I've been meaning to put this up somewhere. It's not quite a poem so I thought I'd put it here. I just wrote this on a scrap of paper one day when it hit me simultaneously that I had wasted a lot of time but that I was also sure that I never wanted to live like that again. The game was over. No more of that. Just total surrender from this time on.

All the time I wasn't with You
I was just wasting time

I see that now

I wasn't with You so I wandered
I lacked clarity, a steady direction

I see that now

My recent obsessions...
A soft petal of a boy at the orphanage where I volunteer and Rene Magritte's painting Lovers. My students have been working on an essay in which they should react to a photograph or painting of their choice. One of the girls in my class calls me over to ask me about one of the sentences in her essay. Her essay is about blind love among other things then I glance at the painting to better understand what she's trying to explain. I'm suddenly struck by this painting. I feel the meaning of this painting instantly. It transcends words, its feeling is absorbed into my mind. I'm in shock because I've never been impacted by a painting this way. This painting is about the nature of knowing, about intimacy, about being close and yet being so far away. At that moment I started to share with the writer of this essay and her student editor some of my thoughts. They told me, "Oh, we have a proverb about that. It's a Chinese proverb." They went on to quote it in English, "Two people in the same bed. (Still) dream different dreams." I walked around the rest of class in a haze. This painting echoes something in me I can't explain at this moment. Since then I've downloaded the painting onto my computer and have gazed at it daily wanting its meaning to turn into words in my mind.

Then there is my boy at the orphanage. I remember the first time I met him. I was helping a first time university student teach one of the classes at the orphanage. I know this class well. They are a group of wild karate chopping 2nd grade boys. I would often come last semester to help E-han try to control them. They are smart but you have to be extremely entertaining to keep their attention. There they were whirling around, jumping off desks and yelling like crazed indians as usual. But my boy was sitting silently holding his knees as the Korean university student translated for me, "Joyce teacher is going to do a review. You all were here last semester-right?" He yells out, "I wasn't!" in Korean. Later I realize he must be new to the orphanage. It seemed like he was checking out how things work. He hadn't learned yet that when the university students come from Handong you can run around like a maniac. I think when I fell in love with him was at one point in the lesson when we lost control for a spell and all the boys started running around. I looked over and he was laying on the ground with his hands under his head staring at the ceiling with a sad-dreamy look on his face totally unaware of the chaos around him. At that moment I knew he was feeling pain in the way children do. This kind of pain is too deep and profound for their tiny hearts to hold or understand. It's the pain of a loss so basic it can't be comprehended at 7 years old. The loss of simply not being loved by the two people that should have loved you most. I know this because I also was left by my parents. I went over to him and just laid beside him. We later became hug buddies. Later that night before I left the orphange he came over to me and just held onto me for a while. Since then every time I come to the orphanage he walks up to me and gives me a big minute long hug. He has now acclimated to orphanage life. When we come he runs around like a crazy man easily hitting and threatening other children. But when he turns to me he is still the sensitive, kind boy I remember the first day I met him. I'm often praying for him, worrying that all the kindness is going to be crushed out of him in that survival of the fittest atmosphere at the orphanage. I often scheme about how I'm going to adopt him knowing all along it's foolishness....

Yellow dust, oh yellow dust*
why do you coat my desk and my monitor?
go back from whence you came
from the coast of China you flew in a giant yellow cloud
over many black heads, speaking languages unsaid
you flew over dirty streets and over asian style rooftops
through hills and rice fields
but you couldn't resist stopping at a university nestled in the hills by Hung-hey**
you had to spew your fine yellow sand all over a way-guk's*** desk

*yellow dust-some kind of environmental problem that causes yellow dust to be blown over from China to Korea every spring

**Hung-hey-small fishing village near my university

***Way-guk-foreigner in the Korean language

There has been a lot of political buzz on blogs lately. Understandably so. I've been thinking about the war and terrorism a lot lately, too. I'm planning on talking about that later. Hopefully, I'll get around to it. Speaking of political buzz. This a journal of a girl one year younger than me that has been doing humanitarian work in Iraq. Her passion is beautiful. I also recently read on James' blog that he's being sent to Iraq. (You're in my prayers James) The reality of that struggle just came one step closer.

Well, the real intention of this entry is to let you know some of my Uzbek mission trip pics are up, so take a look. :-)

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...