Southern California, USA (December 2019)

After we spent cold time in New York, we flew to LAX. But the weather was still cold in the Southern California context, usually early n the morning.

Our trip to Southern California this time had a special mission to get our retirement visa to Thailand and renew our international driving permit, on top of meeting people.

Normally it would have taken two trips to Royal Thai Consulate General's Office in Los Angeles: to submit the application and to pick up the passports with visa. But this time, we ended up making five trips: to inquire about the newly imposed healthy insurance requirement, to inquire about foreign insurance coverage certificate form, to submit the application that was rejected due to Georgia Bureau of Investigation report and to secure Federal Bureau of Investigation report and to submit the revised application and to pick up the passports. It was an arduous process, but I am glad to be ble to secure the visa. We were thinking of alternate steps of returning to Thailand on tourist visa etc. The international driving permit process was easy at AAA.

Because of the much more time spent for processing the Thai visa than originally anticipated, I ended up giving up some opportunities to meet up old friends, including John Lim, Tom and Lita, Jinny Kim and Grace Kim. John has been a visionary supporter of SfK Ministries. Tom and Lita will wrap up their dental practice by the end of 2019 and head out to serve in Rwanda. Jinny is Danny Kim's sister and has been wanting to serve SfK but has not been able to. Grace was tied up with too many works to do for Disney as well as side job of making costumes on top of taking care of her children.

I had a joyous reunion with Pastor Chang Soo Ro as arranged by Elder Steve Kang. In recollection, three of us started the English Ministry at OMC in LA. He now serves as the senior pastor of Church of Love in Southern California or NamGaJu Sarang Church. We had a wonderful time together. Pastor Roh invited me to visit the church next year.

Mindy Song is one of Kristin's old friends and provided us with their housing for a few years when we were visiting Southern California. Now both of their children are living with them, so they can no longer offer their house. But we remain good friends. Mr. Sung Hoon Song, Elder at Glory Church of Jesus Christ in Los Angeles is an aerospace engineer and finally plans to retire in 2020. We look forward to developing more fellowship after his retirement.

Recently, Kristin and I have not exchanged gifts for holidays and other life events, but this year, I have taken advantage of her need to buy a new phone and it coincides with the upcoming Christmas. So I bought a new iPhone 8 Plus as the Christmas gift for Kristin. The store was packed with people.

Tim Yu is the son of Pastor Daeho Yu who shepherds God's Family Church that allows us to stay at their Healing Center facility. Tim is serving as the Pastor of English Congregation including the youth. He is also a businessman trading garment products pretty much on line. We had a good discussion about potential collaboration for His Kingdom.

Young Shim and Sunnie Kim

Kathy Cho was a student when I was teaching at the High School Department of OMC in Los Angeles. Her father was a Missions Pastor at OMC and served in Russia as a missionary. Kathy has lost both parents one after another. As a single, her life may not be well settled as others. Her younger brother Bryan is the only relative. Kathy is also a Kingdom Fellow for SfK Ministries. She takes care of Marketing. She shared a new opportunity to bring a famous US singer to Korea and several other Asian countries on a tour. She asked for my prayer since the financial reward could be very handsome. I promised I would.

My relationship with John Kim has become very deep. Starting from his participation in the SfK MBA BCT Cambodia in January, informal gathering in Singapore in March, KS GPI's transition into STEM Education project and eventual disengagement, his involved with Joybells America and the board of SfK Life Corporation. Honestly, I still do not have a clear picture of what God has in mind in this relationship. But we will make forward steps gradually and cautiously. May the Lord lead us in our foot steps. I had a breakfast meeting with him to go over various issues related to him.

We held SfK Life Corporation conference call on December 13 in the morning. Separately, he hosted our information gathering with new members of SfK Life Corporation board of directors: Sam Kim and Steve Kang, including their spouses. We talked about primary business areas for us to focus on and it was fruitful. It is my prayer that SfK Life's board members located in southern California, including Bonnie Lee, will play more active and important role in guiding SfK Life Corporation going forward.

Gary and Cindy Moon served in Thailand for 10 years as the missionaries associated with United Methodist Mission in the U.S. They have recently returned to the U.S., living in Southern California. They used to live close to where we live now. So our reunion was joyous. They seem to be continuing their ministry even after they have returned to the U.S.

Jinsoo Kim is Kristin's cousin on her mother side. Jinsoo's father is younger brother of Kristin's mom. He is a banker, serving as Chief Credit Officer of US Metro Bank headquartered in Garden Grove. He is also Chief of Lending for SfK Ministries. He and his wife, Younghae have been generously allowing us to use one of their cars that their children used when they were with them. They now have graduated from college and started working. We had a dinner at Panini Kabab Grill on Jamboree, Irvine, before they took us to the LAX, a long drive. I am deeply grateful for their hospitality. The foods were excellent in value and taste.

Family style dinner was of great value and also delicious taste...

Baklava with ice cream was a fantastic addition to the meal.

Bethel Church in Irvine is providing financial support for SfK Ministries. So I usually contact the church, usually the chair of BAM Committee, now led by Elder Bryan Sooyeol Kim. I had a brief meeting over a cup of coffee with him in Tustin. He told me that the church has decided to discontinue BAM Committee and instead to incorporate it as a Team of the church's Missions Committee. He will be involved in Missions Committee. The church seems to still think of BAM as a means to help traditional missionaries to be financially self-sufficient. It is a long way to go. I wonder what the Lord has in store, but we will see how it develops.

Kristin has three older brothers and the second brother is now living in Buena Park. They have relocated to Southern California because both of their children, Jenny and Kalvin, are living and working in Southern California. Jenny is now living with them. Jenny's mom is known to have a medical condition that keeps her reluctant to meet up with people. I am glad that I am not one of the general public she does not want to associate with. She does not want to be taken a photo of either. I did anyway.

In Kim and Julie Kim are good friends of ours. Both have retired from their career as Aerospace Engineer and IT Manager. Recently, however, In has returned to work full time at a US Air Force Base. They worship and fellowship at God's Family Church. Holly Hong is a career missionary to Papua New Guinea, along with her husband Sungho Steve Hong. They are now serving as Regional Director based in Papua New Guinea. They were visiting Southern California and Julie, Holly and Kristin spent time for fellowship.

Los Angeles is called the City on the Wheels. There are a lot of freeways and streets, but pretty much all of them are packed with cars and vehicles. The downtown seems to expand continually. I was able to take some clean photos of the downtown on the freeway that had a heavy traffic jam, thus slowing down the vehicles.

Citadel Outlet Mall

We had a gathering over dinner with Minja and her daughter Soojin and her boyfriend Daniel. They looked beautiful and we enjoyed our time together. We called my mom and had a remote but joyous encounter.

 

I had a breakfast meeting with John Lee and his son Joshua Lee. We traveled to El Salvador together last year in December. John is an ordained pastor and served as a missions pastor at ANC in the Valley and a missionary to Mexico for several years. He also teaches at World Mission University. He has created a mission mobilization ministry called Vision800 to mobilize and send the Latinos to the mission field. We discussed about the potential collaboration in 2020. Joshua learned from Neal Johnson at Hope International University. He served in Kyrgyzstan for 6 years and is now heading to China for a year. I look forward to witnessing what the Lord has in store for our relationship.

After our breakfast, I could not resist the temptation to visit our first house in the U.S. on Brookshire Avenue, Downey. I could not find much difference. Both Amanda and Joyce were born while we were living in this house.

After two months of travel with 12 times of unpacking and packing, we were tired and anxious to return home. The traffic jam was really bad at the LAX due to construction more complicated by the holiday season. But we finally made it.

Los Angeles is far from our heart as a dwelling place due to the never-ending traffic jam, high living costs, extremely expensive housing costs, continuing natural disasters, smogs etc. But, the city is one of the places that are dear to our hearts, because our marriage life began here, my US work began here and our two children were born here. - Jeffrey 

New York, New Jersey, USA (December 2019)

After we completed an almost month-long trip to Colombia, we returned to the U.S. The remaining cities to visit were New York and Southern California.

In New York, New Jersey area, the primary purpose of our trip was to meet people: supporters, Kingdom Fellows, prospective partners, and friends.

We had a joyous reunion with Pastor Minsong Ahn and his wife. They came all the way from New Jersey to Elmhurst to pick us up and go to Kum Kang San Restaurant in Flushing. Their two children have been married and have two grandsons, one from each. They are still young but they have been blessed with their children as well as their ministry. Mrs. Ahn received hip replacement surgery and she looked healthier than last time.

I met up with Ji Bae in Manhattan. This year was a productive year for Ji since he got married with a pediatrician doctor and hurriedly had a baby girl. He was excited about having a new baby but also struggling to manage the night wake-up he has to manage. Ha... growing pain. Ji has been one of most steady Kingdom Fellows with full commitment to helping SfK Ministries whenever needed. I am so grateful.

Alex was supposed to meet up together, but he got sick and could not join us. Later, I met up with him at his office, with a fantastic view of Manhattan skyscrapers We had a lengthy discussion about how to engage him with SfK Ministries short term but also long term. For short term, we decided to develop SfK Enterprise Network Database System or SfK SENDS. I need to supply him the database fields for him to design.. He was still working for Lloyds Bank New York as VP of IT.

I met up with Mr. Sung Eun Hong whom I met while I was running Shinhan Bank America. He was the one who was riding with me when I made a hole in one at New York Country Club. He informed me about Nam June Paik's video artwork exhibition to be held at Korean Cultural Center. He purchased a lot of Mr. Paik's video artworks before Paik died so he has been lending these artworks to many places around the world. His story of taking care of his injured wife from a car accident in Belize is inspiring. For more than 12 years, he has been taking her to look for any effective medical remedies around the world.

I had dinner with Mr. Yeunho Suk, former Chairman of KOCHAM and CEO of Hyosung America for decades. He is now running a consulting firm to help Korean SMEs to enter into America. He is also helping with SfK's marketing endeavors of the products of missional businesses. His welcome has been always warm.

I had lunch with Tae Ok Park, CPA to talk about preparing for 2019 tax. My college alumnus and an old friend.

I also had a meeting with Hyun Yu, an architect working in Manhattan and engaged with Center for BAM and JES program. We met in Lahore, Pakistan this year.

I had a meeting over dinner with Elder Alex Ji and his friends, Elders Lee Wanjae and Kim Soojae, and a newly eleced Elder Huh, responsible for missions at Beautiful Church of Long Island. Elders Lee and Kim were in their '80's and still passionate about world mission. Wow...

Pastor Seonil Oh used to serve at this church, but has been engaged in workplace ministry for the past 2 years or so. He had a scheduled ministry in Manhattan so he could not join us with Alex Ji. So I was able to manage to carve out a time slot to meet up with him while I was in Manhattan. I am still trying to figure out what we can do together. We might pursue to meet up the people he trains in May or July 2020 when I will visit the U.S. We will see.

I met up with Yeonhee Han and SJ Lee, my former colleagues. Yeonhee shared a good news that she may get promoted to Chief Credit Officer since her former boss left the bank and the current CEO asked her to succeed him. Congratulations! SJ continues working for Pacific City Bank, managing its New York LPO.

Kristin and I met up with Kwangho Cho and Myung Hee Kim in Fort Lee. Myung Hee is Kristin's college friend and we have been in contact regularly. Mr. Cho is retired from his international trade business and now finishing up his M Div degree. He was wondering whether he should be ordained as Pastor or not.

As usual, we had dinner with the couples of Kristin's two brothers living in New York and New Jersey. They meet only when we come, but we are grateful for the role we play in maintaining the relationship and contacts.

We had a joyful reunion in Fort Lee with the Jaesup Choi couple and Jay Yoon. His wife could not attend because she had a cold and was afraid of being contagious to Mr. Choi who is still fighting the lung cancer through chemo treatments. It is always pleasant to recollect the travel memories, particularly in Africa, and we agreed to discuss more when we come in May next year. They are people of warm heart and we feel warmly welcome whenever we meet up with them.

 

Manhattan is called New York City although technically New York City includes other boroughs like Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island. That much, Manhattan is the New York. Its scenery always carries significant meaning.

We left New York on Sunday so we attended a community church in Elmhurst, called Elmhurst Baptist Church, and this cosmopolitan church of small but international congregation members welcomed us. It could be one of the churches for us to worship in New York.

Our journey to New York was short and the weather was cold. But moving around the area through public transportation was not that difficult. I am grateful for the opportunity to visit this Big Apple City or the World's Second Home City. - Jeffrey