Faith & Life

Dad’s Most Concerned Child

I am the third oldest one of four daughters. There is an old joke in Korea, “The third oldest daughters are so pretty that men are willing to take them as their wives without even seeing them.” However, I was my dad’s most concerned child in my family. When I was a kid, I had a high fever from polio. I survived, but I was at a risk of becoming paralyzed from the waist down. Thanks to my parents, who even sold their farms and fields to cure me in any way possible, I was able to walk though I became lame. My dad felt sorry for me, so he raised me as a dear child without spanking me even…

Ha Jeong-oh from Jinju, South Korea

Though Living a Single Day

As we don’t need to teach fish how to swim, so we don’t need to talk about a short life before mayflies. Mayflies live for a very short time as an adult. Their lifespan varies by species; the maximum time is two weeks. Do you know how long they wait in order to come into this world? It is as long as a thousand days. While living in water as nymphs, they cast skin over 20 times until they become imagoes. As if they show that no life, though too short, can come into this world easily, they come out of water after repeating molting patiently for a long time and then fly busily for the mission to breed. They…

Better Is Two than One, Three than Two

You can often see trash and graffiti in many streets of Recife, Brazil. Regular cleanups were needed, but it was more urgent to change the way people think about the environment. That’s why we visited a TV station before the cleanup. The broadcasting company viewed our event positively that it decided to cover our street cleanup. A reporter came on the day of our cleanup. We cleaned streets diligently, hoping to raise environmental awareness and to encourage public participation, which was captured on camera. The next morning, however, the news was not broadcasted at the scheduled time. We were disappointed, thinking it had been edited. But that evening, we got all cheered up; the news was aired in the evening…

The Recife Church in Brazil

What Was Most Difficult

One reporter asked a runner who finished a marathon. “What was most difficult during the run?” then an unexpected answer came back to him: “What was difficult more than being thirsty and controlling my breathing was the coarse sand that got into my shoe.” Sometimes, a small problem that seems nothing can dominate your whole body.

Say Good Morning!

In the past in Korea, there were manners in which children greeted their parents with regards every morning. After washing and dressing neatly, they greeted their parents and arranged their bedding or brought water for their washing up. In this busy modern society, such customs have already disappeared, but the value of greetings remains unchanged because it is a way of expressing love and care, wishing each other good health. This month, let us gladly greet our family in the morning. “Did you sleep well?” or “Good morning!” Saying good morning with a smile can help you start your day with happiness. Let’s get ready for a happy day with a good morning greeting! Tip Wake up a little early…

Fruit of Patience Borne in Chana

The Bhopal Zion is blessed with many young adults, thanks to Heavenly Mother who prays day and night for Her children. Under the consideration of male and female adult members, we can only focus on preaching and welcoming new brothers and sisters. That’s why we value each other all the more. When we gathered to preach, we earnestly asked Heavenly Father and Mother to let us fulfill the gospel mission. Father and Mother heard our prayer and blessed us to bear many precious souls. Among them is Sister Sushilla. At first, it was difficult for her to accept Heavenly Mother, but when she read Galatians 4:26 that reads, “The Jerusalem that is above is free, and she is our mother,”…

Shivansh Gupta from Bhopal, India

Overcome to the End

No matter how good a product is, unless it is neatly finished, its value drops considerably. It is the same with the wood for a pillar. In order to set up a pillar strong enough to support the weight of the entire building, the wood should be hard, large and straight. However, even straight-grown wood cannot be used for a pillar if its top is warped or broken, although it is of good quality. “Him who overcomes I will make a pillar in the temple of my God . . .” Rev 3:12 In order to become the pillars of the heavenly temple, we must overcome to the end. Although we have been only looking ahead and running the way…

Parents’ Love that Rejoices Over a Child Who Returned

For parents, the ones who are beautiful and lovely like flowers must be their children. Anything in this world cannot be compared with the devotional love of parents; they can even give up their lives for their children, the source of their joy. The reason it is hard to understand parental love is that it is like a precious pearl hidden in the deep sea. When I was little, my father took me wherever he went. Whenever I saw kids playing outside on the way back home from my father’s work, I wanted to play with them, but my father didn’t want me to. So sometimes I got in trouble as I went outside to play without telling him. However,…

John Pariyar from Kathmandu, Nepal

Fathers’ Dream

After taking the SAT, some high school students were asked of what their dreams were. Their answers varied: making debut as a singer, traveling around the world, eating fried chicken as much as they want, farming on the school ground, and so on. Then, another question was given: “If you have only one year left to live, which one will you choose, achieving your dream or having 500,000 dollars?” They all chose their dream; they regarded their dreams as more valuable than anything else. On the other hand, their fathers were asked of the same question. The fathers’ dream was to travel with their families, to build a nice house to live happily with their families, to meet their sons’…

Conditions of a Good Leader

Among the analects left by Genghis Khan who built the Mongol Empire, there’s a quote about his favorite servant whom he felt sorry for. “Yesun Bei is a great warrior. He does not get tired after a long battle. Therefore, he thinks all the other soldiers have his stamina. He gets furious when others cannot perform as well. Such a man cannot become a commander.” [Source] http://mengnews.joins.com A good leader is not the one who does well by himself, but the one who takes part and understands difficulties the group members are going through.

When You Turn Off the TV, You Will See Your Family

The word television comes from Ancient Greek tèle, meaning far, and vision, meaning sight. As the word explains itself, television is a broadcast system which allows us to see what is going on in a far-off place, even on the other side of the world, at home. However, we should remember that it actually blocks us from seeing our family members who are very close to us. It has become an everyday thing to turn on a cartoon channel for a crying kid, or to place a television set in the living room where all family members gather. Now since there are many cable TV channels as well as terrestrial TV channels, quite many families turn on the TV from…

A Trip That Turned Back Time

In 1979, a newspaper in the State of Ohio, U.S., put an advertisement for a one week free trip for eight elderly people in their late 70s to early 80s. The elderly people were selected and arrived in a remote country village. There were two regulations that they had to keep: One was talking and behaving as if it were actually 20 years ago, and the other was doing the housework on their own. In the mansion decorated with things that were in 1959, the elderly participants watched films and read magazines of that time, and discussed historical events as if they were current news. In spite of their old age and physical frailty, they themselves cleaned the house, did…

I Have Finally Met the Truth

Sister Jayshree is a nurse. Whenever she has a chance, she preaches the gospel to the patients who come to her hospital. Among them, there were a pastor and his wife who came to her hospital from the countryside for their sick child. They were from Naydongri, four hours away from Nashik by train. The pastor and his wife were startled by the word of God and asked the sister to come to their house and deliver the words to them more. It was a great suggestion, but it wasn’t easy to go visit them right away due to the distance and circumstances. It took us a month to visit them. We formed a small short-term mission team and took…

The Nashik Church, India

From What I Can Do

John Wood who was working as an executive for a major company went to a Himalayan remote area in Nepal for his holidays. There he saw students having classes, being densely seated in the dirt. He was shocked and made up his mind to do something helpful for the education of children living in developing countries. Though he didn’t know how to prepare books and education cost and how to send the gifts to them across the Pacific, first of all he sent his acquaintances emails soliciting book donations. And then, he shipped the donated books to schools in Nepal. After that, he established a charity and performed various projects; he did one by one from what he could do.…

Well Done!

A mother wheeled a stroller into the elevator. The hair of the child sitting in the stroller was shinny and eye-catching. Then I noticed a mark on his wrist. It was like a “Well Done” stamp. “Hi. What’s on your wrist?” I asked him out of curiosity and his mother answered instead. “It’s a stamp he got at his daycare center. When I tried to remove it while bathing him, he cried that I couldn’t wash around it. So the mark is left.” I smiled despite myself, imagining how anxious he must’ve been about the stamp being washed off while his mother was bathing him. I was reminded that even whales dance when praised. Animals too dance with joy when…

Choi Seok-hui from Seongnam, South Korea

Love Written on Napkins

Garth Callaghan, a common head of an American family, is such a sweet dad who packs his daughter’s lunch box. Every day, he wrote a good writing such as a proverb on napkins of the lunch box to express his love for his daughter. One day, however, he was diagnosed with a cancer. While fighting against the cancer through several operations and recurrence, he was worried that he may not live to see Emma graduate. So he wrote 826 napkin notes in advance—enough to get her through her high school graduation. “Dear Emma, sometimes when I need a miracle, I look into your eyes and realize I’ve already created one,” “Do the right thing even when no one is looking,”…

The Way to Change a Troublemaker

There was a teacher who called the names of the children in her class peculiarly like cute who, wise who, and who of strong sense of responsibility. There was a well-known troublemaker in her class. She even named him as a scholar. He never did his homework, never brought his school supplies, and always messed around during the class. But still the teacher called him a scholar. After a year later, the kid totally changed to a whole different student. He really became a model student and got voted as a leader in his class.

Actor–Observer Bias

If you are late for work, you justify yourself that there were enough reasons for it such as a traffic jam or a long bus interval. But if your coworker is late, you regard him as a lazy person. If you messed up the test, you think it’s because the test was too difficult, but if others messed theirs up, you conclude that it’s because they did not study hard. Everyone gets this psychological error at one time or another. The actor-observer bias is a term in social psychology that refers to a tendency to attribute one’s own actions to external causes, while attributing other people’s behaviors to internal causes. Essentially, people tend to make different attributions, depending upon whether…

Volunteer Service = Joy² + Thankfulness²

I heard the news that the college students of our church were to do a street cleanup in the afternoon on a weekday. I eagerly wanted to participate, but I had a job without flexibility. The opportunity came to me who had been envious; young adult workers, too, decided to do a street cleanup on a Sunday. I earnestly waited for that day, counting down the days with excitement. On the morning of the cleanup, we, young adult workers, gathered around the Cheonggyecheon Stream with twinkling eyes. We held a short meeting, made teams, and moved to each designated cleanup area. While we were diligently picking up trash, all of a sudden, there was a really bad smell. It was…

Park Su-bin from Seoul, South Korea

Mature Faith

Children usually throw a tantrum if they cannot get what they want. They are selfish, so they do not care about their parents who are having a hard time or about the people who are frowning at them. But adults, who are mature, are different. Although they are uncomfortable, they bear the situation and understand others and consider them. The word mature does not simply mean getting bigger and older physically. When one’s mind grows as mature as his body, and when he sees reason with a mature personality, he is finally a grown-up. In short, he becomes an adult only when he becomes mature. Parents are glad to see their indiscreet children no longer talk as they please but…