SATURDAY, JUNE 19, 2010

I arrived at Promise Camp exactly a week ago from today. There are twenty senior and junior conuselors and with the exception of the three of us (including me), the 17 counselors are black. I knew that this camp reached primarily to the inner-city kids of Pittsburgh but I didn't realize that majority of the ocunselors would be from inner-city too.

Although I like to call myself multi-cultural I quickly realized that all my life I have lived in a all-"white" culture. I've never been taken out of my comfort zone where the places I slept, food I ate and the type of people I hung out with had been replaced with people and places that I wasn't used to. Yeah, I guess you can say that I was born in Korea and that I lived in France fcr four months. But I was never taken out of my comfort zone even then. I lived in with 20 Americans in France and when I came from Korea, I had the shelter and comfort of my family to provide for me. The short term missions trips I was part of to Latin American and Southeastern Asia, I always traveled with a group of people that I knew and was comfortable with.

Living in a bunkhouse with 20 black girls that all know each other and being the only Asian girl who didn't know anyone has been challenging.Cultural shock and frustration robbed me of my joy that was present before I arrived at the camp. I felt very lonely and questeioned why God had specifically picked this camp for me.

It is funny that when we are taken out of our comfort zone, we become aware of how our joy and contentment depended on the things that provided these comfort. Food, places to sleep, a clean bathrrom - these are essential necessities that I took for granted. I became asahmed by how my joy and contentment rested on these things and not on Christ. I thought I had given up everything for God in my committing to him - my desire of approval and pleasure - but it seemed that this past week has taught me God wants something more. He wants my comfort too.

As the week passed, I got to know these inner-city kids and heard their testimonies. It is amazing how God brought some of them out of the pit. Some wrestled with drug-addiciton and others engaged in premarital sexual activites. A few had been to jail. Now they were transformed by the love of Jesus Christ and was wanting to live for him. How foolish I was to prejudge them when I had so much to learn from them. Compared to them I had lived an easy life, though I had gone through a few struggles of my own. But through their testimonies I am learning that sometimes struggles and pain are not the worst thing that could happen to us as God usese these things to bring us closer to him. Despite their struggles and past experiences, their love for Jesus fascinates and inspires me.

This past week was the most multi-cultural experience I have gotten in a long time. Who knew that even in America, we have different groups of people that worship God, talk, and listen to music that are so vastly different than what I am used to? Although I'm thankful for the time that I have been remaining at this Grove-City bubble, it seems I have so much more to learn about people that are different than me once I get out of the bubble.

One of the counselors, Melissa, offered me to read a short phamplet called "Live to Be Forgotten: D. Hoste" that describes a life of an amazing missionary to China in the early 1900s during the Boxer Rebellion. God used this short phamphlet to convict me in my narrow-minded view of what I viewed international. I want to be used internationally and travel as I do God's work. If I coudln't get used to living in a camp designed for inner-city at risk children in the UNITED STATES, how was he going to use me in other parts of the world such as Afirca, Latin American and Asia? Hoste, a graduate of the Royal Military Academy, abandoned everything he had including prestige, comfort and money to serve God in the humblest way in an opium-addicted country of China. How could I ask the Lord to use me internationally in such a way that He used Hoste if I cannot survive in this enviornment in Western PA?

Needless to say, I was convicted. It is not the abundance of good food, comfortable shelter and fellowship with people I am used to that should give me joy and contentment. Priase His name for He provides these things without the need for our care and worries.