An Open Letter to My Sister

For those who don't know, my older sister passed away a month ago after being diagnosed with Stage IV breast cancer in August of 2015. I haven't said much about it or posted anything because I haven't been able to fully process what I've been feeling and thinking. Grieving the loss of a loved one is inexpressibly hard, but it's also hard for the people who care about you and are watching you grieve. Watching me grieve. I want you to be able to understand my pain. I want you to be able to grieve alongside of me. I want to give you a way to talk about it with me beside the ever-awkward, "So, how are you doing?" I wrote this letter to my sister so that I could put into words the thoughts and emotions that have been whirling through me for the last month.

An Open Letter to My Sister

Dear Sarah, 

One month ago, you went home to be with Jesus. I knew it was coming, but it happened so much faster than I expected and I didn't get the chance to really say goodbye. The night that we found out they were stopping treatment, you apologized to us, and I made a joke about how it was your fault in order to lighten the heaviness of the news we had just received. When I left, I gave you a kiss on your head and told you I loved you.  

That was the last time I talked to you. 

That was Monday, January 11. The doctor said you had about 2-3 weeks left. Gail and I cancelled the trip we were going to take that weekend in order to spend those days with you. On Wednesday, I took my guitar to school so that I could come by the hospital after work and play for you. 

You died 5 minutes before I arrived.

I think about you almost every day. I feel a profound sense of loss. You and I are so much alike. We always just understood each other, and I feel like I've lost my other half. I've lost a part of who I am. I also deeply feel the loss of an amazing auntie. You loved my boys so well. You were so good with them, and they really loved you. Even though Ethan is only two, and it's been a month since he last saw you, he still recognizes your picture and knows you by name. This is how much you meant to them. And this is probably the part that grieves me the most, that you don't get to see them grow up, and that they are going to grow up without you in their lives.

I've had to say a lot of goodbyes this year. Saying goodbye to my friends and my students in Korea was incredibly hard, but at least I had a chance to do it properly. I got to tell them how much I loved them and how they had impacted me. I got to leave them with words of encouragement and remind them of God's goodness in the midst of darkness. I got to give them one final hug and say goodbye before I had to leave for good. I didn't get that chance with you.

I didn't get the chance to tell you how you shaped who I am. I didn't get to tell you how much I looked up to you, how you were my other half because we were just the same. I didn't get to tell you that I was so proud of you for how faithful you had been through this whole ordeal, and that I was so proud that you were my sister. I didn't get to give you one final hug and say goodbye before you left for good.  

I really miss you. You were such an influential person in my life because you always reminded me of who I was. You were never hesitant to hold me accountable for things I said and did. You guided me, and sometimes forced me, in the right direction. You were bossy and demanding, but you were also loving and kind. You always saw me as who I could be, and you were also always so secure in who you were. You didn't give in to peer pressure, you never felt the need to change who you were in order to belong. Because of your example, I became just the same as you. I felt free to be who I was and not change in order to fit in with others. Time and time again, you set an example for me that helped me find my identity in Christ. And even in your last months, you continued to do that very same thing. We both had our worlds turned upside-down on us. And for a while, I felt so lost and unsure and anxious. I couldn't see God's purpose. I couldn't see where God was leading me. But you were always so steady, so confident in the Lord. From the beginning of your fight to your last breath, you just wanted to be faithful.

I've never had to deal with tragedy or grief before. I've never felt like I've lost anything. Until now. I don't know what the next few months will be like. I don't know what purpose God has for me here in the US. I don't know why things happened the way they did. But what I do know is this: I just want to be faithful. Your mantra during your fight against cancer has become my mantra for the rest of my life. It's not just something that I hope I'll remember, it's not something I'm doing in honor of your memory, and it's not a lesson that I learned from you. Your example reminded me again of who I am, and so I just want to be faithful because it is the deepest desire of my heart. It is an expression of who I am. I just want to be faithful. I want to be faithful in teaching my children who God is and how to walk in his truth. I want to be faithful in loving my wife, in the being the spiritual leader in our home. In my workplace, I want to be faithful and not be ashamed of Jesus but to share the Gospel through my words, my actions, and my attitude. In every aspect of my life, in every choice that I make, I want to be faithful. And in those times when I fail, when I fall short, when I am unfaithful, I want to confess my sins and return to my faithful Father. To our good, good Father. 

I love you, Sarah, and I miss you SO MUCH. But you're with Jesus now, and you are once again setting an example that I will one day follow: an eternity of worshiping him and living joyfully in his presence.

Love,

- J - 

Reflections

This blog is not for you. It is for me. If I make it about you, then it is inevitable that I will fail at writing consistently, because I don't know who you are, or if you are even reading this. This blog is for me. If you read it and are encouraged by it, offended by it, or appreciative of it, feel free to leave a comment. Or don't. Like I said, this isn't for you.

I have tried so many times to write a blog or a journal of some kind, and I have always, always, failed. But I have been where I am for 5 years and so much has happened, and I've grown so much, that I feel if I don't start writing down things events that have happened and how they have shaped me, I'll forget about them. So you see, this blog is really for me.

My goal is to write in it once a week. Maybe it will be something profound that I've learned or experienced, maybe it will just be a short summary of what has happened to me. Perhaps it will simply be about what I'm thinking at that particular moment. Presently, I'm thinking about my boys and how great my Christmas break was and how much I wish I was with them again right now. Possibly, if you're lucky, you may even read a joke I heard or thought of, like this one:
Knock Knock.
Who's there?
I got up.
I got up who?
The bathroom is just around the corner.
(Say it out loud if you don't get it).

I made that up myself. That one was for you, but the rest of this blog is for me.

I never thought I would be where I am. I never even considered being an athletic director. But now that I'm here, I love what I do and I want to do even more of it. My biggest goal this year is pursuing further education that is somewhat related to being an athletic director.

I plan on posting my blog posts to Facebook so that if you want to read them, you can. I'm not super great about posting things about my life on Facebook, so this can serve as a regular update for those who are interested.

Well, I think that was a pretty good start. Or restart. I actually started this blog about 5 years ago. Better late than never, right?

God Is My Provider

God continually blows me away by how He can provide beyond what we ask or even imagine. As a small school, we don't have a gymnasium of our own, so we have always had to rent one for our sports teams to practice in. And it has always been a struggle to find available, affordable space for practices. For years, the boys and girls teams have practiced in the same gym at the same time for only a few days each week, sharing all the equipment. Obviously this is not even close to an ideal situation, but there was nothing anyone could do about it. Until this year...

As the athletic director, one of my biggest priorities was to find alternatives to this one gym. I tried several different options, but each was met with rejection. But after quite a bit of prayer, God opened a door for ICS in a big way. Our first breakthrough came in the form of a Korean elementary school. Normally schools don't rent their gyms out, especially to foreigners, but this particular school had a principal who really wanted to build relationships with foreigners in order to share with them a part of Korean culture that he was very passionate about (Korean Turtle-boat making). And because of this, he was eager to rent his gym to us, and the cost of the gym was.......$10/hr!

You can't begin to imagine my elation when he told me this. $10/hr for a gym is absolutely unheard of in Korea! And the only stipulation he put on this was that he be allowed to come to our school and teach us how to make Korean turtle-boats (which look totally awesome and I'd want to learn how to make anyway). You can bet I left that meeting praising God.

A few days later, I went and visited a place called the Paengsong. This was a brand new facility and had a really nice gym, but we hadn't been able to use it for volleyball because there were badminton nets set up for the entire length of the gym. Now the natural solution of "take the nets down for our practice and set them up when we're finished" may have come to your mind, as it did mine, but we had been told that they weren't willing to do that because the nets took a lot of effort to set up. So as I walked into the office of the Paengsong to speak with the man in charge of the gym, I wasn't feeling too hopeful.

When I asked him if they would take down the nets for our practice, he answered, "No." However, a few minutes later, that "no" changed to a "let me see." A few days later, we got a phone call, and the "let me see" had turned into a "yes." So today I went there again to fill out the paper work, and not only are we getting the gym for practices, we also can use it for our home games in November, but it's FREE. No rental fee, no electricity fee, absolutely FREE!

So to summarize: Two gyms, with exactly the availability that we wanted, and an absolutely unbeatable price. GOD IS GOOD!

Days of Elijah

As I help the chapel team pick out songs and practice them each week, one thing I try to do on a regular basis is talk with them about the songs we're singing. If I can help them to really understand the meaning behind the words, then I think the songs will resonate more with them and make it more meaningful. This particular song, Days of Elijah, is one I learned in high school. I've always enjoyed singing it because it's upbeat, and there are lots of recognizable scripture references in there, but I had never really thought about what the song was actually saying until just recently.

These are the days of Elijah

Declaring the Word of the Lord

And these are the days of your servant, Moses

Righteousness being restored

And though these are days of great trial

Of famine and darkness and sword

Still we are the voice in the desert crying

Prepare ye the way of the Lord!

Behold He comes riding on the clouds

Shining like the sun at the trumpet call

So lift your voice, it’s the year of Jubilee

Out of Zion’s hill salvation comes

And these are the days of Ezekiel

Dry bones becoming as flesh

And these are the days of your servant, David

Rebuilding a temple of praise

And these are the days of the harvest

The fields are as white in your world

And we are the laborers in your vineyard

Declaring the Word of the Lord

If you had asked me a month ago what this song means, I would have said something about Jesus returning and people being set free. And that's part of it, but there's so much more to this song than what the chorus is saying.

In the days of the prophet Elijah, the land was suffering a famine, King Ahab had turned the entire country away from the Lord, and Elijah, the last remaining prophet of the Lord, had a death sentence on his head. Yet even in the face of famine, darkness, and sword, Elijah stood against the 450 prophets of Baal and the 400 prophets of Asherah, calling on the power of God to remind the Israelites who was LORD. And when they saw God consume Elijah's altar with fire, they fell down to the ground, crying, "The Lord is God! The Lord is God!" (I Kings 18:20-40)

In the days of Ezekiel, God brought Ezekiel to a valley filled with dry bones. He commanded Ezekiel to prophesy to the bones that the Lord would cause muscle and flesh to cover them and breath to enter them so that they would come to life. (Ezekiel 37:1-14)

This song is about more than just Jesus returning, it is a call to evangelism. We may be faced with situations like Elijah's, where we face hostility and persecution for sharing God's word; or we may have opportunities like Ezekiel to share the gift of eternal life with people who have never heard the Gospel. Whatever the circumstance, we are commanded to preach the word.

People need to hear the Gospel, but how can they hear it unless we tell them?

"The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few." (Matthew 9:37)

How can they understand?

Lately I've been going through the book of Acts, and God has continually been speaking to me through His Word. To give a little background, all of the teachers at my school are commissioned as missionaries. Our job is to teach, but our purpose is to share the Gospel with our students. Our students come from all different kinds of backgrounds. Though we are a Christian school, many of our students are not Christians.

Because we are a Christian school, we have things like weekly Chapel, where the students hear from one of the teachers or a guest speaker. We start each morning with prayer over the PA system. We give all of our students Bibles. There are all these opportunities we have to expose our students to the Word of God. But even with all these avenues, if we stop there, we are only doing the bare minimum. We are presenting the information and saying, "Here you go. You have all the data, now it's up to you to make a decision."

In Acts chapter 8, Philip is traveling from Jerusalem to Gaza, and he comes across an Ethiopian sitting in his chariot reading from Isaiah. Philip could easily have just walked by and said something like, "Hey, I'm glad you're reading scripture. Keep up the good work!" But instead, Philip is prompted by the Spirit and asks the Ethiopian if he understands what he is reading. And the Ethiopian responded, "How can I understand unless someone explains it to me?"

How can I understand unless someone explains it to me?

This question keeps ringing in my head over and over. How can our students understand the Word of God unless someone explains it to them? It's not enough just to make sure they have the information, someone has to explain it to them, too.

This idea is reinforced over and over in the next few chapters of Acts. In chapter 9, Saul has an encounter with Christ, but it isn't until Ananias comes to him and explains the Gospel to him that he completely changes his life to serve Christ. In chapter 10, Cornelius is a gentile who loves God and has always served him faithfully, it isn't until Peter comes to his home and explains to him the Gospel of Christ that he and his family are baptized and receive the Holy Spirit.

How will they understand unless someone explains it to them?

We had a Purity Chapel session last week at our school, where the students were able to ask questions to a panel of teachers about the what and why of Purity (and not just sexual purity, but purity from all sin). One of the questions was about how to be more pure, but at the end of the question was the caveat, "and don't just tell us to read the Bible and pray." And my heart broke for the students, because they know the "right" answer, but they don't understand how to read the Bible and how to pray. They don't know that the only way to be pure is to daily seek after Christ, to fill their minds with his Word and to ask for his Grace.

How will they understand unless someone explains it to them?

I think about this all the time, trying to incorporate it into my plans for my discipleship groups and chapel talks. And I encourage you to meditate on it as well, and to look for opportunities to explain the Gospel to people you come in contact with.

"For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten son; that whoever believes in Him will not perish but have everlasting life."

The most earth-shattering statement in the whole Bible, but until someone explains it to the non-believer, until that person understands exactly what it means, it will just be words on a page.

How will they understand unless we explain it to them?

And So It Begins

A few weeks ago, my wife commented to me that a lot of people had been asking when I would start writing in my blog. This caught me a little by surprise, since a) I didn't know people ever read the things I wrote, and b) for some reason, I thought I had already written in my blog. But apparently I was wrong.

So without further ado, here we go.

I'm going to break this up into two posts so that they're not quite as long.

Let me begin by saying, "I LOVE my new job." Since I began working back in 1999, I have had 29 jobs, and the longest I was ever at one place was 361 days (so close to the 1 year mark). Part of the reason I have had so many jobs is because I have never been content with what I was doing. I've loved various aspects of many of my jobs, but none has ever challenged me, had potential for longevity, and been geared toward my desires and interests enough to make me want to say, "This is what I want to do with my life." Until now.

For those who don't know, I am the PE teacher/Athletic Director at my school. I teach Kindergarten through 9th grade, I am the coach for the girls' basketball and boys' soccer teams, and I am in charge of the high school Chapel team. God took my three ideal jobs; teaching, coaching, and youth ministry; and wrapped them all into one perfect position.

I daily give thanks to God for where He has placed us. I get random bouts of enthusiasm all the time about the ministry I have here with my students and the amazing things God is going to do. We are at a great school, we have the best coworkers ever, and we have a good home (that is newly furnished with an A/C unit!) And on top of all that, I'm going to be a dad!

There is so much to be thankful for that I am often overwhelmed by it all. And though I know that sooner or later we will face trials that will stretch and push us, it's nice to take a moment now and bask in The Amazing Grace God has poured out on us.

^"38 They will be my people, and I will be their God. ³⁹ I will give them singleness of heart and action, so that they will always fear me for their own good and the good of their children after them. ⁴⁰ I will make an everlasting covenant with them: I will never stop doing good to them, and I will inspire them to fear me, so that they will never turn away from me. ⁴¹ I will rejoice in doing them good and will assuredly plant them in this land with all my heart and soul."

Jeremiah 32:38-41