Faith & Life

The Niagara Syndrome

Life is like a flowing river. The river is calm and quiet on a flat land, but the water current gets fast when it meets a waterfall, and falls off the bottomless cliff. In the same way, our life flows smoothly but then it sometimes meets an unexpected slope. There is a syndrome that likens the crisis of life to a big waterfall—the Niagara Syndrome. It indicates the situation where people flounder and struggle in the sudden crisis they face while spending time in the flow of the world with no clear goals and set of values. Life is not like a pond that stays in its place, so we cannot avoid big and small crisis in our life. However,…

Pleasant and Happy Volunteer Service

The Baltimore Church visited the Sunrise of Silver Spring, an assisted living facility, to cheer up senior citizens living there by performing various songs and dances at the end of the year. Many of the residents clapped, tapped their feet, and sang along with us. One resident even stood up and danced, holding the hand of one of us with a happy smile. The residents thanked us for coming and asked when we would come again. We all smiled brightly, promising we would visit soon. It was fun and we really wanted to revisit. I had never felt such genuine happiness when I used to visit a nursing home once a month with another organization before I joined the Church…

Melissa Hutchins from Baltimore, MD, U.S.

Metacognition

A broadcasting company conducted an experiment to find the secret of excelling in studies. The experimenter separated the students who obtained top ranks in the mock exam from the average students, and gave them memory tests. He showed them a list of 30 unrelated words at a rate of 3 seconds per word, and asked them to recall as many words as they could. As a result of the test, the two groups of students were approximately equal in their level of retention. Before the test, the experimenter let the students guess how many words they would be able to recall, and this caused a difference between them; the number of words that the academically excellent students recalled was almost…

Improve Your Family’s Strengths!

If you want a seed or a plant to grow well, you need to place it on the spot with good sunlight and wind and raise it with care, rather than leaving it alone. It is the same with the seed of love. If you do not express love to your family, it is hard for the seed of love to grow well. In order for the seed of love to grow, bloom, and bear fruit, you should take good care of it. One of the ways is to look at your family’s strengths. While you are taking care of your family with the interest to find strengths, you will understand each other and love will grow big in your…

Finding Mother’s Precious Jewels

Remembering the happy memories of preaching about Heavenly Mother in South Africa through three times of short-term mission trips, this time I flew to Zambia located in the south central part of Africa. I transferred three times and after a 24 hour-flight, I finally arrived at the airport in Lusaka, the capital city. It looked like a bus terminal in a small city of Korea. There was no airport security and the network service was poor. The street condition was even worse; as soon as I got out of the airport area, unpaved roads extended endlessly. Going through a long dusty road, we arrived at the Lusaka House Church. Just like most of the houses in Zambia with vast land,…

Hong Jeong-eun from Seoul, South Korea

People Who Make Differences

In April, 2016, there was a record-breaking rainfall in Houston. About 500 mm [19.7 in] of rain poured, which is the six-month amount of rain in Korea. In Greenspoint, located in North Houston, the water rose up to over 30 cm [12 in], and water started coming in the first floors. On the first Sunday after the flood happened, more than sixty members from the Houston Church went to Greenspoint for a flood recovery work. Although about a week passed after the flood, the recovery work was slow. Debris that was swept down with the rain was everywhere, and there was odor at every house because of the hot weather. The residents, who were managing to stay in their houses…

Houston Church, TX, U.S.

Zero-based Thinking

Historian Arnold J. Toynbee said, “If you cling to past success experiences, you will fail.” Alvin Toffler, a global futurist, warned: “To survive in the future, we must regard our past success as the most dangerous factor.” That is why we must throw away these opinions: “When I did it this way, I was successful,” “This is the best,” or “My experience is the best way.” Experience is a precious asset for sure. However, if we have blind faith in our own experience and knowledge, we can be betrayed by it, because time doesn’t stay in the past, and the world is constantly changing. So what we need is zero-based thinking. It means to think outside of the box, on…

Telegram

Arthur Conan Doyle, a British detective fiction writer, liked to play jokes. One day, he sent a telegram to his friends anonymously. Then he visited each of his friends’ houses one by one. The houses were all empty. It was because of the contents of the telegram he hurriedly sent. “All is disclosed. Flee at once!”

The Most Valuable Work

‘Is Jesus really God? Does God even exist?' Growing up in a Christian family, I attended a church during my school years, but as I went to high school and learned biology and evolution, I started to doubt God’s existence. In science, even a simple theory is followed by evidence that proves the fact. But for God, however, it seemed there was no evidence to prove His existence. I couldn’t understand the Bible and there were many difficult parts to believe. Though I couldn’t believe in God, I was barely keeping my faith by asking God to let me know if there is the absolute truth that can testify about Him clearly. After doubting for about four years, God, who…

Natnael Assefaw Seltene from Denver, CO, U.S.

The Easiest Way to Relax

When animals show off their power, they inflate their body and make it look as big as possible. When a man is filled with confidence, he lifts up his head and straightens up his shoulders; and when he is afraid or depressed, he crouches. With the same reason, athletes passing through the finish line first in a race raise their hands high. Inner feelings are expressed by external attitudes, but what is important is that our inner feelings are also influenced by our external attitudes. An experiment shows that when the test subjects take confident postures by straightening up their body like Wonder Woman, or putting both hands on their waist, or leaning their backs on the chair with their…

Like a Roly-poly Toy

A roly-poly toy never falls; even though it is pushed over, it bounces back up soon. The reason a roly-poly toy rights itself immediately though it seems to tumble is that its center of gravity is at the lower part. If the center of gravity is high, even a roly-poly toy cannot stand; its body will tilt to one side and fall on the ground no matter how hard it wants to stand. In the same way, if the center of our minds is set high, we cannot stabilize our faith; the higher the center goes, the quicklier we will fall. “Arrogance is feeling disappointed when our expectations are not met.” From the Teachings of Mother If we want to…

To Start Your Communication, Acknowledge Your Family Members the Way They Are

A daughter-in-law made soy sauce while her mother-in-law was sick. She did exactly the way her mother-in-law showed her, but it didn’t taste as good as her mother-in-law’s soy sauce. She had no idea what was wrong, so she asked her mother-in-law for help. Then the sick mother-in-law listened to her patiently and got up, saying, “I think I know what went wrong.” Her eyes were brighter than ever before, and she looked lively. How could the sick mother-in-law positively help her daughter-in-law who asked her what she thought went wrong with the soy sauce she made? It was because the daughter-in-law acknowledged her mother-in-law’s skill of making soy sauce. Some people become dispirited when they become old though they…

Language Habits to Be Thrown Away

All people want others to listen to what they say, and want to have a good conversation. Sound Expert Julian Treasure says that there are seven bad speaking habits you need to avoid if you want people to listen to you. The first bad habit is gossiping. We must remember that if we engage in gossip, we can make others to start gossiping about us. The second is judging. How would you feel if another person judges you? The third is being negative. Negative words make it hard for others to listen. The fourth is complaining. Complaints make your life a misery. The fifth is making excuses. People avoid the person who puts blame on someone else, not taking any…

As Long As You Do Not Give Up

Through my older brother, I heard about the truth and was born again into a new life, but that was all. I have not contacted the Zion members for years. However, when I started a new job, God allowed me to contact again through a sister who was employed in the same department. The sister preached the word of God at work with confidence. When I saw the sister with confidence and boldness, I was so amazed. I had never even thought of someone in my age knowing God in detail and telling people about the Bible without hesitation. On my way home, I saw the sister on the same bus. I asked her where she was heading, and she…

Victoria Dhedadig from Sydney, Australia

Roberto Clemente Award

Roberto Clemente was a leading hitter of the Pittsburgh Pirates in the Major League Baseball for nearly twenty years. He regularly donated baseball equipment and food for poverty-stricken children of his native country, Puerto Rico, and of Central America. On December 23, 1972, when a major earthquake struck Nicaragua in Central America, Roberto sent relief goods for the victims twice. When he heard that local officials were pocketing the relief goods, he loaded more than two tons of relief goods into a plane and headed directly to the stricken area. Unfortunately, the old airplane loaded with too much stuff exploded as soon as it took off. The Major League Baseball enacted the "Roberto Clemente Award" to honor his charitable activities…

Making Gimbap

I liked eating gimbap when I was young. On a picnic or sports day, my mom always made gimbap for me. So I took it for granted that I should eat gimbap on a special day. Time passed, and I became a mother. I, too, decided to make gimbap on the day of my child’s picnic as my mom did. But for the first time, I realized that it’s not easy to make gimbap. I shopped for groceries the day before, trimmed the ingredients, woke up at dawn on the day of the picnic to cook rice and fry ham, fish cake, carrots, and eggs. After preparing all the ingredients, I finally challenged making gimbap. I spread cooked rice thinly…

Kim Yu-ra from Suwon, South Korea

Between Stimulus and Response

“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” Viktor E. Frankl, a psychiatrist who was confined in the notorious Auschwitz concentration camp during World War II and survived with his indomitable will, left these words in his book. To put it plainly, let us suppose this case: On a sunny day, you are driving a car pleasingly to go on a family picnic, but a car following behind you suddenly gets in the way at the front. You can either get irritated and upset or you can just ignore. It is up to you to decide whether you will spoil your…

Benefits of Tribulation

One of the methods to grow tomatoes is pricking the fruit with a needle when it just produces the fruit. Then it takes nutrient from the root to heal the wound; while doing that, it can be more resistant to disease and insects, and produce a nutritional fruit. Proper tribulation is not bad for humans, too; rather it is useful when we think of our whole life. While struggling to overcome the tribulation, we come to have a strong will power, and after getting it over, we can feel thrilled and find the meaning of life. This is why youth treatment programs, which let adolescents experience a certain amount of hardships, increase these days; it’s because in our society adolescents…

Pink Lens Effect

When you fall in love, dopamine is secreted from the brain’s nucleus, and you feel much joy and happiness. Naturally, there will be liveliness and more smiles on your face and the world looks bright and beautiful. As you feel good, you will become generous even with the matters you usually got annoyed or irritated with. You do not see the disadvantages of the loved one but see only good things. This phenomenon is called the pink lens effect in psychology. Just like you wear pink glasses, the person you love looks adorable no matter what he or she does. How good would it be if the glasses were not taken off forever? The validity period of the pink lens…

Love & Unity

I heard the news that we would have a Worldwide Blood Drive to Give Life Through the Love of the Passover. Just in time, it was my class-free day, so I joined it. Since it was a good opportunity to share God’s love, I willingly showed my intent to participate in it, but I was a little afraid. I’d never donated blood before, and when I thought of blood donation, all I could think of was a cold, scary needle. At the event, thanks to the members who welcomed me with smiles from the entrance, I could relax. I went into the bloodmobile, encouraged by the members’ cheer. I was afraid for a moment, but encouraged, seeing the members donating…

Goh Na-young from Busan, South Korea