A Little Bit Discouraged

Hi Sisters,

It’s been a long day, and I can think of no one I’d rather spill my guts on than you. I’ve been feeling a little bit discouraged, lately.

It’s difficult still being so unable to speak in Korean. I feel like a two year old, most of the time. It’s unbelievable to me that I can have put so much effort and time into learning, and yet still feel like I’m back at the very beginning. Ye-Kyung has to translate for me way too often. And when she’s not around, my own communication is laborious and slow. I can’t even begin to tell you how discouraging that is for me. This morning I shut myself in my room and cried, because I feel like these last two years, and the sweat, and loneliness, and time have all been so pointless. I want so badly to be able to speak this language. I want so badly to be a generous, compassionate person. I want to connect with the kids here. I want to interact with the staff. I didn’t drag myself through two years of language school to be sitting here today, still unable to interact beyond the most surface level topics.

It’s okay, if God can use it. I really, really feel that with my whole heart. If God is excited about my non-Korean, and non-ministry, and non-strength, then so am I. But…then why did He ask me to come? Why has He taken so much away from me? Why has he asked me to give Him my family and my home and my language? Why do I have to eat kimchee and rice three times a day, and sleep on the floor, and use a bucket and scoop to shower? Why can’t I have my beautiful mountains, and stars, and river, and ocean? Why can’t I just have stayed home and gotten married and had two and a half kids? Why must all I have come from all that I love, to the farthest place from it on the face of the earth? Even this whole Mongolia idea is a little bit of a slap in the face. I feel adrift and disoriented and tired.

I think about Doss and Deb a lot. Maybe because there are so many kids around to remind me of them. It’s so hard to be missing them growing up. It’s hard not knowing when I’ll see them again, and feeling so disconnected from their lives. I feel like I’ve missed out on so much, and now I ask myself why? So that I could learn Korean? So that I could minister to people? So that I could help Enkoreans? I haven’t succeeded in any of that, and I can’t help feeling like I’ve absolutely failed. And in that failure, like I’ve given up every precious thing, in exchange for nothing. I think that I haven’t been so discouraged since coming to Korea.

It’s funny, even as I write the above, my heart begs God not to give up on me just yet. I want to work with Him in Asia. I want so much to be with Him where He is, among the sick and poor and hungry. But here I am, sloshing through the mud, because I can’t wrap my mind around this stupid language, and because I’m trapped on the outside of a country that holds the people that God and I love.

So here I am: tired, discouraged, and frustrated. Maybe a little bit angry. Maybe a little bit afraid. But wanting to let go of having to be successful, both in ministry and in the language. I don’t want to be holding on to either of those things like this. I know that the problem lies not with God, but in my heart. And God continues to be patient and to shape me. Funny, I know that that is what this is, right now. I know that I’m being pressed and shaped, and that God has a purpose. It’s not pleasant, but I can hold my head up and move forward when I know that God has a purpose.

Please be praying for me. It’s far too easy to think about going home and never again doing anything that I don’t want to do.

Thank you so much for the pictures that you’ve sent, too. I can’t tell you how much pleasure it brings me to be able to see familiar people and places!

I love you. And after all of the above: I’m doing okay, because God is good. Really good.
Me