Dear Sister,

I’m going to begin by sharing a journal entry that I wrote several days ago, just so you can have an idea what it was that I was praying about last night.

***

I have found it difficult to reconcile myself with the idea of returning home permanently. I haven’t been discouraged or tired or depressed. My heart is well. It is my mind which is pulled nearly in two. Every conviction that brought me over to Korea in the first place is still there. Nothing has changed: N. Koreans still live and die in abject poverty, workers continue to be scarce, and God’s voice still whispers “Do you love Me? Feed My sheep.”

“Did not He that made me in the womb make him?” Job demanded, “and did not one fashion us in the womb?... If I have eaten my morsel myself alone, and the fatherless hath not eaten thereof…If I have seen any perish for want of clothing, or any poor without covering; If his loins have not blessed me, and if he were not warmed with the fleece of my sheep…” Then what? “…Then let mine arm fall from my shoulder blade, and mine arm be broken from the bone.”

I read missionary stories which challenge me not to give up, and hear sermons which charge me to be strong, and have conversations that leave my mind spinning with the knowledge that it is they who hold on to their dreams in times of darkest uncertainty who are the winners. My own mind and heart throw me over to the ‘persevere at all costs’ camp; this has been the mentality that I’ve grown up with, and by which I’ve made the most difficult choices of my live – until now.

Now, though my heart is quiet, my mind is in agony. Does God want His church to minister to the unreached and suffering? Yes. I strongly believe: Yes. Why do I think that I am now somehow excused from the front lines of that work? Is my personal life with God really more important than the lives of eleven million N. Koreans? More important enough that I should consider going back to the States to develop it, while they die in darkness?

My mind churns, and I cannot help weeping at what I cannot understand: they will die, and I will go home. I will go home, while they die. I will leave them to their death with a quiet heart and a burning mind, and they will all die. I cannot understand. Perhaps if there where were an army of people vying to help, then I might stand back in peace. But the help is so small, and now it is less, and the people keep on dying, and my heart continues to be still, and I cannot understand. What is there to do but weep and weep and weep, until there are no tears left to cry?

I beg God to correct me, if I have heard Him wrong. If I am listening not to His voice, but to my own heart, I plead with Him to turn me back. Meanwhile, I remind myself that God loves each individual in N. Korea dearly, and it is He Who will save them, and not I. “The Lord is our Judge, the Lord is our Lawgiver, the Lord is our King; He will save us.” (Is 33:22)

***

Last night I just tried to tell God what has been on my mind: the wrestling between stopping and going forward. The wrestling between staying in Korea and returning to America. As I prayed, the pressure became very great. I think I’m supposed to return home…but what if that’s wrong?

I wanted to pray, but all I could whisper, over and over again, was, “Keep me. Keep me.” God understood that my heart was begging Him to keep me on the right path, regardless of which direction I head, and to not allow my decisions to take me anywhere other than where He wants me.

After a while I sat up and opened my Bible at random. I read the first verse that my eyes fell on, “He that keepeth thee will not slumber.” My heart leaped. It was such a specific answer. I continued to read.

“Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep. The LORD is thy keeper: the LORD is thy shade upon thy right hand. The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night. The LORD shall preserve thee from all evil: he shall preserve thy soul. The LORD shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore.” (Psa 121:4-8)

Could there have been a more direct answer or a more beautiful promise given? God, Who keeps me, will not sleep; He will preserve my going out and my coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore. He has pledged Himself to it.

I can return to the States in peace.

Thank you for being interested in my life’s dramas. =) I love you, and I hope that all made sense.

See you soon!
Elisabeth

Coming Home...

Dear Family…

This is my life:

Mike wrote me an email not too long ago. In it he said, “Any vision or ministry you attempt has to first die if it’s going to succeed. It has to die so that God (and God alone) can resurrect the vision according to His purposes and His shaping. So if it feels like your vision is dying…it means that God is getting you ready to lay down your plans and listen to what He’s got in store.”

As if that wasn’t thought provoking enough, I was talking to Amy a few days later, telling her how, for the first time in my life, I’m just absolutely unsure about what to do with myself. I have no direction for my life. The future is blank. I’m at an end, completely, of my own resources. She laughed, “God has had to bring you through a lot to accomplish that.”

And I think she’s right. They’re both right. I have nothing left to give; there is nothing I can do. I can’t speak Korean, I can’t evangelize, I can’t disciple, I don’t even have the energy to walk through a normal day without becoming exhausted, for goodness sake!

So yesterday I decided that I’m done. I will go home in March and attempt to live my life day by day loving people as best I can. God knows that my heart is still willing – if He wants me to go to China, fine. If He wants me to stay here, fine. But I am done trying to make it happen. I don’t even know what live I hope to have, but I do know what life I don’t want: a life lived based upon my own resources and ingenuity. I can’t do it any longer.

Yesterday was a sad day to walk through. Not sad in a bad way, exactly, just sad in a “good-bye” sort of way. I cried for a little while in the morning, while I was praying, because giving this – my vision for NK – up is like giving a part of myself up. Missions is my identity; it has been since I can remember. I’ve always had a direction, I’ve always known what I was going to do and who I was going to be. And now … I have nothing.

It’s hard, too, because I’ve given so much for this. These last three years have been such arduous ones, bought with tears and sweat. But I’ve given them to God. He may use them someday, if He wants to. But I never will. I lived them because I loved God, and now I leave them for the same reason. I still study Korean, because this is where I am, but I no longer plan on using it, so a great pressure is removed. And when I return to America in two months, I will leave things wrapped up here, because I don’t plan on coming back. If this isn’t pleasing to God, if this is merely giving up when He wants me to press forward – well, my life is His. I trust Him to keep me on the right path.

I don’t know how I’ll explain all this to family and church, but I care very little how they respond. I’m done trying to meet other people’s expectations. I’m done trying to meet my own expectations. From today, the only One Whom I will attempt to satisfy is Christ. If He is pleased with my life, I will be content.

So that’s my story. I’m very sad, and the smallest things make me cry…I’m crying while I write this. But I have so much peace. I really believe that this is where God has been bring me, all this time: to an end of myself and a beginning of Him.

I love you, and I wish that one of you could be here with me right now…

Settling In

Hi,

I don’t think this is going to be a very long letter. I just wanted to let you all know how I’m doing, before too much more time passes. I’m sorry I haven’t been in touch before now. My life has been a little bit unsettled, and to be quite honest, I don’t like to write when I’m having a difficult time.

Coming back to Korea this time has been different from the others. Usually I’m thrust headlong into the fast lane, with hardly a chance to get my feet under me. This time, life recommenced at a much slower pace. The day after I flew in, snow began to fall. It continued to fall until the city shut down. It was the worst snow fall that Seoul has seen in 103 years, and it brought the city to an abrupt halt. Since transportation was in a deadlock, and since the house of the friend with whom I was camping out is near the top of a steep, icy mountain, I was pretty much confined to the indoors for the first week. In some ways that was nice; it was good to take it easy and give myself a chance to recover from jet lag. On the other hand, though, I wanted to be able to get out to look for a place to live. After nearly two weeks of inactivity, I’m getting stir crazy and beginning to feel a little down.

I’d really appreciate your prayers for me to be able to settle back into life here. It’s been hard to re-engage, because there’s no way for me to pick up where I left off. It’s been particularly difficult while I’ve been homeless, because I have no place to settle down in. I can’t unpack, I can’t go shopping (my diet was really limited the first week; it’s stretching the truth to say that I got two square meals a day), and for a while I couldn’t even get my cell phone re-registered, so I had no way to be in touch with friends here.

However, as of today, I finally have my phone, and my housing situation worked out. That’s a huge load off my shoulders. As it turns out, You can ignore my facebook status. I won’t be living in a 2x2 goshiwon. After finding that place, I came back to the house of the girl I was temporarily staying with to tell her that I would be moving out the next day. She was surprised that I’d found a place so soon, and apparently displeased to be losing her roommate. Long and short of it was that she asked me to continue to live with her, while I’m in Korea. That took us a couple of days to settle (I can’t begin to express how slowly things can sometimes take to solve themselves over here), and this afternoon the arrangements were finally sealed. I’ll be living with Becky for the next two and a half months.

So having passed those two mile markers, I feel a lot more optimistic about life. Honestly, though, coming back here this time has been a really hard transition. I was busy and happy at home, and really making a difference in the lives of my family. I had a finger in every pie, and had invested a lot in the younger girls particularly, but in others as well. I left at a really good time, where I was seeing a lot of fruit and answered prayer in the lives of the people around me, and came back to Korea where I feel I have nothing to give. I have a lot of friends, whom I mostly bum off of, but no one really needs me here, and my life is mostly idle and pointless, in contrast to what it was two weeks ago. So I ask myself why I’m here. And I have no answer.

I’m taking an online writing class, as well, which I really enjoy. It’s a little bit time consuming, but I’m learning a lot, and am glad that I signed up for it before heading over here.

Because of the ambiguous housing/phone situation, I haven’t been able to get together with any one for language exchange. Now, though, I should find myself some people to study with before long, and I’m sure that once I’m more regularly employed I’ll have better attitude about everything. Meanwhile, though, I’d really appreciate your prayers that God will bring someone or something my way for me to do.

And, again, thanks for your patience with my lack of communication. Like I said, it’s really hard for me to write when I’m down.

I miss you guys,

Elisabeth