Day 9

Day 9: Return to Korea

The next morning we are all dragging as we get ready to leave the hotel. I am thinking maybe we will never get gone when suddenly and miraculously, we have all the luggage and all the people. Our bus chugs away from the hotel and out to the airport. We are seen off by the remaining people at Yeongil and clear customs with minimal trouble, though the wait is long. Even though the plane ride is short, it seems like hours before the captain announces we are preparing to land in Seoul. As we descend, I am struck by the fact that I feel like I am returning home.

And yet, in a sense, I AM home wherever I am among God’s people because they are my family and family is home. The Wangchung Love House is my home while I am there. The people of Wangchung Love House are my family when I am there. And I am at home in Daegu where my family at Dongshin Church is. North Korea will be my home one day Lord willing, because my family in Christ lives there. I am reminded of the verse in Mark 10:29 “Jesus said ‘Truly I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and land, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life’”.

I truly am blessed to have been able to receive a part of the hundredfold family by my visit to Wangchung Love House. I can honestly say it was one of the most impacting and memorable experiences of my life. Not only did I get to be hands and feet to God’s people, but I got to witness others doing the exact same, even better! I went to serve and was served; I went to teach and was taught; I went to love and was loved. The Wangchung Love House is a living example of the poor woman at the temple who gave all she had in her poverty with joy. They are changing lives and all through the joy and love of God, which knows no social, racial, or ethnic barriers. May they ever increase in their love of God and each other.