Mixed emotions

central thought...
I'm so glad that I have a home in God. I place I can go when I feel unliked and out of control. A quiet place where I am loved. I m so glad I have a calm embrace that makes everything else stand still. When I walk out the door perhaps many people think I'm lame but I can go back there where I am just simply: known and loved.

chewing away at me...
I feel like some coating has been taken off my life, like God has just irrevocably washed away a part of the atmosphere of my life. I feel he's stripped some of my giftings away, some part of my personality away, so that I can see the false supports that have been holding up my life.

I'm kind of sad that my weekend of solitude is over. Sandy, Ro and I had originally planned to go to Seoul for this 3-day weekend but last minute that didn't work out. Then Sandy and Ro ended up opting to go to a national park, which would be cheaper and closer than Seoul. I, however, much to my surprise decided to stay home and be a hermit instead of go with them. Actually, I love being a hermit. Anyone that knows me well knows that I can be alone for days without any contact with humans and love it! I wouldn't love it forever but I love it for periods of time. Some of my favorite times in university were my drives from San Diego to Portland twice each summer. At first my friends and I thought I would go crazy being 18 hours in my car alone. I ended up eating it up and after one trip I didn't want anyone to come with me on the next one. ;-) The drive is incredibly beautiful cutting through southern Oregon's plush countryside and Northern Californian's mountains. It stays beautiful until the middle of California then it starts to get flat and desert like. But nonetheless I loved it, being alone with my thoughts. Being totally anonymous. I found that my thoughts would go through a pattern. First, I would think about the more immediate. The people I just left, the papers I just finished. Then after hours of sifting through that my mind would start to drift to deeper things. I would start pondering meaning, culture, life. Then my mind would drift into my own life, start to take the wrapping off different experiences, feelings and after hours of trees whipping by me I would start to untie knots in my mind. I remember slowly making peace with people, with situations during those many hours in my cream-colored Toyota. Those times are also full of memories of fellowship with my invisible passenger: Jesus. My prayers became thoughts and my thoughts became prayers all through those hours. I remember once when driving through the mountains in June I was so struck with the beauty of the scene before me that I pulled my car over to the side of the thin mountain road and sang in worship, "Mountains bow down and the sea shall roar at the sound of your Name!!!" That's a sweet memory.

I also had one of my scariest moments on one of these trips but I still can't help but look back at it with fondness. It was my first time driving up to Portland and it was the only time I did it during the winter. I made the mistake of choosing to ascend into the mountains close to nightfall. Being an amateur driver of this route I didn't realize that if I didn't sleep at the hotel at the foot of the mountains that I wouldn't have another chance to pull over for at least an hour. It was a skinny two-way road and my only companions were semi-trucks that like to hog the road and go faster than me up the steep incline. It became scary when the rain started to pour down and as I drove along at 40 miles an hour I literally couldn't see anything. What made it worse were the semi-trucks. I was going too slowly for them. They couldn't pass me, so they would just honk. I wanted to get off the highway so bad but every exit sign that I could make out said, "no services". I was really afraid that I was going to crash into something because it was raining so hard on that dark, slippery mountain road. I felt I had to keep driving though because there was nowhere to pull over and if I did pull over I was afraid that someone would hit me. So to prevent myself from panicking I repeated, "Jesus, help me" for about 45 minutes straight until I finally saw an exit sign that displayed the hotel symbol! I remember when I got out of my car I was so thankful for that small family owned hotel nestled in the middle of the mountains. I was shaking when I went to go check in but no one noticed. The next morning I took off for the last 7 hours of my trip to Portland and driving away from the hotel it started to snow. However, being the kook that I am I actually said out loud in my car, "ha, bring it on, I've just been through the mountains in a rainstorm!!!" The snow turned out to be no problem and I made it safely to Portland.

By the way, everything went well with that busy week I told you about on March 28th. Thanks for praying for me. I was really freaked out about speaking at the Wednesday chapel but I think it worked out well. If I do say so myself. :-0

You know I should change the name of my blog to something super eye-catching like, "where is my soul" or "International deep thoughts" so that when people see my blog on the blogger thing they'll click on it. Well, I guess that's a dumb idea and I'm just goofing around waiting for my student to show up. I'm going to be so relieved when I finally get some free-time tonight. Whoo-hooo! However, I've got to have 10 writing conferences with students tonight. I can't wait for those to be over! Then I'm free at last... doop-a-doop....bee-bop....thank God I'm free at last.

Man, I'm really sick right now. I feel miserable. I caught some cough thing Friday night and man, it brought me down quick. Unfortunately, I have an especially busy week because this week I'm starting to train the new members of MNE how to teach English at the orphanage. So I have two meetings with them this week in addition to speaking at the English Chapel this Wednesday. And Tuesday afternoon I'm supposed to have writing conferences with one of my sections and that really drains you. I'm worried I'm not going to have the energy for all this! So please pray for me!

Here's another quote from a different student's outline on the same topic. hehe This one makes me chuckle because of its witty insight.

"If you marry, you will regret it. If you don't marry, you will also regret it." Soren Kierkegaard

haha

I just read some random blogger writing about how she blogs too much for her own good. I totally hear that. There's nothing like blogging to suck you in from the stress you're supposed to be experiencing. For example, I should be stressed about editing my essay but of course instead I end up getting sucked into some random person's blog that has a hard time using any form of punctuation. But on to what I really want to talk about...

I want to share with you these amazing emails I've gotten from one of the students I had in Uzbekistan. God's really working in her life. Please pray for her. A couple days before our team left Uzbekistan we had a small church service in a house and invited the Uzbek students. After this service her and I went on a long walk and talked about God, religion, poetry and absolute truth. She shared with me about how she lays in her bed at night and wonders what is true. Her basic thesis was "there is one truth in the world I just don't know which truth it is, so I'm not going to take sides (as far as claiming a religious affiliation). Her family is traditionally Catholic but her country is mostly Muslim. Weeks after I left she sent me this email about her question "What is the truth?"

(I haven't changed anything about the following emails. For some reason she writes in caps lock.)
HELLO,MY DEAR FRIEND!
I'M SO GLAD TO HAVE A MASSAGE FROM YOU . THANK YOU FOR PRAYING FOR ME.
I'VE READ A BIBLE!!!!!!!!
I WAS SO SUPRISED WHEN I READ JOHN 14,6 ! THERE WAS AN ANSWER TO MY
QUESTION:"JESUS TOLD HIM,I'M THE TRUTH AND THE WAY....." THAT COULDN'T
BE!!!!! BUT I REALLY WANT YOU TO EXPLAIN ME JOHN 14,30 AND
31.PLEASE!


I'M FINE.LAST WEEK I WAS PRESENTED
WITH 50$ FOR MY "GREAT IMPROVEMENSIN
KOREAN!!!AND SPECIAL
WATH!!WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I'LL WRIGHT YOU
SOON....


(This is a email she wrote me and the Uzbek team just yesterday. Praise God! Pray for her!)
HELLO,MY DEAR FRIENDS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
>HOW ARE YOU?WHAT IS THE KOREAN WEATHER LIKE?
>NOW WE HAVE VERY GOOD WEATHER IN COMPEARENCE WITH WHAT WE HAD A WEEK
AGO.!
>IT WAS SO TERRIBLE !BUT NOW SPRING'S ALREADY COME,SO I'M TOO HAPPY &
FEEL
>OK.AND WHAT ABOUT YOU?HOW DO YOU FEEL THESE DAYS?
>I HAS BEEN SO THOUGHTFUL LATELY!I CAN'T UNDERSTAND WHAT IS HAPPENING
TO ME.
>I'M BECOMING RELIGIOUS!THAT'S GOOD BUT VERY STRANGE,BECAUSE NOBODY
TAUGHT
>ME THE THINGS I THINK.I BEGAN TO SPEAK SO MUCH ABOUT GOD,SO EVEN MY
MOM
>SAID "YOU WOULD BE A GOOD CRISTIAN,DON'T YOU WANT TO COME TO CHURCH
WITH
>ME?"
>I'M A BIT COMPLICATED.MAY BE THE LAST SUNDAY WE MET HAS AFFECTED ME SO
>MUCH?! I DON'T KNOW,BUT ANYWAY I'M HAPPY & THANK GOD I HAVE MET YOU!
>I WOULD BE VERY GLAD IF YOU HELP ME TO UNDERSTAND MYSELF.
> YOUR FRIEND
,KSENYA.................

AAHAHahahaAHAh!! I just taught such a bad lesson. A load of sadness has descended on me. I didn't prepare enough to teach a "grammar tense review" and that makes me insecure coming into the class. Cuz then I'm afraid they're going to ask me some really specific question I can't answer. Sandy was telling me before class, "Don't worry about it. I never study the grammar before I go into class. I just figure it out in class." Then we decided it wasn't that I didn't know the grammar it's that I freeze up when they ask me technical questions. So she was giving me tips on how to stall for time while looking for the answer. But I think that just doesn't work for me, it just freaks me out to walk into class and not be sure I can answer any question they throw at me. So my whole class I felt I was hummmming and hawwwwwing, "ummmmm, I don't know why, Byeong-il" and then blushing some more. I think they could all see it. I felt like a shy child up there and I think I've lost their confidence in me. (sigh) And on top of this I've acquired this incredible propensity towards blushing!!!! It's a nightmare!!!!!! For the last six months I've been noticing an accelerating tendency in me to blush beet-red in mildly embarrassing moments, which then succeeds in making me truly embarrassed. And on top of that I told my students about that but then later regretted this because I think that made me blush more.

I was grading outlines of essays today about "3 characteristics I'm looking for in my future spouse" and Jada strikes again. This is her second time in one of my classes and she always writes the greatest stuff. One of her entries on our class's online discussion board last semester totally blessed me. Well, this time it's the quotes on her outline. They're keepers. So I wanted to write them here before I gave her outline back.

"Keep your eyes wide open before marriage, half shut afterwards." Benjamin Franklin

"The difficulty with marriage is that we fall in love with a personality, but we must live with a character." (this one's the best) Peter Devries

"You come to love not by finding the perfect person, but by seeing an imperfect person perfectly."

Tonight is rich with sad melodies. One of the students at my university drowned in the ocean while at a DTS in Hawaii. His friends saw his dead body bobbing in the water but couldn’t reach him. They said he was smiling. Angry Israeli and Palestinian voices are threatening each other on the news with new force because of today’s assassination of one of the top leaders of Hamas. My students are feeling anxious about their presently leaderless country. I listened to one of the teachers at my school tell me over lunch how she’s been lonely having no one to talk to while she’s been preparing to have her first baby. She shrugged it off but I saw the sadness in her eyes. How did I not see it before? I’ve been feeling a new wave painful enlightenment about myself. And I’m listening to a song that has always brought inspired tears to my eyes…

I believe in faithfulness.
I believe in giving of myself for someone else.
I believe in peace and love.
I believe in honesty and trust
But it’s not enough
For all that I believe will never change the way it is unless…
I believe that Jesus lives

Where there is faith there is voice calling
“Keep walking, you’re not alone in this world”
Where there is faith
There is a peace like a child sleeping
Hope everlasting in He who is able to bear every burden, to heal every hurt in my heart
It is a wonderful, powerful place.
Where there is faith

There’s a man across the sea (this is the part that always brings tears to my eyes)
He’s never heard the sound of freedom ring
Only in his dreams
There’s a lady dressed in black
He’s not coming back
When our hearts to begin to fall and our stability grows weak
Jesus meets our needs
If we only believe

Where there is faith there is voice calling
“Keep walking, you’re not alone in this world”
Where there is faith
There is a peace like a child sleeping
Hope everlasting in He who is able to bear every burden, to heal every hurt in my heart
It is a wonderful, powerful place.
Where there is faith

Ok, I'm only writing for a minute cuz I have to start my "Experiencing God" study book before I go to bed. I was just reading everyone's blogs and thinking it's just so crazy-we're all so different but yet we're a community. I've become apart of what I've heard about on the news at times, "The internet is becoming a platform for community and blah, blah" in a dry newscaster voice. But yup, I guess I've joined the club, jumped on the bandwagon and so on. And in closing I want to say I'm still working on my grad essay and it's super annoying. Good night.

Since I'm not in the US I've been a bit islolated from the kind of impact this movie is making. Check out these stats that I took from hollywoodjesus.com "The Passion of Christ remains #1 three weeks in a row. Beats Return of the King with biggest Wednesday opening ever and the sixth biggest opening of all time! The 2nd highest R-rated opening (behind Matrix Reloaded)." I knew it was making an impact but I didn't realize it was that big.

I finally have internet in my house!!!! It's even in my room!!! Wow, luxuries of luxuries!!! Albeit it is dial-up!! Booo! Booo! But something is better than nothing. Yeah yeah!! (insert-the clanging of cymbals) Yeah-yeah-yeah! (insert-the echoing boom of drums)

By the way, I just want to tell you before I crawl into bed (and my bed is one foot away I'll have you know......HEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHE(this should be read as a mad cackle)) that I was watching Donald Trump on Larry King Live earlier and it was astounding how.....um... how shall I put this? arrogant he was. It reminded me once again that are a lot of people out there who are obsessed with money and power. His assumptions were punching me in the face. At times I was like, "is he serious?" But, of course, he is, Joyce. Hello, there are lots of people out there like this-remember??!! One caller asked him on live TV, "Which is bigger: your ego or your bank account?" hehehe He answered to Larry, "I haven't met one successful person who doesn't have a big ego? Have you, Larry?" Actually, I felt like at times he was making Larry King uncomfortable-if that's possible.

For all those who have recently gotten a blog (because it seems like lately blogger only has ugly templates for new bloggers) or for those are tired of their blog template you can go to http://blogskins.com/ to get a new template.

I had one of those dreams this morning that really sucks you in. I was really emotionally involved in this dream until my alarm went off and even then it took me a while to shake off the emotions it evoked. Now that I'm writing it, it sounds kind of goofy but at the time it was real to me. I was getting married. It was the day of the wedding and everyone was there. I was singing a song to my husband-to-be about my love for him but when I looked at him I realized I didn't love him. I knew at that moment that if I married him I'd be making the worst mistake of my life. But then I started to panic because I was going to have to tell him and all the guests that the wedding was canceled. So that is what I was in the middle of doing when my alarm went off. My husband-to-be was so upset and so were all the guests. I guess it's all the marriage talk in my office lately. It's giving me nightmares. :-)

I've been avoiding writing lately. It's hard for me to write if I can't just break open and be honest about what I'm feeling right at the moment. Unfortunately, at this point in time I'm feeling annoyed and stressed in combination with the feeling that I don't have time to delve into what I'm really feeling. It's also annoying me that I'm just beating around the bush and thinking to myself "I've got to go, I can't get into this right now."

Tonight I had dinner with Min, Sandy, Ro and Jeannie in one of the school's restaurants. I actually had two pieces of pie not to mention the piece of pie I had with my lunch. I've been eating a lot ever since I got back from Uzbekistan. This fact caused us to start discussing the possibility that I might have a worm. Which, of course, became a big joke and a great scapegoat. When I'd say something slightly inappropriate (which I'm occasionally known to do) it would, of course, be the worm's fault.

This is one of those times that I'm not in the mood to write but I'm doing what I know I should do instead of doing what I feel like. What a good girl. I'm mostly doing it for all the faithful out there. (yo word up... faithful out there is meant to be read with a rapper accent) I've been listening to this old 80's song, "Don't Dream It's Over" for the last 2 hours that I've been in my office. In the last couple hours I've gone through a wide range of emotions. I'm wondering if it's the influence of the song's nostalgic feel. For a while I was thinking about old friends that have faded into my past and the good times we had. Then I was thinking about my grams. I was thinking about what she told me once after she got out of an over-night stay in a hospital because of a minor surgery. Her room had been on one of the top floors of a sky-scraper sized hospital. "I watched the whole city wake up through my window. The highways below looked like strings of light and then you know what I saw? I saw a moth flying near my window. Isn't that something? A moth way up there." Something about her curious musings about that has always struck me as poetic. Perhaps because I remember it with the backdrop of the relief I felt that she was alive and not seriously ill as I feared before her surgery. Healthy enough to leave the hospital with me and tell me about the moth that visited her window.

This is my first blog entry from my new notebook computer. This is a special moment. :-) Tomorrow is my first day of classes and sadly I've been way too busy with non-stop meetings to prepare the way I would like. This weekend we had the small group leaders retreat for Handong International Church, our English speaking church on campus. God's doing great things in that ministry. Ro and I were talking about what a pity it is that we are leaving after this semester is over. This one of the best churches I've ever been apart of.

Right now there's a lump of sadness in my heart. There have been so many things on my mind and not enough time to process all of it...

Bummer. Maybe I've procrastinated too much on the work I have to do on my classes to write on my blog with peace of mind.

It struck me earlier today that it's probably strange to the American readers that I'm preparing to start my semester in March. It's funny how you get so caught up in your own life that you forget not everyone is on the same page. Korean universities start in March. Super weird-when I think of it from an American point of view.

I feel kind of overwhelmed about how to convey what God did in me, my team and the Uzbek students on our trip to Uzbekistan. Especially, since now I'm super busy with meetings and prep for my classes that start Tuesday. So I have decided that I'm going to unload just little snippets about the trip here and there for the next week or so. Here's my weird blogger confession: I find it hard to write freely unless I speak from what I'm experiencing at that moment. If I try to dig up back-loaded revelations or ideas it's more difficult to write and I end up staring at a blank screen.

Snippet number 1:
Today I was thinking about Jess. The most amazing thing about Jess is her persistence. The woman does not give up. Trust me-she'll drive you nuts about something until it's done :-) but in the end you end up respecting her a lot. Many people have great ideas but they don't always see them through to the very end. That's what Jess does. She's had a great impact on our department in a short time because frankly she's a maniac with a cause. So I was reflecting on this after we finished discussing the website for our department. (that her and I dreamed up, sweated over and now it's almost done...thanx mostly to her) It reminded me of before went to Uzbekistan.

My dreams about Uzbekistan seemed like an eluding fog, a crazy dream that no one had a passion for but me. I felt it in my heart that a team should go again in the winter but it didn't seem like anyone was interested and where would I get the money anyway? I was and am saving for grad school. It's interesting to look at those feelings from the other side of the trip. I reminds me of a big lesson I learned through that: Don't give up. I really learned about stepping out in faith through organizing that trip. So many times I just wanted to give up and say well, it probably wasn't God's will anyway. But God kept telling me "do what you can and I'll do the rest". So I called people. People were interested. But I thought they'd flake out, so I canceled a meeting and they showed up anyway. (that was God's little joke on me to show me what a lame-o-lacking-in-faith chick I am.) God said to me after that, "see, Joyce, just do what you can and believe". After that I just did everything I could and gave the rest to God. So I went to churches even though in my heart I thought we wouldn't get that much support emotionally and financially. I was wrong. I learned to do just everything I could then give it to God. And even more importantly I learned to never give up on what God had put in my heart.

We sent out support letters, but there was no response for weeks then in the last month the money started to come in through church visits. It was just one step at a time and God kept telling me just do what I can and then believe. It was amazing. We didn't have our plane tickets, our visas or enough money until 2 days before we were supposed to leave because of various complications that we had no control over. I remember that faithful Monday that we were busy packing and copying material by faith, even though we weren't sure we could even leave but then everything fell into place. We got the tickets (meaning they were available now we just had to have the money to buy them) and the visas. Then after that Anna came to me and said we were about 100,000 won short of being able to buy the tickets and I just knew by that point it was just going to be there (in our team bank account). I told her it'll be there but if it's not call me. When she checked the account the exact amount we needed to buy our plane tickets was in our team account!! I'm serious!! The exact amount-not too much, not too little but exactly what we needed. Wow.

"Don't be afraid, just believe..." Mark 5:36

Here I am back in Korea. I just got here an hour ago and now I'm using the lovely free internet access in the airport. I also have finally removed that ugly shout out message and replaced it with a functional commenting system. Well, there is a lot to be said and I'm glad to be back. However, right now I feel like a big gross homeless person cuz my clothes are kind of dirty and I haven't taken a shower. I need to go buy a ticket to Pohang. So I'll give you the full report on Uzbekistan later.

Well, here I am again. There's a computer center on the campus ran by a Korean NGO worker here. We've come to the school early the last couple days because of different projects lately. So I have a chance to write. However, I don't really feel comfortable writing a lot because the connection here is expensive (even though it's free for me). There is so much to say which I hope to share when I come back. One thing I have missed is writing on my blog. It's just a great release. A way to make sense of things. I read quickly most of my friends' blogs yesterday and I almost got tears in my eyes because of the beauty of being able to connect no matter where we are. I love you guys!

Hi everyone from Uzbekistan!! I can't write long but I just wanted to say hi. Thanks for all your prayers. God has continued to take care of us and open doors. I was sick the second night we had our English camp. I threw up 2 times during the night. I'm totally better now though. However, it does make me feel like I'm just starting the camp even though this is our fourth day. (I had to skip teaching the second day of camp) It has been great to see all my students from last summer. Please continue to pray for us here. Later!!!!!