Thanksgiving in Korea

Special kids deserve a special Chuseok. Help us out!
In Korea: 외환은행 (Korean Exchange Bank) 620-184095-562
Overseas: Use this link...

This is a dude whose thankfulness cannot be fully expressed. But let me show you something.

Last spring around Children's Day, I remember riding the bus back from the orphanage in Masan past the big Shinsegae Department Store. I saw the moms carrying, pushing and towing their kids in and out of the store's huge glass doors. The store is just a few blocks from AeYukWon, and I imagine the kids there see similar scenes just about every day. I wondered then how it felt to them, seeing something that to the rest of the world is mundane and expected -- shopping with Mom -- that they would never experience. To have that part of their lives missing. And I felt thankful for my family, who have given more than any family should have to, to put up with me.

Now it's September and the "Korean Thanksgiving Day" -- Chuseok -- is upon us. This is a time when Koreans all over the country travel to grandparents' houses and eat, play games and celebrate their family ties. For non-Christian Koreans, the holiday includes worship and incense at the burial sites of ancestors. But for everyone it's a time to be thankful for what they have because of those who have gone before. (It's also a time of MAMMOTH traffic jams, which makes me glad I'll be in the Philippines for this Chuseok.)

Some of the AeYukWon kids will visit family members they do have over Chuseok. But none of them will feel the full embrace of family the way I always did growing up. I can't replace that, but in the hope of making happy memories of their own, we're going to do something special this year.

Next Saturday, Sept. 25, we're having a barbecue picnic for the orphanage kids. It's the tail end of Chuseok holidays, when many of their friends will be traveling to or from grandma's house. So we're going to introduce them to a good old-fashioned North American barbecue: burgers, hot dogs, chips and cola, the whole thing. This should be really fun, because the kids love food, they love our visits, and they love doing new things. But it won't be cheap, which is why I'm bringing back the old "Donate" button up there. The AeYukWon doesn't have a grill, and while I'm hoping to borrow one or find one second-hand, there's still the matter of charcoal and all that meat. It's not that we can't do it without your help. But here's a chance for you to be part of making a holiday special for some really special kids. I know times are tough back in the U.S., but if you've got a spare five or ten bucks, I promise you that it will make a difference over here.

Thanks for everything, everybody. May God bless all your hearts and give you even more to be thankful for this year.

Epilogue

HyeonHo and I got together last night and hooked up the computer. It seems to work pretty well. Now we gotta get these kids some good games and educational software. Anybody got any suggestions?

Thanks for all your help, everybody. Here's where your donations went. Money well spent.

And now the fun part!

Guess I'm a runner now.

The race is over; the rainy riverside course was gentle enough to let me set a new personal record with 28 minutes, 34 seconds. The other runners were amazingly friendly and helpful, and even spoke English fairly well. They helped me figure out where to turn around and run back -- running in the rain means running without my glasses, so I couldn't read any signs.

Technically I guess I won; there were only two runners in the 5k today so there are no official results. But I was the first one back and I got a medal, so that's more than good enough for me!

The next step is gathering up all the donations and ordering the computer for the kids. I'll be doing that on Monday, and I'll post the final total then. Thanks everyone for taking part in this and for supporting me. In particular, thanks to Susan for getting out of bed insanely early twice to go up there, encourage, motivate, and take photos. If you don't have a Susan in your life, see if you can get one, because then you will run faster, work harder, believe stronger, wake up earlier and just generally be more awesome.

This was fun, guys! Let's do this again sometime and see if we can brighten some more days!

The outlook is bright

Sara just confirmed for me that I'm all signed up for tomorrow morning. I'm checking the location and time for the 50th time. The weather looks like it will clear up just in time. The race is on!

Seeeeeeeek

Talking to a friend this afternoon, I got to thinking about the times that life takes you right up to and past what you're able to handle. One anthropologist, Clifford Geertz, calls this a "limit of endurance," and suggests that it's one form of limit that religion helps people transcend.

I think we all have limits to our endurance, or at least we think we do. But then God takes you by the hand and walks you right up to that point and says, "we're going over there." You would never go by choice, but then you have to. Suddenly you are beyond what you can bear. What's going to hold you together at that point?

We all turn to something. Friends, family, denial, daydreams, alcohol, whatever. People who have some connection to God want to turn to him, but where is he? That makes it worse, when you need him more than ever and you can't find him. "Why have you forsaken me?"

Maybe God isn't showing up easily because we need him to be hard to find. Rich Mullins has a song called "Hard to Get," about being in utter despair and not finding God right there waiting for you. When you're in anguish, you're fixated on that thing that is killing you -- whether you're dwelling on it to try to solve it or trying with all your might to avoid or forget it. And the human mind doesn't handle a vacuum well, so you dwell and dwell and obsess and fuss and worry and this thing sinks its claws into you and hauls you off a cliff.

I think the important thing in those moments is to keep looking. Jeremiah 29:13 says "You will seek Me and find Me when you seek Me with all your heart." Seeking God is important even when things are horrible. And when things are amazing. All the mental energy that wells up inside you in moments of emotional pressure can have a productive outlet. Turn your attention from solving the problem to seeking the Provider. When the world tugs at your heart and wants you to worry, orient that hunger toward God himself. Seek him with all your heart and watch him show up.

I think he will keep just the right distance to make you seek him enough to find him right when you REALLY need him. And at that point finding him means so much more than it would have at the moment of crisis. This goes for delirium as well as despair. Don't focus on what's got you transfixed in this world. Seek him and find him. Then watch what he's got in mind for you on the other side of the trial.

Without a doubt

[I'm doing back-to-back posts today because this part has nothing to do with running.]

I'm learning a lot lately about patience, or more accurately about how I don't have any to speak of. Do you ever look at your life and say "Wow, God is doing something amazing here," and then you get so excited that you find you can't stand waiting to see what it's gonna be like? This is where I'm at right now.

And I've been here before. Back in January I was stuck in the hospital, waiting day after day for Gleevec to kick in and my white blood cell counts to go down. I was losing my mind. I wanted to get out of there and back to my job. I missed my kids. I missed the Sunday school. I missed feeling like a productive member of society. I missed my freedom and my privacy. And I was scared -- what if the medicine didn't work? What if my Philadelphia chromosome didn't respond? What if I never got back to work, never got my life back?

I think God was using that time to, among other things, wring that doubt out of me. I had to get past thinking "what if." I had to let go of being scared to be wrong. I had to stop being prepared for the worst and just trust God to do his thing. Aaron Shust showed up on my iPhone today and reminded me, "I am not skilled to understand / What God has willed, what God has planned / I only know at his right hand / Stands one who is my Savior." I had to stop preparing myself for the worst, stop trying to understand everything, and just see the face of someone who loves me more than himself, and know that person is standing before the God of the universe and pointing at me and taking care of things. The part of me that was simulating utter disappointment -- taking myself through the steps to be prepared to hear bad news -- that part had to die.

Not because things always work out the way we want. There are more than enough stories of good people suffering bad outcomes for me to know that endings aren't always ostensibly happy, even when you do trust God. But the response to that isn't to expect or prepare for the worst. It's just to trust and concentrate on that. If those horrible things you're worrying about come to pass, it's then that God steps in to take care of it. It's not for me to make backup plans for God. He has planned it, and he's all over it.

So one of the products of those 19 days in the hospital was that I kind of lost my ability to doubt reflexively. That's not to say I don't ever doubt; it's just that my cynical, knee-jerk "well this probably won't work out so get ready for it to fail" reflex was broken. Praise God for that -- there is so much more peace in my life now than there ever was before.

But lately I'm learning how much easier life is with doubt. My buddy Paul back home, who always fills me up with wisdom and good things, wrote a long time ago about how having faith is actually a harder, more vulnerable way to go through life. Some people say faith is a crutch that lets weak-minded people more comfortably tolerate a cruel, capricious universe. I'm telling you it's not so. Doubt is the crutch. Doubt is a cushion.

When you see God working, your heart soars. You dream dreams about how this is going to play out, how the world will change. You careen through delirious joy at God's grace and faithfulness and sheer cleverness in working things out. Doubt keeps you anchored in these times. It tempers that joy and puts a ceiling on your praise. You're thinking, "well, this may not happen, but wow if it does~!" And that's so much safer, because deep down you know if you're wrong, some part of you saw it coming all along. You feel like you'll be more ready for that time.

Without doubt, without cynicism you are totally exposed. The mystified sensation that comes from witnessing the utterly unbelievable is looking for a channel, and can't find one. It's kind of like watching a magic show, I guess -- it's fun and interesting and cool as long as some part of the back of your mind knows that what you're seeing is just a really clever trick. But if you lose that sense, if all of a sudden you're fully committed to the realization that you're watching real magic, it changes everything you thought you knew about the world. Without doubt, it's like that. You can't go back to your base assumption that there's a logical, acceptable, not-nearly-so-exciting explanation for all this.

This leads to a peace, most of the time, that can only be described as "extravagantly intense." Why, then, do people doubt? Wouldn't we have learned by now it's more peaceful and easier to just believe? Why is it so hard? I think that's because doubt gives you the ability to protect yourself. It's your one foot in the boat "just in case" while you're trying to learn to walk on water. It keeps you safe and keeps intact your "illusion of control" (as Nancy says). Life without doubt -- life lived by abject faith -- is actually a lot riskier and takes more effort.

A little more waiting

The race didn't work out.

I had the car rented, the gear packed, the training done; what I didn't do was confirm one more time exactly where the run was to take place. I was just sure that I was going to Daegu World Cup Stadium. And the navigation system I rented along with the car got me there, albeit along a circuitous route that nearly made me late. But when we got there, we couldn't find the starting line. Why? Well, it turns out that I had mistakenly signed up for a race in Seoul instead. Oops.

We had a great day in Daegu notwithstanding; the National Museum is well worth seeing even with the main exhibition halls closed for construction and the Daegu Arboretum is beautiful. Plus, it just turned into a fantastic day with the best of company. After touring Daegu for a bit, we went back to Masan and had a pizza party with the Aeyukwon kids, then barbecued in the park with more friends. By the end of the night, I had almost forgotten the epic failure that started the day. It was just that good.

I've made a new plan, too. There's another race, this one actually in Daegu, in two weeks. I signed up for it online, but the site's application system for foreigners is not working all that well, so I'm not sure whether I'm actually in or not. Assuming it worked, I'll be running on July 17th -- two days after my 33rd birthday. I'll post here as soon as it's officially set.

Ready to go

In 18 hours, I'll be running my first 5k. I never thought I would run on purpose. But Couch to 5k has gotten me there, and the thought of all those smiling AeYukWon kids makes this prospect more exciting with each passing moment.

Now I can only pray that everyone can see what God has done through all this. He has brought me into that hospital and out of it. He has held onto me through the deepest despair and breathed life into cherished dreams. And when I cross the finish line tomorrow morning, it's gonna be with Jesus holding onto me.

Along with that, I want to tell everyone how thankful I am for all your support, encouragement and donations. I'll post a final total this weekend, but I'm pretty sure we are over 1,000,000 won -- 133% of my goal. So many people have given so much to make this happen. I hope you all know that you have saved the day for some amazing kids. Their lives will be changed because of you. No matter what happens, I hope you can always come back to that memory. I promise that they will never forget what God has done through you!

I was just about giddy as I walked over to get my rental car that will take Susan and me to Daegu for the race in the morning. (It's even got a plug-in thingy for my iPhone, so I can text and call everybody after the race and still have juice for the trip home.) I stumbled through the necessary conversations with my apartment office and the parking attendant to get a stamp that will allow me to park the car there overnight without paying 20,000 won in fees. I've washed my running clothes. I've run my final training run (29:50). This is finally going to happen.

The race starts at 8 a.m., and there aren't any buses to get me there early enough, so I'm driving the rental car. We're leaving Changwon at 5:15 to arrive at the race area around 7. That should give me time to get acclimated (or get lost) before running at 8. I'm planning to run Cyclemaster on my iPhone, which will show my progress on Google Maps, even though I'm actually not riding a bike; if you guys get really bored you can check in there through the link on Facebook.

That's it for now. The next time you hear from me will be from the other side of the finish line.

Way to GO, Planet Earth!

WE MADE IT!

When I set out to do this thing, I set a goal of 750,000 won. Check it out -- we're well past that and still going! Friends in Korea have given me 390,000 won in cash, and Americans have chipped in $365 through Paypal and direct cash donations. That adds up to 818,000 -- before even counting what's in the KEB account! You guys are all amazing.

So here's my plan. After setting aside the funds for a really fun computer, whatever's left from this funding drive will buy the kids a new set of English textbooks. Last time around, this cost about 140,000 won. If there's anything left after that, it'll pay for a pizza party at the AeYukWon after the race on Saturday. That's to celebrate the kids finishing their last set of books. They work so hard and are always so proud to show off their filled-in workbook pages.

Of course all bets are off if we actually raise enough money to buy two computers... What say you, everybody? Five days left! God can do anything, right?

Over the hump

Here's an update: Donations in the PayPal account plus local donations total 425,000 won as of tonight. That's more than halfway to my goal of 750,000! Keep it up you guys! And thank you!!

<3 As One!

I just got off the phone with As One on the K-Popular show on TBS Radio. You ladies are awesome! Ever since I started listening on Wednesday, you always pick up my day. You remind me of all the things I love about Korea: the joy, the friendship, the innocence and honesty. Korean people are beautiful inside and out, and this country is so much fun! I'm hooked now.

I keep getting messages from K-Popular listeners, and you all are so encouraging. I love hearing from you. I think that if you believe, and if you look for them, God gives us all chances to save somebody's day. So here's one way to do that! If you want to help the orphanage kids, you can send money to my account at KEB (외환은행) 620-184095-562. If you're not in Korea, you can use the PayPal link. If you want to e-mail me, just click here or leave a comment below.

Thanks so much for everything, everybody!

Taking it to the airwaves

Look at these guys! How can you not love them? ^^
Send them some money if you haven't yet, eh?
In Korea: 외환은행 (Korean Exchange Bank) 620-184095-562
Overseas: Use this link...

And so it was that I got offered a chance to talk about the AeYukWon on the radio!

Thanks to my good friend and Korean teacher, Sara, I'm going to be on TBS' "K-Popular" program on Friday afternoon at 12:30. Sara called them today to tell them about the race in a couple of weeks and to send me a message. I listened in and found that it's a pretty awesome program. This may be mostly because I have a soft spot for K-pop music, but the hosts are funny and energetic and their exchanges with listeners are fun.

Anyway, the program called me shortly after her call, and they set up a time to interview me Friday. We're going to talk about the AeYukWon and the race in a couple of weeks. The hosts, As One, seem really friendly and cool: They told Sara they would like to come visit the orphanage with me sometime if it weren't so far away! They're in Seoul and the AeYukWon is in Masan, and it's harder to get much further apart in this country. Anyway, I'm really excited to get a chance to talk about the campaign on a nationwide stage. Already people in Korea that I've never met are sending donations -- go Korea!!

So if you're in Korea, listen in at 101.3 FM in Seoul, 90.5 in Busan and Gyeongnam, and 98.7 in Kwangju around 12:30 p.m. Friday. If you're not in Korea, go to this link to listen live. (I can only get it to work in Internet Explorer; your results may vary.) I'm expecting this to be a really short spot, so don't forget to tune in!

And if you haven't already, send a couple bucks for the kids! If you're in Korea and don't want to deal with Paypal (and I don't blame you), just send funds to 외환은행 (Korean Exchange Bank) 620-184095-562 and e-mail me. Thanks, everyone!

Playlist

Support the Masan Children's Home!

Today was the day I broke 30 minutes in my 5k training. I hit 5,000 meters with 5 seconds left in my workout program. That felt REALLY good -- I feel confident now that I can finish the race in a couple of weeks without leaving the staff sitting at the table waiting on me!

(Not that that would've happened anyway -- there will be people running 10k at the same time, and I'm pretty sure I can finish my 5k before they do their 10. But you get the idea. I wanted to feel like I would finish in some reasonable amount of time.)

Anyway, it was a good feeling, enhanced by the merciful weather (cloud cover and 22 degrees at 11 a.m.). But I gave myself a little problem -- my 5k playlist, currently on "shuffle" mode, just about did me in. It started me off with an old Petra song, "All Fired Up," followed by Big Bang's "승리의 함성 (The Shouts of Reds Pt. 2)," a rocking anthem for Korea's World Cup team. You try listening to those two songs back-to-back and not jumping up and down and singing along. I got through those first six minutes with plenty of adrenalin but not nearly enough oxygen -- that is no way to start out a 5k pace if you're still a running newbie like me. I gotta move those songs to the end of my playlist!

Which raises the question: What songs should I be listening to as I train and when I run this thing? I am terrible at finding good music. Katie, you are responsible for just about all of my musical horizon expansion in my adult life. Help me out here! Everybody else -- give me some ideas!

Here's what's on the list so far:

Definitely IN:

1. Big Bang - "승리의 함성" (but only at the END!)

2. Steven Curtis Chapman - "When Love Takes You In" (to remind me of why I'm doing this)

3. Something from FLOKS -- Yannis' Greek Christian rock band. But I haven't decided which song yet. Who else can say they listen to English, Greek and Korean when they run? ;)

Probably IN:

1. Loveholics - "Butterfly" (국가대표 OST)

2. Petra - "All Fired Up"

3. PFR - "Home Again"

4. "Your Grace Is Enough"

5. Geoff Moore & The Distance - "More Than Gold"

Other possibilities:

Survivor "Burning Heart"

David Bowie "Heroes"

Jonathan Coulton "I Feel Fantastic"

Yoko Kanno "Sure Promise" (Big-O OST)

Gackt "To Feel the Fire"

Petra "All Fired Up" or "Powerhouse"

Flatfoot 56 "Loaded Gun"

The Decemberists "Summersong"

Blur "Song 2"

Cherry Filter "낭만고양이"

거북이 "싱랄라"

Pipettes "Pull Shapes"

Hold Steady "Slapped Actress"

Yellowcard "Believe"

Wayne Watson "A Place For You"

Newsboys "Something Beautiful" or "I Am Free"

Ray Boltz - "I Will Tell the World"

Shinkichi Mitsumune - "Runners High"

Shaun Groves' cover of Michael W. Smith's "Rocketown"

The Pillows - "Hybrid Rainbow" or "Little Busters"

I need something new, exciting, uplifting, fun and engaging. Suggestions, people!

Bringing back the blog

Support the Masan Children's Home!

Well, it's been a long time since I've had anything to say. But I guess it's time to do this again. So much has changed in my life since December of 2008; I'm not even going to go into detail, because if you're on this blog, you already know all about it. In a nutshell, since then I have extended my Korean teaching contract twice; visited America on a whirlwind Christmas tour; gone skiing; bought a bicycle (well, actually three of them) and started a foreigner biker gang; helped start an English Sunday school program; and come down with leukemia. It's been interesting over here.

And I let this go by the wayside because whenever there's something worth writing about, I'm too busy to write it; and whenever I have time to write, there's nothing to say. I'll do my best to change that now, because a blog can be a part of ministry, and maybe what's going on in my head can help somebody down the line.

More importantly!
...and more immediately: I'm bringing back the blog because I've finished the Couch to 5K program and it's time to do the 5K part of it. I'm officially registered for the "Park Love Marathon" ("Marathon" is the word Koreans use for every kind of running race) in Daegu on July 3. Why is this worthy of a blog entry, you ask? Because I want your money.

This race is NOT a charity race. (Those are hard to come by over here.) But for me, it is. I am not the most self-motivated of individuals, so just running for the sake of running does not do it for me. However, if I'm training for this race -- and running it -- for something bigger than me, then it's fun and interesting. So I'm running for the Masan Aeyukwon, the orphanage I volunteer at on Saturdays. I dunno how much I can squeeze out of my recession-ridden friends and family back home, but I'm going to do my very best.

So there it is, over there on the right. The Paypal link. Sponsor me, would you? I'm not asking for any great chunk of change here. I'm hoping out of my 400 plus FB friends, I can get 50 people to give me 15 bucks or so and buy the orphanage a computer. Or send me a dollar, or 44 cents, or whatever you've got. That would sure make these sweaty mornings of training worthwhile!

You guys who have known me for a while know that the idea of me running five kilometers is pretty hilarious on its own. So here's your chance to celebrate vicariously with me. Thanks for any help you can give. I'm sorry I'm not a 501(c)3 or anything, so I won't send you a tax deduction receipt. But I will send you outstanding photos when it's all said and done. And you can have the satisfaction of knowing you made me run. Not just anybody can say that.