The Valley of Vision: Puritan Prayers and Devos

During my three week vacation, I traveled to different places and it really hindered my spiritual discipline and routines to reading the word and doing devos. Today will be my first day of my second semester teaching in Korea! Just finished lesson planning for my three classes tomorrow and I decided to look at all the books I haven’t touched in awhile.

A brother in Christ from Uni gave me a devo and prayer book right before I left for Korea. Thank you so much! This book is so encouraging and amazing. 🙂 took me only seven months to open the book.

Friday I read the intro titled “The Valley of Vision”.

Today I read “The Trinity”.
Three in one, one in three, God of my salvation
Heavenly Father, blessed Son, eternal Spirit,
I adore thee we one Being, one Essence, one God in three distinct Persons, for bringing sinners to thy knowledge and to thy kingdom.
O, Father, thou hast loved me ad sent Jesus to redeem me;
O, Jesus, thou hast loved me and assumed my nature, shed thine own blood to wash away my sins, wrought righteousness to cover my unworthiness;
O, Holy Spirit, thou hast loved me and entered my heart, implanted there external life, revealed to me the glories of Jesus.
Three Persons and one God, I bless and praise thee, for love so unmerited, so unspeakable, so wondrous, so mighty to save the lost and raise them to glory.
O Father, I thank thee that in fullness of grace thou hat given me to Jesus, to be his sheep, jewel, portion;
O Jesus, I thank thee that in fullness or grace thou hast accepted, espoused, bound me;
O Holy Spirit, I thank thee that in fullness of grace thou hast exhibited Jesus as my salvation, implanted faith within me, subdued my stubborn heart made me one with him for ever.
O Father, thou art enthroned to hear my prayers,
O Jesus, thy hand is outstretched to take my petitions,
O Holy Spirit, thou art willing to help my infirmities, to show me my need, to supply my words, to pray within me, to strengthen me that I faint not in supplication.
O Triune God, who commandeth the universe, thou hast commanded me to ask for those things that concern thy kingdom and my soul.
Let me live and pray as one baptized into the threefold Name.

티파니는 어디? (Where is Tiffany?)

I had about three weeks of summer vacation. Spent about one week in Seoul saying goodbye to some 8th gens and two weeks in Hong Kong with relatives. 🙂 It was such a great experience travelling alone. I will defo do it again. 🙂

Over the past two weeks I have been teaching English camp and it was super successful. 🙂 Praise God I opened up an “English Mart-e”, where students can purchase items from using classroom currency. It works so well! Thanks to the 3rd grade mentor teacher, Troy back in uni for the awesome idea!

Typhoon Bolaven arrived a couple days ago and I was super worried about it since I live in the south coast of Korea. Interesting experiencing my first typhoon. I slept in my covers even though it was super hot and humid. Was woken up by the wind at 4am and didn’t go back to sleep until 7am. Somehow reading the book of Psalm instilled peace in my heart to trust in God’s sovereignty.. so much peace that I fell back asleep. 🙂  Tenbin is scheduled to arrive in a day or two.. Thanks for all the prayers & continue to pray for our second round of typhoon! Thankfully, almost everyone in Korea have been safe and unharmed. 🙂

Good old hymns to end off the night. I miss listening to hearing raw acoustic guitar and singing hymns. This will suffice. 🙂

Come, Thou Fount of every blessing
Tune my heart to sing Thy praise
Streams of mercy never ceasing
Call for songs of loudest praise
Teach me some melodious sonnet
Sung by flaming tongues above
Praise the mount I’m fixed upon it
Mount of Thy redeeming love

Here I raise my Ebenezer
Here by Thy great help I’ve come
And I hope by Thy good pleasure
Safely to arrive at home
Jesus sought me when a stranger
Wandering from the fold of God
He to rescue me from danger
Interposed His precious blood

O to grace how great a debtor?
Daily I’m constrained to be
Let Thy goodness like a fetter
Bind my wandering heart to Thee
Prone to wander Lord I feel it
Prone to leave the God I love
Here’s my heart Lord take and seal it
Seal it for Thy courts above

Random Thought: The Traveler/Traveller

I want to travel and see the whole world with just a suitcase and backpack! Not to just travel, but fully immerse myself in the culture for a few months or a year. I’m curious as to how people live their daily lives: food, social interaction, morals, values, culture, etc. To enculturate myself into various countries is something I find very meaningful because it’s such an amazing way to invest and to share the Gospel with people I encounter. There’s so much I haven’t seen and I can’t imagine just settling down with a cubicle or repetitive job in San Francisco. I love SF but I can’t imagine living there for longer than one year. 

Places to See: 

South Africa

Rural parts of China

Japan

United Kingdom 

New Zealand 

Australia 

India 

Cambodia 

Egypt 

Zambia 

 

Vacation Update #2

The past Sunday was super hectic. I woke up at 5:30am and left for Incheon International Airport. I took the Incheon Int’l line and it took about an hour from Seoul. Hoping that I would be able to get on the flight.. the check-in line was a two hour wait. It was already 8:30am and the flight was for 9am. Sadly I missed my flight. Instead I took another airline and got on the first try! I had 30 minutes to get through customs, immigration, and the terminal.. and praise God I made it with 5 min to spare! 3.5 hours later I arrived in HK! I forgot how hot and humid Hong Kong can get.. but I’m glad they use the air con or I would melt.

Caught up with Cathy! 🙂

Thus far I’ve been going to church nearby with my relatives to stream in sermons from the HK Bible Conference live and D.A Carson is one of the guest speakers! He’s such a good pastor! We’re going over Nehemiah for 10 days! 🙂 It’s day two and I’ve already learned so much about the faith of Nehemiah and his boldness in rebuilding the city he came from through God’s providence! Trusting and relying on God’s providence! 🙂 Exactly the reminder I needed.

Hillsong! 🙂 They’re so awesome!

God be exalted in everything! We live for your glory!

Vacation Update #1

Last Wednesday was my last day at my school for the semester! Time definitely flies by quickly.

Because I’m on the Seoulmetro and I have a few minutes to blog without getting motion sickness.. I decided to update you all on my whereabouts since my past update.

Thursday I left for Seoul to meet up with Sharon. We got to catch over a Patbingsu for a couple of hours. We last hung out in Jochiwon orientation and we have gotten to catch up here and there over Facebook. She is such an encouraging sister in Christ and just being able to talk to her really amazes me to see the amazing plans that God has for her in Korea! Love you!

Friday I got to spend the day with my dear Jochiwon roommate and her church member’s family. They’re adorable. They’re Americans who have lived in Korea for the past six years. Their apartment is super westernized. Cotton bedding, blinds, wooden furniture, English movies, Orville popcorn, welches grape juice… Oh yeah! Made me realize how much I was homesick

Saturday, hung out with a few talk scholars. Our last goodbyes. Watched a baseball game. The batters are not very good. So many opportune chances to score. We were rooting for the Lotte Giants, but they lost. While I was taking the metro, it was super crowded and we were crushed like canned sardines. And after standing for thirty min a seat was opened for me and I sat and I looked up and saw this 할머니 (grandma) standing and I was sick and exhausted and was hesitant on giving my seat to her. But I gave it to her and when I did she grabbed my bag to carry the load off of me and said thank you and we had a brief conversation with the limited Korean that I knew. She then opens her bag and gives me a piece of candy and a few sample facials from her pack. Wow I was so touched by her by just how people can make a difference by the simple things. I’m glad I met her. My friend from home and i had a convo about how God places people that we need in our lives and not people that we want in our lives. God is just so amazing and constantly humbles me and reminds me to live in humility.

All This Time

Wow, it’s 3am at the moment, so I’ll keep it short. I want to briefly share with you on what I have experienced and struggled especially while living in Korea. Language barriers, lack of family and friends from home made/makes it so much more difficult to overcome the battle of loneliness. Transitioning from going to university and spending so much time/ interaction with people on a daily basis to spending little to no contact with English speakers in my town was a huge shocker for me. For the first few months, the feeling of loneliness and isolation was so challenging that the only immediate response I had in mind to temporarily fix the situation would be to cry. I felt so weak but the fact I couldn’t talk to anyone or even hang out for weeks at a time with people drove me off the ledge. I was surprised after sharing with others what I’ve been going through to hear that they too had similar struggles. But I am reminded that Christ has been by my side since the day He chose me. He has placed me in Korea for a purpose and it is definitely not to self-pity myself but rather to live my life to glorify God. The best way for me to overcome this battle of loneliness was to ultimately spend time with God.. the God who created me. It has truly been an adventure with God in Korea.. the only one who understands my situation completely is God.. and awesome part is I am never really alone because He has been by me all this time.

Jesus, I love you. Thank you for the cross.

Songs on my playlist for the week. 🙂

I just want to thank you family and friends from home who have kept in touch with me. Thanks for the care packages, emails, skype messages, leaving comments on my blog, prayers, and  fb chats and comments! I really appreciate you and miss you! See you in February! 🙂

Encouraged with Updates!

Being in Korea has helped me develop a greater appreciation for community. I am sooo encouraged right now and I want to share with you why I am so in awe with what God is doing! On Friday, I left from school to go to Gwangju and caught the bus straight to Jeonju to meet up with Jessica. It was a 3 hour bus ride from where I live to Jeonju.. but I’m really use to long bus rides to go see friends. So I’ve never been to Jeonju before and we had planned to stay in a hostel. I was debating if whether or not I should take the cab or bus in the rain. I really wanted to take the bus and I had no idea where the bus stop was. Eventually, I decided to just take the cab and was dropped of near the hostel. I took out my iphone and navigated through the instructions and found my way to the hostel! I think the idea of getting lost when I came to Korea freaked and stressed me out.. but recently, I’ve been a lot more relaxed and chill about getting lost. Not that I enjoy getting lost, but I think the whole process of trusting in God even in these situations allowed me to worry less. Also, I’ve become a lot more independent and less timid about being in uncertain circumstances. Going to go with the flow. Anywhos, I waited for Jess and we caught up. The last time we’ve had an in depth conversation was during Jochiwon. I am so encouraged by her and her love for God. 🙂 On Saturday, Blaise, Jessica, and I walked around the park and toured around the village. It was sooo pretty! Perfect day to go to Jeonju! Just looking at the blue sky and seeing patches of clouds with lily pads and flowers…. wow.. We went paddle boating and got our work out from that and to reward ourselves from the hot weather.. we went to three cafes and split 3 patbingsoo in totall! 🙂 We ended off the day with Jeonju’s famous bibimbap! 🙂

Jeonju’s kongnamul gukbap (bean sprout/ soup/ rice) sooo good!

Street vendors at Jeonju Hanok Village

Walking around the park with Jess&Blaise!

🙂 Pretty blue skies!

One paddler

Spiral & space.

Jeonju’s Chinatown=2 restaurants. Disappointed.

Favorite patbingsoo out of the three. Girls and desserts.

Korea cafes are unique

Raw meat bibimbap!

Cafe #4 of the day. Jess’s drank.

Woke up at 6:30am today and left for Gwangju and went to morning prayer. Although it was just the three of us… we got to talk and pray for Korea, church, and personal prayer requests. One of my friends just messaged and shared with me about an answered prayer tonight. After praying earlier today.. a prayer has been answered! So crazy how instant God sometimes answers prayers! I am reminded that prayer is POWERFUL! The message was on community and how we should encourage one another. I have decided to commit to this church and go to this church every week and serve. Still praying to see if it’s God’s will for me to watch and take care of the little ones during service or after service so parents can fellowship. We had lunch at Pho Bay and it was alright… Not as good as the pho place in SF Chinatown… I miss real pho. Afterwards, fellowshipped some more with a few sisters in Christ. Emily and I got to catch up and share about our experiences in Korea and what God is doing in our lives. Emily is so passionate about God and it is sooo contagious! 🙂 I want to be bold for Jesus!

I’ve been memorizing and studying Jude! 🙂 Being spiritually disciplined to read the Word was hard at first, but I defo having accountability helps a lot. I feel so much closer to God nowadays and I don’t want to lose this thirst and hunger for the Word! 🙂

___

Before I came to Korea, I was meh about being Cantonese and didn’t really care to learn the language. And when I spoke Cantonese I felt like my language comprehension was not good enough.. which is why I stopped speaking it. Spending time with a couple Cantonese friends has inspired me to improve my Cantonese. I stopped going to Chinese immersion school when I was in third grade and my Cantonese vocabulary has gotten butchered over the years of not using it. So recently I’ve been watching tons of MC Jin (who is a devout Christian and rapper! He’s legit.) and Carlosdouh’s youtube videos! They’re awesome! Check out his youtube video!

MC Jin feat. KT ( 7-11: There are so many convenience stores in Korea! 🙂 I can actually understand more Cantonese than I am able to speak it.

MC Jin (Sincerely Yours)

Carlos Douh (公主病 aka Princess Sickness: Apparently Koreans also a similar name and term for this “sickness” 공주의 병 Geung Ju Eui Byeong)

All is Vanity!

Ecclesiastes 1
English Standard Version (ESV)
All Is Vanity

1 The words of the Preacher,[a] the son of David, king in Jerusalem.

2 Vanity[b] of vanities, says the Preacher,
vanity of vanities! All is vanity.
3 What does man gain by all the toil
at which he toils under the sun?
4 A generation goes, and a generation comes,
but the earth remains forever.
5 The sun rises, and the sun goes down,
and hastens[c] to the place where it rises.
6 The wind blows to the south
and goes around to the north;
around and around goes the wind,
and on its circuits the wind returns.
7 All streams run to the sea,
but the sea is not full;
to the place where the streams flow,
there they flow again.
8 All things are full of weariness;
a man cannot utter it;
the eye is not satisfied with seeing,
nor the ear filled with hearing.
9 What has been is what will be,
and what has been done is what will be done,
and there is nothing new under the sun.
10 Is there a thing of which it is said,
“See, this is new”?
It has been already
in the ages before us.
11 There is no remembrance of former things,[d]
nor will there be any remembrance
of later things[e] yet to be
among those who come after.

The Simplest Things

Worshiping God.

Jesus, You’re beautiful. 

Inspired. One day I want to travel to Africa and love on these cute little ones. Everyone deserves to feel loved and valued.

In Need of Your Grace

Abba Father,

Forgive me for having a prideful and self-righteous heart prior to coming to Korea. Thank you for humbling me in so many ways. Thank You for placing me through trials for seasons of growth. Oh Lord you’ve searched me  and you know my every thought. You know when I sit and when I stand.  Although these past few months have been difficult and rough to the point where I’ve failed to rely on You and rejoice in these unfavorable situations. Remind me how to live in full obedience to Your commands. Father I have  been selfish by placing myself above others. I pray that I will no longer live in bitterness and help me forgive and love those who have hurt and wronged me just as Christ loves and forgives me. Remind me of the Cross on Calvary. Thank you for Jesus Christ and for the blood that was shed for me. Thank you for thinking of me on the cross. Teach me true humility. Test my thoughts and attitudes in the radiance of Your purity. Cause my faith to rise. Cause my eyes to see. Your majestic love and authority. I want to live for You and serve You with my entire heart until my very last breath on earth.

In Jesus Name, Amen.