East Coast Korean Camp Meeting

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Andrews Korean Church

Morning Devotional

Jane Lee

Family & Relationship- Part 1

Then she just wears her, like, go like this.

Thank you all for coming out so early in the morning.

I know it's quite a commitment to make it out this early.

First, I wanna just introduce to you my family.

This is my family, my husband, Fred, and my 3 boys, now 4, 5, and 7 years old.

And we're currently living in the city of Pikeville, where the Lord led us there to live a country life and to enjoy his nature and to experience what it's like to live in the country, by growing our own food and just learning more, growing more as individuals and a family in that kind of environment.

I just want to first share about how I even came to speak here.

1 night, about a month ago, I was praying to God and I felt convicted to just, you know, pour my heart out to Him in regards to how I can best serve Him.

And at the time, I thought it would be in my own community, right?

And I was praying to God, you know, asking him, please Lord, you know, I've prayed this prayer before, but that night was different because I asked him to show me in a very specific way how I can serve him because prior to that it wasn't really as specific of a prayer.

So I asked him, can you specifically show me what I can do for you, because I want to do something for you." And then the next day, Eunice called and she told me about camp meeting, and she asked me if I can speak for the early morning devotional slot.

And I said, initially in my heart, I didn't want to, because I knew I would have to leave my children at home, and I didn't want to do that.

And I could have brought them, but I chose to leave them at home for certain reasons, and I just didn't really want to do it.

And so I said, can I pray about it and I'll get back to you, you know?

So immediately I prayed and I was like, what do I do?

And I talked to Fred about it and he, as I was conversing with him about what was going on, and then I said, and then it just came out of my mouth, like, you know, I was on my knees last night praying to God and then it hit me.

And I was like, okay, I know what I need to do.

And I immediately started just, you know, putting thoughts together in my mind of what I wanted to share.

And if you have a iPhone, I started jotting down notes in my notes on my phone.

And I had all these things that I wanted to share, and then quite a bit of stuff, actually.

And then I went to actually go sit down to prepare my talks, to type them out.

And then I went looking for my notes, and they were all gone.

Like, just those ones, the ones that I had written down on my notes.

And I thought, this is so weird, because I did not delete them.

And I was starting to panic a little bit because by then it was only 2 weeks prior to the camp meeting and, you know, with the little ones at home, I didn't have much time to prepare.

And I started talking to Fred and I said, Fred, I think Satan's trying to discourage me, because he's telling me, who are you to talk in front of these people who are much more qualified than you?

I think God's telling me not to talk about what I was going to talk about.

He said, Jane, I think that he really wants you to share your story.

And so I'm going to share with you over the course of the next 5 days my story and how God has led me as an individual, specifically today, and how he led us as a married couple tomorrow, and then share some points on marriage as well.

And then on the third day, I'm going to share about what God has taught me in regards to the connection between health and spirituality.

And then on the fourth day, I'm going to share about what God has taught me in regards to the connection between health and spirituality.

And then on the fourth day, I'm going to share about what God has taught me in regards to parenting.

And on the fifth day, I'm going to share about how he's leading us as a family and what he's shown us.

If you're not a parent, if you're not married, don't worry.

These principles can be applied to others, to your friends, to church members, to co-workers, right?

To children in the church, to family, right?

But before I continue, Let's go ahead and pray.

Lord Heavenly Father, I thank you so much for waking us all up early this morning.

I thank you for this new day that you've given to us.

And this morning, I'm here to share what you have, you want me to share and I ask that you be with my mouth and my thoughts that it may all be you speaking through me this morning in this I pray in your name, Amen.

Well, I'm going to start off by sharing with you my background, how I grew up.

This is Laguna Beach in California, Southern California in Orange County.

Literally, we could just walk down the hill.

And we had our private beach in that community.

And my dad was a dentist and did very well.

And we did very well for ourselves, right?

I was a fourth-generation Adventist and so they wanted to provide a good Adventist education for us, right?

So my dad was working hard running the business, My mom was busy at home, right, trying to run the home.

And they did this all for the sake of giving us a better life than they had growing up, right?

And off to school as I went, and then they transferred me to the best high school, 1 of the best ones in the nation actually.

I went to college and was in the Honor Society.

And so when you look at this kind of life, you would ask yourself, is this the kind of life I want?

For many people, I would say that this is the kind of life that people are shooting for.

My dad was the head elder at the church, and my mom was the head of the Dorcas Society, or the women's ministry.

It would seem that I grew up in a very good religious home.

But although it seemed like we were the perfect family, living the perfect life, people would actually tell us that, right?

You guys are just the perfect family, you know?

And just God's really blessed, and look at you, and living that American dream.

But God later in my life showed me that I and they were very sorely mistaken.

Let me start by sharing with you what I experienced as a child.

They obviously were doing all of these things for our benefit, to give us the best life.

But family is meant to be the primary social unit, right, in society and for us and I would say for a lot of Korean American families that might not have been so, right?

It may be the cultural differences, the language barriers, I don't know, it might be because they were so busy trying to provide for us, right, that we didn't really spend a lot of time together.

We were kind of like ships passing in the night.

And we kind of just did our own stuff, right?

My parents were busy with church things as well.

And so they were doing good things, right?

Family & Relationship- Part 2

As I shared yesterday, my husband and I, we met in dental school and we began courting and we got engaged and we decided that we wanted to sign up as missionaries.

And so we signed up as missionaries and then in the year of 2006 May, We graduated from dental school, put our house on the market in June.

And so we graduated in May of 2006, put our house on the market in June.

We got married in July, and we were prepared to leave for the Mission Field in Trinidad in August.

But things didn't go as planned because our work permits got delayed, and they said it was going to be delayed until October.

And then that turned into another delay until December.

And then it turned into another delay until who knows when, we didn't know.

So we decided, okay, we better start working, just start paying off our debt, right?

So in January we started work, And remember I mentioned we listed our house on the market in June, okay?

And now by March it's been what, like 8 months now, right?

And during this time, this house is located in Loma Linda, right?

So it's a good market out there because it's near the Loma Linda University.

And it was also listed in the summertime, right, when things should be well, right?

But during this course of 8 months, we only had 1 person come and look at our house.

And that kind of boggled us, like we weren't sure why, but you know, we didn't really think too much about it.

Well in March, 1 day, in 1 day, we got 2 offers on the house.

And we thought, this is so strange, okay.

Well, we accepted 1 of the offers and we then started packing our things.

And then it hit us like, where are we going to live now?

And where are we going to store our things?

Of course, we were students at the time, so we didn't have a whole lot of stuff, but we still had things, you know?

And there we were, packing up our boxes, not really sure what we were going to do with our things.

And then the week after we accepted the offer on the house, now at this point our boxes were nearly packed and we were trying to figure out what to do with them.

And then we got a phone call that day and it was from the GC saying, we have your work permits now and you guys are ready to go next month.

We're going to pick up your things this week.

We're going to send a container to pick up your boxes to start packing." And we're like, we already did start packing.

And we thought, God's timing is just so perfect all the time.

And come to find out in 2007 as you know, the housing market crashed, right?

We got a really good price for it and we knew that God's hand was in it, you know?

So that was our mentality when we were headed over to the mission field in April.

And you know, we knew that God was leading us there.

This is a picture of the hospital that we served at.

And when we arrived there, the next morning, somebody was supposed to come pick us up to bring us to the hospital, so we can meet the director and things and show us around.

And they said they would come in the morning.

Well, you know, 10 o'clock came and we thought, okay, you know, maybe they're just like on island time or something, you know, like we'll wait.

And then noon came And then we're starting to get hungry, right?

And we were getting hungry for lunch, right?

And so we thought, maybe we should just make our way to the hospital ourselves, right?

And we had to walk a ways away to the main street.

And we were like, OK, I'm sure there's some kind of public transportation we can take here.

So we noticed people getting on some of these, like they call them maxi-taxis.

They're kind of like vans that would pick up like shuttles, but they were taxis.

So we thought, okay, we can ask 1 of these taxi drivers where we go, right, how to get there.

And so, you know, good old Americans we are, right?

We're waving them down, right, like how they do in New York.

And they would come, and they would just whiz right past us.

That's so weird, because they're stopping for everybody else.

And We're like, I don't understand what's going on.

So we went and we asked a local person, like, I don't understand that.

How do we get onto 1 of these maxi taxis?

We're going like this, they're not stopping.

So come to find out, if you want to ride 1 of these taxis, you have to either go like this, like this, like this, or like, or what?

Like to say exactly where you want to go, then that specific taxi that's going that direction will stop for you, right?

That makes sense, but then now we had to figure out all the things, and we're like, what do we do to get to the hospital?

And so anyway, we ended up getting there somehow, right?

But I should pause and say that our motto during our time in Trinidad was that it's a blessing in disguise, right?

Blessing in disguise, because we came through a lot of difficult times during our time there, partly because of cultural differences that we found there.

For example, when we would walk down the street, it was not uncommon for people to point fingers at us and say, oh, tiny, tiny ching chong, right?

And say derogatory things to us, but it wasn't just because we were Asian.

It was because in Trinidad, unbeknownst to us, Chinese people were used in the past as kind of like indentured slaves.

They came to Trinidad in the 1700s to replace the African slaves at the time, and that went on until like the late 1800s.

And so we didn't know about this history, you know, and so people kind of looked down on us, right?

And we thought, how are we going to reach these people and share Jesus with them when this is how they, you know, see us, you know?

And so we thought, okay, Laura, there's a plan in this.

You told us to come here, you know, we're here to serve.

You know, we moved into our apartment and there was mold everywhere, you know, we were in a basement unit and we would have to wipe it down and bleach it.

And it was just quite an experience, right?

But we knew in the back of our minds that God is using this time here in Trinidad for us to develop our characters, right?

So that's why we said it was a blessing in the skies.

You know, through these things, God was trying to teach us to trust in and to refine ourselves, right?

Well, at the time when we arrived there in April, we were experiencing all these difficult times, but we were also expecting a child.

I was pregnant when we arrived with our firstborn son.

Well, so you could imagine with all these things that we're going through with our adapting to our new environment and newly married, And on top of that, my hormones were raging, right?

And let me tell you that we had a very, very difficult time, Fred and I.

When you bring 2 people together from 2 different backgrounds, When we first started dating, we referred to each other as our matching puzzle piece, because that's how we felt.

We felt like we are perfect for each other.

But after we got married, something happened and that veil was removed from our eyes and we thought, what were we thinking?

Family & Relationship- Part 3

Today I'm going to be sharing with you about how God has led me to understand the connection between health and spirituality in my own personal life.

Okay, so before we begin, let's go ahead and have a word of prayer.

Lord, Heavenly Father, you are such a good and loving God.

Lord, I thank you so much for the ways that you've led in my life and the ways that you are leading and have led in the people's lives here.

I'm here this morning because I'm not to share my story, but to share your story, Lord.

You have redeemed me in such a wonderful way, and I thank you so much for that.

May you be with my lips this morning and my thoughts that it may not be me speaking today, but it may be you speaking through me in this I pray in your name, Amen.

Okay, well I'm going to share how this journey all began.

About 3 years ago my children were 1, 2, and 4 at the time.

And there were a lot of stresses going on in my life.

Aside from the parenting struggles, there were other things.

For example, at this point in our life, it was when we decided to move to the country.

And so Fred had now bought the practice in Pikeville, which was about an hour and 15 minutes away from our current home in Ringgold.

And we didn't have a home to live in there at the time.

And so he would be there during the week, and I would be home with the children on my own.

And he would come on the weekends and occasionally in the evenings throughout the week sporadically.

And so I was struggling to just be a mother, right, of young children.

But on top of that, we had put our house on the market in Ringgold.

And I then had to learn how to keep the house clean all the time, because anybody can call at any moment wanting to see the house and that was something I had to learn because I wasn't always very clean right but I realized later that God blessed me in that and now I have to have the house clean all the time, which may be to the other extreme now, you know, but it was stressful in keeping the house in order.

On top of that, we were convicted of, that we needed to reduce our debt, right?

And so I started working part-time and my mother-in-law would come and watch the children and in the morning when I would get ready the children would cry and try to pull my scrub saw off and say, don't go to work and they would give me my pajamas and say, put this back on.

And it was hard to be separated from them and to leave them that way.

But I felt like at the time that I needed to do that to help pay off my debt.

On top of that, my family in California were having some major family problems and that I think was the biggest stress on me.

And on top of that, you know, now we were convicted of country living, right?

We were convicted to live a better life than Jesus, right?

So we're trying to make changes in our marriage, make changes in our parenting style, and the choices we made in our diet, you know, and in our entertainment, things like that.

And that alone, to me, at least, is the major stress as well, you know, Because there's so many little things when you read Adventist Town Child Guidance, right?

I know people have told me before when they read those things, it's overwhelming.

Because there's so many things that we need to do, right?

But you'll come to realize that that was actually the problem, right?

That I was trying to do these things on my own, right?

Well, at this point in life, now my grandmother, we found out she passed away.

So I went to California for the funeral, and it was on my way back that my body just crashed.

So that morning, I couldn't get out of bed.

And after that, it was a struggle for quite some time, for several months.

I had to drag myself out of bed, and this was even later in the morning, so I would have my kids sitting in front of the TV, you know, watching that, babysitting them, so I couldn't get out of bed, right?

My mind was so cloudy, I couldn't think, and when I talked to people, my words could hardly come out.

My movements were slow, and I was losing my hair by fistfuls and I was having shooting pain in my limbs and numbness in my hands and I would have these occasional panic attacks, you know, like I couldn't breathe.

So I would go outside for a fresh air, thinking that would help, but it wouldn't.

So I'd call Fred and say, I don't know what's going on.

And this all happened because of all, I came to find out all of these stresses in my life.

And as I was searching, I realized that I had adrenal fatigue, right?

Where the primary cause of this disease is stress.

And it was interesting, because when I was reading the causes of adrenal fatigue, with stress being the primary cause, 1 of them said, if you have children under the age of 5.

Because at the time, they were 1, 2, and 4, right?

So I realized I have stress in my life that's making me sick and I need to deal with these things, right?

Again, I need to deal with these things, right?

I was trying to figure out a solution to my problem, So I stopped working and I relocated me and my children to Pikeville.

Series

Morning Devotional

Family & Relationship- Part 5

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

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