Faith & Life

What Will You Pass Down?

The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Looks, intelligence, body constitution . . . children resemble their father and mother because they inherit biological genes, DNA, from their parents. When people see a child look just like his parents, they say that he is the miniature or spitting image of his parents. All parents want to pass down good things to their children. A pregnant woman listens to good music, enjoys hobbies that give emotional stability, and tries to eat only good foods in order to give good things to the child through prenatal education. However, what influences the child more than the innate DNA is acquired factors. Whether a child is aware or not, he follows his parents’…

Labeling Effect

The respected leader Winston Churchill was also famous for leading his subordinates well. To the person whom he wanted to proceed with a task quickly, he said, “You seem to be quick to make a decision,” and to the person whom he wanted to get things done perfectly, “You look scrupulous.” Instead of telling directly what he wanted, he said as if the person had such a tendency. If you say to the other person, “You are like this person,” the person will behave as you expected. In psychology, this is called “label effect” or “letter effect.” Even an unfriendly person tries to be kind if he is told, “You look kind.” On the other hand, when a person is…

The Greatest Gift

A few days ago, it was my birthday. I had a busy day so I went out early in the morning and came home late at night. So I didn’t have a proper meal all day long. When I went inside my house, my little daughter burst out of her room and said, “Mom, happy birthday!” giving me a letter with a picture on it. She drew a woman of big face and a small body on a yellow paper, and wrote “Mom” on it. She does not know how to write yet, so she asked her dad to write it instead. That was not all. When she went to a grocery store with her dad, she even bought my…

Choi Yun-hui from Daegu, South Korea

A Cure for Altitude Sickness

Altitude sickness is an acute reaction of the body that cannot cope with the lack of oxygen and pressure changes at an altitude of 2,000 meters [6,500 ft] or higher. Its symptoms are dyspnea, dizziness, nausea, and loss of appetite, and in serious cases, vomiting, unbearable headache, and loss of judgment. At the worst, it leads to death. So you may have to pay dearly if you just go up to a high mountain, only trusting your physical strength. In fact, people die from altitude sickness in the Himalayas every year. Those who climb a lofty mountain take medication to prevent altitude sickness. However, the higher the altitude, the more unexpected situation follows, so you cannot rely solely on medicine.…

Reality and Language

This is what happened at a lecture. The instructor let one member of an audience stand up during the lecture and said, “I’m telling you a lie now. You are a positive person and have a strong sense of responsibility. You have leadership and sense of humor so people like you and trust you.” When the instructor asked how he felt about the remark, he laughed and said he felt good. The human brain activates the part that controls pleasure when the person is praised. However, the same phenomenon occurs in the brain even when the person clearly recognizes that the praise is false as in the above case. Likewise, if you make a bad word to someone else, even…

What We Can Do

‘What can we do there since we don’t even speak their language?’ This is what we thought while flying to Colombia, which is located on the opposite side of the earth from Korea, during the summer of 2019. Although we wanted to have a meaningful volunteer experience during the summer vacation, I couldn’t stop worrying that there might be nothing we could do as we didn’t know how things worked there. However, our thought changed when we met officials from the City of Bogota. We visited the city hall, introduced ASEZ WAO consisting of young adult workers from the Church of God, and asked them what kind of volunteer work the city needed, and they were deeply moved. An official…

Kim Myeong-eun from Namyangju, South Korea

Reason for Doing Volunteer Services

I participated in a street cleanup organized by my campus club with my friend who enjoys volunteer opportunities. We got to clean at a food alley located at the back gate of our university. As the alley was lined with restaurants and coffee shops, disposable cups, food waste, and cigarette butts were everywhere. Soon, the joy of joining volunteer service was forgotten. Garbage stank. I couldn’t help frowning. I couldn’t dare to clean it up, even with my cleaning tools and gloves. I looked around to get away from there, but I noticed my friend diligently picking up trash. Other volunteers who were behind me were also picking up the foul-smelling garbage without hesitation. My conscience pricked me. I paused…

Kim So-jeong from Bucheon, South Korea

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…

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…