Amazing Grace

It has been nearly two months since my last blog posts. Much has transpired. This is my last week working at the radio. I will have a bit of a week off next week, along with giving my testimony at Jubilee Church and going to Japan for a few days. After that I will be doing what we call Heartland Missions, going to the Korean countryside to work with underprivileged kids and youth; doing what Jesus called us to do. Upon return from the one-week mission trip I will spend my final weekend in South Korea to then make it back, praise God, home for around four weeks before China. I will be leaving for China on September 7th.

June was an interesting month. Settled in with my host family. Connected with a bunch of Yalies here on Light Fellowship. Made it out to Jeju-Do, Korea's Hawaii, or so Korea would like to think. Korea really likes hyperboles. Seoul is not the soul of Asia, and I hate to break it to S. Korea, but Jeju-Do isn't quite, as they like to put it down there, something along the lines of "the best tourist destination on earth". I suppose English allows them some sort of distance from the obvious exaggeration; I'll give them that much.

All that is beside the point of course. June went on with intermittent work at Arirang radio, reporting here and there. The month was actually quite consumed in my fascination with Daniel Pinchbeck's 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl. I also went through a missions training class at church that proved extremely interesting and surprisingly parallel to much of what I learned from Daniel Pinchbeck, somewhere between his ayahuasca trips, tribal initiations, and the Santo Daime of Brasil. The common theme, so as to not get too off track, of what I learned was the importance of being sensitive to the thousands of cultures in existence on earth today, not to mention the seemingly imminent extinction of so many of them. All of this in the context of course of being a missionary. Psalm 19 verses 1-4 puts it quite beautifully:

The heavens declare the glory of God; And the firmament show His handiwork./Day unto day utters speech, and night unto night reveals knowledge/There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard/ Their line has gone through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world.

Later in the same Psalm in verse 12, it touches on what my blog will essentially be about. I just realized it. No coincidences as I said; and there is definitely a reason why David's writings were ordained to be put in the Bible to help lead us. The verse is:

Who can understand his errors? Cleanse me from my secret faults.

To move on, missions training and Daniel Pinchbeck's books were truly enlightening. I am truly excited to live life as a missionary, not only in the sense of simply bringing Gospel, which is of course the main aim, spiritual liberation, but also to fulfill God's will clearly stated by His Son to liberate people from the bondage of things such as hunger, poverty, opression, war, ignorance, disease, etc. There really is a battle going on. Even before committing my life to Christ in the way I have recently, I always knew this and to be quite honest felt quite discouraged. However, now, with the promises given to us by our Lord Jesus Christ, I have nothing to fear, especially not failure.

It's quite ridiculous how little credit great missionaries get in history for all the wonderful works they did in Jesus' name. People really love to bring down Christianity by focusing on all the negative historical incidences, while then downplaying a lot of the secular incidences of whatever negative influence depending on specific nationalistic agenda. I think we all know about the terrible things people did in Jesus' name. I am not arguing against that. If it's of any consolation, I repent on behalf of them truly for what they did, speaking boldly as to say they were wrong (during the Crusades, to recently a few decades ago in the legalistic south, where they would send thousands of dollars for missions to Africa but wouldn't let a single person of color in their church doors); I am sure Jesus wept. I weep as well.

However, if you were to ask me now who I would aspire to be like, besides Jesus of course, I would have to say William Carey or Hudson Taylor. William Carey particularly blows my mind. If you are reading this, please consider learning something about this amazing man of God who did countless things for India. While Britain continued to oppress India in so many ways by keeping her ignorant among suffering from other ailments, William Carey dedicated the majority of his life to not only help liberate India spiritually, but in every other way as well. He introduced the steam engine to India, libraries, started schools for girls and Bengali people, translated most major Hindu works of Literature into English, put an official stop to "bride burning", although regrettably still practiced I believe, among so much more. Where as the entire British colonial force in India oppressed the country for over a century, one man, infused with the unlimited love of Jesus, changed the history of nation forever, and for the better. Ask any educated Indian person about it. Ghandi was huge don't get me wrong, but let's not forget about William Carey. For goodness sake, Ghandi's whole philosophy was directly stolen from Jesus Christ, all the way down to the fasting; the philosophy of non-violence is way to obvious.

Anyway, relating back to the verses in Psalm 19. It has blown my mind in my ongoing study of cultures around the world, traveling, and studying of prophecies from everyone from the Mayan's and Quetzalcoatl to the Hopi People of the South West of the United states to see that truly, as Psalm 19 states it, "there is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard..." God is everywhere. He doesn't have one name. In Korea he is Hana-nim, The One. The only reason we call him God, is because given the philology, our language, English, has Germanic roots. In the original New Testament, Paul uses the word Theos to describe God, In Romance-language cultures, they took the Greek's Latin counterpart, Deus, in Spanish now Dios. All cultures have one major creator God. Look it up according to whatever cultures or parts of the world you fancy. The pantheon of Greek gods is a little different, but I don't want to get in to that at this now. Maybe in an upcoming blog. But regarding that, there was a god they referred to as the "unknown god". There was an altar in Athens in honor of this god. And it is interesting to read the story in Acts of how apostle Paul used redemptive analogy to, in fitting Psalm 19-style, redeem God. He truly is proclaimed in all tongues and nations.

Which brings me to my next point before I move on. Truly, God has revealed himself to all cultures in one way or another, and I would go as far as to say that it is the same God. He simply has thousands of names; my favorite Viracocha in Peru. Machu Pichu was built for God! The Mayans understood the stars that God says he made as signs better than we did, and look at the magnificent astronomical devices we call pyramids they created! Even if you look at Egyptian history, with Akhenaton, and his move to stop the worship of several gods, although he stopped a little short, at worshipping the sun, something the believers of Viracocha (God) got over when one of the spiritual leaders realized how boring the Sun was, doing the same exact thing everyday. These are just a few fragmented examples.

The one catch is Jesus Christ. He is the Son of God. He is what saves humanity. I'm sure most of you are familiar with the story. If not, please read the book of Matthew. The reason the Bible is important, particularly the Old Testament, is because it shows how Jesus got to earth in the first place. It talks about Jesus in the first few chapters of Genesis. It all started with Abraham. But once again, I don't want to get into all the details. It actually all started with Adam, but I will move on.

So June was interesting, and it wrapped up with a trip to Japan that was really eye-opening. Sharing gospel in the Spirit, in love, is a beautiful thing. When the Bible says that the word is implanted in us, it isn't proclaiming an empty platitude. There are truly chords that are moved in any person, no matter how cynical.

In Japan I happened to run into a long-lost friend in the middle of Tokyo. A complete miracle. No coincidences, only God. Found Christian manga, super entertaining, and got a vision for Japan. This is barely at conception stage, but just to throw it out there, I feel compelled to somewhere in the future build a school(s) in Japan with Christian precepts and global vision. The spiritual state, among many other things truly breaks my heart. However, God has put a heavy burden and love on my heart for Japan.

Now for July, I started my one-month gig at Arirang. It is now coming to an end. I am giving testimony next Wednesday. That is where I will fully address the title of this blog post. His Grace truly is amazing. I won't get into it now. I'm also thinking of changing my middle name to my first name. I will explain it all in the testimony. Thanks for reading.

Grace, Peace, and Love,
Adam