The Hard Answer

Yesterday, a friend from camp contacted me with the question:

What the heck are you doing in Korea?!

Well...the easy answer is that I am teaching English to Korean children.

What is the hard answer?

I've answered this question once already once

 But the longer I am here, more of the story unfolds.

Being Korea is about this time of training that God intends to use the rest of my life, and its about being Beloved

It's about seeing again and again a people that have been oppressed, and instead of bowing, rise, not to strike their oppressors, but as a people rise again.

It's about, personally, facing disappointment, rejection, condemnation, rising again to bless and not curse.

In Korean there is a term, its called "Han."  To them, it is an anger, unfinished business, but as a friend explained it, it is about  driving force to stand up, as a Korean, out from oppression, an oppression that sought  to erase their identity.

Now sometimes, the nationalism pushes over the good of others. (Some of my students said they were happy about what happened to Japan.)  But a people that rises out of oppression, in love, will bless even their enemies.

Do I bless my enemies?  Do I allow God to raise me up to the point that my heart is soft enough to plead  for those, even those who hurt me, to be raised up out of all oppression?

This is the hard answer: I needed to see this.  I needed to experience this