Faith & Life

Work Together with Love

A lot of changes were made in my daily life due to COVID-19. Semester opening date was delayed and I had to begin the first day of the semester on-line. While I was practicing social distancing and following government guidelines, I really wanted to be of help to the medical staff and quarantine officials who fought with the virus at the front line. However, in reality, all I could do was support them with my heart. If there was a single way I could help them, I really wanted to do so. Then, I heard of “Cheer Up Campaign” that was planned by ASEZ, our church’s university student volunteer group; it was a wonderful news for me like a timely…

Song Yeon-ju from Yangsan, South Korea

Although Different from Me

A baby elephant chased a butterfly and accidentally went to where baby giraffes were playing. The baby giraffes that saw the baby elephant for the first time started to comment on him. “Guys, look over there,” “Oh, the nose is too long,” “(Giggling) He looks weird.” The teased baby elephant came home, crying. Surprised, the mother elephant asked what happened. When the baby elephant told the whole story, the mother elephant said, “Nothing will change though the giraffes make fun of you. The problem is not you but their act of teasing.” The next day, one of the baby giraffes that made fun of the baby elephant got lost and came into the elephant herd. All the baby elephants, watching…

“You Are a Good Person”

Everyone has good points you can learn. But it is not easy to find out what your good points are on your own. Often, you may know them only by hearing from others. When someone says to you, “This is why I like you” or “You are a good person,” you feel good. These words can develop your good points all the more, and you will feel more confident that you can do anything. It is a great happiness to have someone who recognizes and acknowledges you. This month, find good points of your family members and handwrite them for keeping a long time. You, too, are a good person who knows how to find good points of your family.…

The Memory They Do Not Want to Lose

It is painful if the memory you want to erase keeps playing on your mind. On the contrary, if the memory that you do not want to forget becomes blurred, it is painful, too. Dementia is one of the most dreadful illnesses that people do not want to have at an old age, because it is an “illness of oblivion.” The Seoul Metropolitan Government surveyed 373 seniors on the memory that they don’t want to lose by dementia, as part of the campaign to prevent dementia along with a pharmaceutical company. As a result, the number of seniors who answered “my life” to the survey was only 54 (12.5%), while the top answer to the question was “family” with 284…

A Fruit Sweeter than Honey and More Precious than Pure Gold

In Dallas Zion, we have a male adult brother who is a firefighter. Since he is a firefighter who is dispatched to accident scenes, he feels the need of God’s protection more desperately than anyone else. So he’s been constantly preaching to his co-workers the good news of salvation for the past several years. However, most of his co-workers either didn’t want to listen to what the brother was preaching to them or argued with him. Some of them were interested in studying the truth, but soon closed their minds due to the negative reaction from people around them. The brother felt so heartbroken, but at the same time he offered deep thanks to Father and Mother for opening his…

Church of God in Dallas, TX, U.S.

The Secret of Flying over 7,200 Miles

Bar-tailed godwits breed in Alaska, and when it begins to get cold, they move to Australia or New Zealand located in the Southern Hemisphere and get through warm winter. In order to fly from Alaska to their destination, they have to cross the Pacific Ocean; surprisingly, the bar-tailed godwits fly nonstop over that long distance. Having doubts about whether they rest on an island in the Pacific Ocean, ornithologists of the United States Geological Survey put a satellite tracking device on some of the bar-tailed godwits to find out their flight route. As a result, they noticed that one of the birds left Alaska in the afternoon of August 30, 2007, and arrived at the mouth of the Piako River…

The Answers They Want to Hear

A teacher assigned homework to his students. It was to pick up trash for thirty minutes in front of each house on a holiday morning. It was to let the students get up early because they might oversleep with the excuse that it was a holiday. After class, a student came to teachers’ room and asked the teacher. “Sir, if it rains, I don’t need to pick up trash, do I?” “No. It will be hard to do that if it rains.” Soon after the student left, another student came in and asked. “Sir, even if it rains, I should pick up trash in front of my house, right?” “Can you do that in the rain?” “If I ask my…

Holding on to My Crown of Life

It was a very special day for me though it must have been a usual day for others. Some members from the Church of God in Windhoek let me know the existence of God the Mother and how important it was to receive the promise of salvation. I was very surprised, and wanted to learn more about the Bible, but my mother had taught me that I should be careful of other people; so I decided to postpone the Bible study until the following day to make a careful decision. That very afternoon, I went home and highlighted the very verse I had been taught, not wanting to forget even one point. On the one hand, I thought, ‘I already…

Shange Valombweleni Nawa from Windhoek, Namibia

Writers Who Exercise

“I learned many things about writing fiction while running every morning,” said Haruki Murakami, Japanese best-selling novelist. He runs every day. He wants to be remembered as a runner as well as a writer. Famous Dutch artist Guido van der Werve said, “Running makes me more focused and refreshed. After running, I sit in front of the piano and start composing.” Ernest Hemingway, a representative writer of the 20th century, who enjoyed boxing and swimming, said, “The mind and body are closely linked. If your body becomes dull, your mind may become dull, too.” Will the body movement help improve creative ability as they say? In 2014, Stanford University researchers tested the creativity of 176 college students when they were…

As If a Blind Man Touches an Elephant

Some blind people touched an elephant with their hands and made each different claim. The person who touched its body said, “The elephant is like a solid wall,” and the person who touched its leg said, “The elephant is like a round pillar.” The person who touched its nose said, “The elephant looks like a long tube,” and the person who touched its ivory said, “The elephant looks like a pointed arrow.” Like this, when a person talks as if he knows everything when he knows in part, he is likened to a blind man who touches an elephant. Although each of the blind knows only part of the elephant, there is a way to understand the actual appearance of…

Social Media Security as Important as Locking Your Doors

Social media is an online platform which people use to build social networks or social relationships with other people by sharing information and communicating freely, such as Facebook, Twitter, Kakao Story, Instagram, Band, and YouTube. As the spread of smart phones increases, social media became available regardless of time and place, so it has become an inseparable part of the lives of modern people. A Korean web portal surveyed 693 members on the “Use Pattern of Social Media and the Status of Its Utilization.” It reports that 91.3% of the respondents are using social media, and that their purposes were for communication with others (63.2%), diverse information and trend research (60.7%), relieving boredom (46.9%), recording and sharing their daily life…

When People Need Comfort and Hope

“The government’s suggestion to take preventive measures against the pandemic while carrying on our daily lives does not mean that we are returning to the lifestyle before COVID-19. We might not be able to return to the lifestyle we had before the pandemic.” What I heard on the news gave me many thoughts. The nationwide restrictions which started simultaneously with the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic seemed to have no end, and it became hard to even see the faces of the brothers and sisters, to say nothing of everybody gathering together for worship. As a missionary who carries out God’s will, I wondered how I should carry out the gospel work in this situation. Right around that time, Mother…

Gahng Gyeong-hun from Buenos Aires, Argentina

Fastidious Mother-in-law and Her Polite Daughter-in-law

A woman who was fastidious and thorough in everything got a daughter-in-law who was a careless and easy-going person contrary to her mother-in-law. The villagers talked in whispers, “From now on, the daughter-in-law will have no good days,” thinking that the daughter-in-law would not bear up under the control of her mother-in-law. As the people anticipated, the mother-in-law forced her daughter-in-law to do lots of work in order to get the start on her at her early married life. Even at a small mistake of the daughter-in-law, the mother-in-law picked on her, saying, “Didn’t you learn such a basic thing from your parents?” Whenever the daughter-in-law heard that, she politely replied, “I make mistakes often because I’m not careful enough.…

The Most Special Day in Her Life

August 9 This is the name of a new cafe near my house. I thought it was very peculiar when I saw the signboard with a specific date written on it. Every time I passed the cafe, I was curious about the meaning. One day I entered the café out of curiosity. After ordering a drink, I asked the owner what the signboard meant while she was preparing the drink. She replied, “It’s the most special day in my life.” I asked if it was her birthday or wedding anniversary. Then she smiled and said: “It’s my son’s birthday.” It was an unexpected answer to me. “If it’s your son’s birthday, isn’t it the most difficult day for you?” “No…

Oh Jin-hui from Anyang, South Korea

How to Run Less Hard

Researchers from Ulster University and Swansea University in the U.K. conducted experiments on twenty-four men and women whose hobbies were running. It was an experiment to see what look of face and state of mind bring the best running economy. Running economy means how less energy you consume while running at a constant speed. The less energy you consume, the better running economy you have. Participants ran in four different ways: running on the treadmill while smiling; running with a frown; running without tension, imagining that you are holding French fries between your fingers; and running with the mind to finish the race quickly. The experiment results suggest that smiling is the most beneficial strategy to improve running economy. “Smiling…

Three Elements of Persuasion

Aristotle said that in order to persuade others, logos (logic), pathos (emotion), and ethos (ethics) are needed. Logos refers to clear proof and logic. Because man is a rational being, there must be a basis for making a reasonable decision. If the insistence, “Eating breakfast is beneficial,” is not supported with good reasons, it is unconvincing. Pathos refers to the psychological state of the listener. Because people react differently to the same word depending on the mood, you have to know the feelings of the listener while speaking. To the child who got upset after arguing with his friend, you’d better sympathize with him and let him open his mind by saying, “You must be upset to have quarreled with…

Maternal Love of Webfoot Octopus

Fishermen weave the shells of veined rapa whelks and put them down under the sea for a period of time and pull them up to catch webfoot octopuses. It is because webfoot octopuses take the shells as their homes. As the shell of veined rapa whelk is hard and its entrance is wide, it is very suitable for webfoot octopuses not only to enter it but also to lay eggs and protect them. When a webfoot octopus lays eggs, hundreds of eggs, which look like grains of rice, cling to the inside of the shell densely and wait to hatch. The webfoot octopus does not leave the eggs even for a while until they hatch, which takes about 55 days.…

Habit of Speaking Beautiful Language

I heard the news that the students of ASEZ, the World Mission Society Church of God University Student Volunteer Group, would carry out the “No More Verbal Abuse” campaign. I never expected that such a topic would be used for a campaign; because it was common sense that we should not verbally abuse other people, which we all learned from childhood through picture books, moral textbooks, and public advertisements. On ASEZ website, however, I was surprised to see the related card news and videos. I found out that verbal abuse does not only include swearing at and criticizing others. Distorting facts by thoughtlessly exaggerating them and belittling other people were all of verbal abuse; I might have unconsciously been committing…

Son Chae-eun from Daegu, South Korea

Resentment and Understanding

There was a man who felt bitter against his father. Since he had run away from home after quarreling with his father in his school days, he didn’t visit his father. After getting married, he got a son as precious as the apple of his eye. He resolved never to be like his father. One day, he met his old mentor and expressed his resentment against his father. “My father is inflexible. When I was a kid, he scolded me severely even for a little mistake. I was afraid to get close to him. All my six siblings called Mom if anything happened. Mom too suffered a lot because of my father.” The mentor who was listening silently said in…

Keep Your Distance from Digital Devices!

Smartphones that men and women of all ages carry in their hands, computers that have become necessities for work and education, and TVs that occupy the center of the living room. It is hard to imagine our life without these, since digital devices take up a big part of it. Thus, modern people tend to be too dependent on digital devices. Even while having a meal or talking with your family, your eyes might often be on TV or smartphone. In order not to lose your precious family time to digital devices, you need distancing. Keep your distance from digital devices this month and do small activities with your family. If you practice distancing from digital devices, you will get…