings got married and left home. When the son, who had always been together, went into a nursing home because of his illness, the mother could not sleep well for a year. She was always concerned about her son who would feel lonely. So she decided to move into the nursing home to look after her son. The son, who came to…