Faith & Life

The Time Taken to Solve the Problem

There was a problem which had been a global challenge for a long time in American Mathematical Society, New York. However, this problem was solved on the year of 1903 by Frank Nelson Cole, a mathematician professor at Columbia University. Mathematicians greeted his presentation with a standing ovation but Cole shook his head and said, “I’m not that great like you all think. How long do you think it took for me to solve this problem? “About a week?” Once again, Cole shook his head. “Then, did it take you about a month? It cannot be taken more than that, right?” He made a gentle smile and answered, “It took three years of Sundays. I’d been only making a little…

Make the Entrance Full of Love

“I am home.” “Have a nice day!” “Welcome back! You’ve done a good job, today, too.” It is the entrance that you go through first whenever you come home, and that you pass through lastly when you go out. It is the place where you meet or say bye to your family for their daily schedules. It’s where your guests will get the first impression. Although it’s a small area in the house, its role is not little at all. While you see off your family with encouragement and welcome home, the entrance becomes a place of communication and harmony, not just a gate for entry and exit. This month, why don’t you make the entrance full of love so…

Treasure Hidden in a Field

A park in U.S. the scenery is not that beautiful. There are not many cool tree shades. It’s like a barren land. Its admission fee is $10. But more than 50,000 people visit this place every year. From the entrance, they lower their heads to look at the ground and walk slowly. They dig all around the park, sweating buckets, but they never complain despite hot weather. This is what you can see at Crater of Diamonds State Park in Arkansas. You can keep diamonds you find in the park. More than 70,000 diamonds have been discovered in the area since 1906, when a farmer first found one. It’s literally a diamond mine. The world envies the lucky one who…

A Flower of Love Bloomed in the Garden of Trials

For more than ninety days, I had to stay in hospital to get my back treatment. If you think it’s short, it is a short period of time, but when I was lying down, not moving even an inch because of pain, time passed slowly as if it stood still. I was also distressed, learning that I had to receive outpatient treatment for a long time even after I get discharged from hospital. Even before I was hospitalized, I had already been weakened from sadness after losing my loving family three years before without any preparation. I could barely endure without being completely devastated because I understood the spiritual world and God encouraged me with an invisible helping hand. But…

Park Du-yeon from Changwon, South Korea

Harmony

Although every musician of an orchestra is excellent in his own performance, unless all the performers play in harmony, they come to make ugly sounds. As long as they ignore others’ performances and stick to the sound of their own instruments, they can never give a wonderful performance. . . . so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it. Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it. 1 Corinthians 12:25–27 We are parts of one body in Christ and…

The Work of Salvation Is Carried Out by God

There was a shop owner whom I had delivered the word of God to, from the previous year. It had been a long time since my last visit. I went to the shop again to meet the owner, but only to find that it was replaced by a new mobile phone store. Now that I was there for preaching, I entered the store to deliver the word of God. The store owner looked at me as if he was wondering what brought me there. I told him that I came from a nearby church and I gave him a newspaper and a souvenir which was made to celebrate receiving the U.K. Queen’s Award. He didn’t seem to like the preaching…

Lee Nam-eun from Cheonju, South Korea

Invisible Power

Albert Einstein, a world-renowned genius physicist, came to believe that “there exists an invisible force in the world,” when he saw a compass needle always pointing north, no matter how many times he shook it, during his childhood days. When Isaac Newton, a famous British scientist, observed an apple falling from a tree, he began to think about what force was pulling the apple towards earth. A force like magnetism and gravity always acts on every object on the earth, but we can hardly perceive the force because it is invisible. As for great scientists, however, they grasp even simple phenomena that other people miss or overlook and explore amazing discoveries from them, upon which they continuously devote themselves to…

Giving Thanks, the Essential Virtue of Happy Home

In 1990, Nelson Mandela was released after spending 27 years in prison for fighting against racism. People thought that he would look very old since he was 70 years old. However, he surprised people as he came out of prison, looking healthy and spirited. A reporter asked him the secret to his health, and he answered: “I always gave thanks to God in prison. I thanked God, looking up at the sky. I gave thanks, looking down at the ground. I gave thanks, drinking water. I gave thanks while eating. I even gave thanks, working in a labor camp. I was able to stay healthy because I always gave thanks.” A university student got third-degree burns all over her body…

It’s Easier to Change

Dr. Bernice Andrews from Royal Holloway, University of London, conducted an experiment on about a hundred middle-aged women; 79% of them had low self-esteem and depression. She wanted to find how they changed over seven years. The follow-up research revealed that only 4% of the women still had the same diagnosis, which indicates that people can surely change, whether it is due to different environments or certain events. We’ve seen irritable people becoming gentle, and passive people becoming assertive; so it makes sense. So you don’t have to feel disappointed just because you don’t like your personality. There is room for change as far as you don’t give up. It’s okay even if you lack willpower. It is said that…

Corn Ripening with the Farmer’s Sweat

At the end of June when the sun blazed down and the heat persisted, the members of the Wonju Zion went to a tomato farm and a corn field located in Sillim-myeon to help with weed removal. To make things smooth, they made two teams, and I got in the team for the corn field. Corn, which is considered as a national snack, reminded me of my childhood memories and made me excited even before starting the volunteer service. When we arrived at the farm, well-ripened corns and tomatoes were waiting for us. June is the period when corn is in full ear. In the corn field about 1,650 m² [2,000 yd²], the grass had grown wild. From a distance,…

Shin Hae-yeong from Wonju, South Korea

Listening Carefully

In a survey of around 1,000 office workers about “communication,” 40% of them said that the most important part in communication is “listening.” An experiment where two people faced each other and had a conversation about a certain topic also showed the importance of listening: When people were told to listen carefully to what the other person was saying, they were able to have a friendly conversation, but when people were told not to pay attention to what the other person was saying, they could not continue their conversation even after a few minutes. Although you are sitting and nodding your head, it does not always mean that you are listening carefully. When you listen to somebody while thinking of…

My Father

It was when I went to my parents’ house for the first holiday after my marriage. Resting in a room, I heard Dad and my husband were talking in the living room. Later, my husband came into the room and so I asked, “What did you and Dad talk about?” “We talked about politics.” “He talks about politics?” I was surprised. I thought he was not interested in politics. On the following national holiday, Mom and I went out to have a sauna, while Dad and my husband were left at home. As Dad would watch TV in his room or workout on his day off, I thought they would spend their time individually. But when we returned home in…

Tak Jin-seul from Anyang, South Korea

Now Is the Time to Soar Up

It is well known that birds are devoted to their eggs from the time they lay them until hatching them. It is said that birds don’t let their bodies touch the ground. However, they attach their bodies to the ground closely, and pay attention to sitting on the eggs evenly. Once the young hatch, the parent birds become busy, looking for food. They bring food countless times every day, but they themselves hardly get to eat anything. Although the parent birds are dedicated to their young, they become cold-hearted when the time comes for their young to leave the nest. They no longer feed the young like before. If the parent birds give them food whenever they pester them, the…

The Debt of Love Paid Later

A girl who took refuge with her mother lived a hard life during World War II. She almost died malnourished, but survived thanks to relief goods from the Allied Forces and charity organizations. Later, she became a world-famous actress. After retirement, she actively supported many places of the world in need of help. “Now, it is my turn to pay my debt of love that I’ve received,” said Audrey Hepburn who was once called angel.

Must Be Broken

There was a proud young man. An old man who was cleaning up the flowerbed of the village called out when the young man passed by. “Young man, could you pour some water on this soil?” The young man wanted to pass by, but he was reluctant to do it because the man was a well respected elder in the village. But the soil was hard, so pouring water was of no use. The water could not get into the soil and kept running down the side. The young man’s face got darker and darker. The old man was watching. He went over to the young man and hammered the soil. Then he gathered the broken pieces of the soil…

Make Even the Hidden Place Shine Bright

Streets in Taiwan are very clean since the public order is highly regarded. Due to thorough management, people are forbidden to drink beverages including water after passing the subway ticket gates. If they violate the law, they are charged with a fine of about NTD 7,500 [USD 245]. The ASEZ team to Taipei, Taiwan, planned to clean up the street, but wondered if there would be enough trash since Hsinchu is a clean city nearby Taipei. However, when we actually went there, we could see some trash here and there. While picking cigarette stubs and trash on the street, we found trash piled up in a dark alley between the buildings. The alley was so narrow that only one person…

Kim Bo-ra from Gyeongsan, South Korea

Symbiosis

There is an agricultural method that the natives of America used in barren lands. It is the Three Sisters. Native Americans planted maize (corn) with beans and squash. This is because the three crops have much higher yields and better taste and quality than when one crop is planted. The principle is simple. The corn has a sturdy stem, allowing squash and beans to climb up on it, and the beans inhale nitrogen from the air and send it to the roots, providing excellent natural fertilizer to the corn, which requires a lot of manure, as well as to the squash. The squash covers the ground with its large leaves so that the soil does not dry out and blocks…

What We Need for Communication

I started working when I was a sophomore and learned that social life was not easy. Stress from relationships was indescribable. But the people of the Church of God, I met through my sister, were different. It was joyful to do anything together with them who were like angels. About a year after I received the truth, I volunteered for the overseas mission. I lack preaching experiences, let alone overseas experiences, but I made such a decision with conviction that God is in Zion and everything we do in Zion has God’s blessing in it. The mission place was Sydney, Australia. Several Korean young adults were working for the gospel in Australia with the ambition to establish a church in…

Ju Su-jin from Sydney, Australia

The Secret of Reconciliation

When there is an uncomfortable feeling in relationship with others, there is a river we must cross to put that feeling down. It is a river of reconciliation and forgiveness. If you cross this river safely, you will see Happy Village. If there are any cautions in entering the village, they are words you should not use while crossing the river. “It’s my fault, but . . .” “If that’s what you think . . .” “I don’t remember but . . .” Unnecessary conjunctives, subjunctives, or expressions show that you don’t yet acknowledge your mistake or fault, and make the listener angrier rather than make him feel to forgive you. Ostensible apology is better when it is not done.…

The Reason for Giving Me the Mission to Teach

It was the day when I went out to preach with my wife. When we told a lady passing by that we wanted to tell her about God the Mother who is testified in the Bible, she didn’t want to listen. When we asked her again, saying, “This message is very important,” then she stopped walking. As soon as I opened the Bible, her eyes were opened wide. Seeing the Spirit and the Bride who give the water of life in the book of Revelation, she asked us, “Who is the Bride who gives us the water of life?” before we explained. When we told her that the Bride is Heavenly Jerusalem, she asked us back, “Then who is Heavenly…

Lee Jeong-hyeon from Cape Town, South Africa