In Korea (I) After Departure from Chiang Mai, Thailand (October/November)

I left Chiang Mai on October 16 for Korea before I would leave for Dallas, because of the 14-day self-quarantine requirement in Korea before I can move around freely. I had some issues to take of in Korea before I would travel to the U.S. Kristin departed on October 30 directly to Dallas, TX. 

My 14-day quarantine was at an Airbnb studio in Chungju-city, Korea. I was able to see an idyllic town through the window. To get there, however, I had to take an exclusive bus for travelers from overseas to Kwang Myung KTX station, an exclusive train only for those who returned to Korea, and an exclusive shuttle bus from Osong Station to Chungju city clinic for the COVID-19 test.

After the test, I had to stay at a designated facility overnight until the test result came out. After being confirmed to be negative, I was allowed to go into a self-quarantine place. There I stayed for 14 days. It was quite an experience to read, reflect, rest, and recoup. But, I received a warm welcome and hospitality from various sources. 

First, the city sent me a big box full of emergency relief stuff. It contained various instant food items, masks, an umbrella (I wonder why?), and even face cleaning gel. How kind!

The landlord was also very hospitable with a few emergency food items and 15 or so books to read. The son offered to buy grocery stuff at a supermarket for me and his mom served me with a couple of warm meals. I was able to peruse all the books and some were quite interesting. Fantastic!

Furthermore, my younger sister sent me a couple of boxes of relief food items. They were ample and I lacked nothing.

One day before the quarantine period, the city clinic sent an ambulance to take me to the clinic for the second test. The following day, I was informed of the negative result and relieved from the quarantine. 

Meanwhile, Kristin departed Chiang Mai directly to Dallas, Texas. Tae Hyeong Kim's couple gave her the ride to the airport.

After the self-quarantine period, I spent two weeks in the Cconma's dormitory. While I was in Chungju, Joonhan and Chulsung's couple came to get together and I was grateful for their visit.

During the first week after the quarantine period, we held the SfK Network 5th Anniversary Celebration worship online in English and Korean. It took us a lot of time and energy to prepare for the events, but thankfully both events went smoothly although the overall participation could have been better. Nonetheless, I was grateful. Below is the Korean version of the 5th anniversary celebration video clip.

The English version is below.

While I was staying at Cconma's dormitory, Viche Coffee was the place I was hanging out for breakfast and also for meeting people.

At this place, I met with Mr. Yeonhwan Kim and his wife, who are now serving in Laos. They wanted to be part of SfK and I look forward to witnessing what the Lord has in mind. They have commercialized health-conscious pillow and are promoting it. 

Also, I met with Mr. Joy Lim and his son, who are processing dried nuts and fruits. Caleb Ji made an introduction. 

In November, Korea was decorated with colorful leaves all over the places. Nearby Cconma, I could easily find colorful trees and leaves.

 

Cconma was established initially to promote the bean paste made from Manchuria. Not to lose the initial heart, Cconma maintains a bunch of Korean jars which are used to ferment bean paste. The scenery makes people nostalgic about the olden times. 

Before Departure from Chiang Mai, Thailand (October 2020)

In almost four years since Kristin and I relocated to Chiang Mai in 2016, we decided to leave Thailand. It was a sudden decision due mainly to the stick visa restrictions that the Thailand government has imposed upon the foreigners for their re-entry whether they have a permanent residency or not.

I gave away my books to a Christian library, sold the car to the youth pastor couple at CMCC, sold the motorcycle to a British guy, and had to leave a few main items for Kris to take care of.

Overall, I was proud of myself for having been able to reduce all my stuff to one check-in luggage, one carry-on luggage, and two backpacks.

Kristin handled most of the household stuff, through sale, giveaway, or throwing away.

Before we left, we had a get-together with a few people. We had lunch at Chic 39. Their foods are beautiful as well as delicious. Caleb helped us in the initial settle-down process and later with the BTC.

I invited the Freedom Films Production people to lunch at Ohkhazhu Restaurant. They were Angie, Woot, Nit, and Noi. They have worked hard to make the BMT project moving with a tight time schedule. I am deeply grateful for their cooperation. Ohkhazhu's foods are always fresh and abundant. This restaurant was one of our favorite restaurants during our stay in Chiang Mai.

Peter Lee of Skybay Thailand came up from Bangkok to see us with his new wife. We had a get-together with Tae Hyeong Kim's family at Ohkhazhu Restaurant near the airport. Our fellowship was delightful. I pray that Peter will live a more stable life with his new wife.

We took a selfie with the Dairy Queen ice cream place at the Central Festival where we walked a lot for exercise. It was not a natural hiking trail, but was airconditioned, weather-proof, safe, and entertaining with many shops and things to eat. Dairy Queen's ice cream was a treat for us after our hike.

Chiang Mai gave a gift of a talented Kingdom Fellow for the SfK Ministry. It is Tae Hyeong Kim who is an ordained pastor, a missionary, a mobile app developer, and videographer. He is greatly talented. I wonder what God has in store for our relationship. I have given him a lot of stuff, including a small statue of Jesus Christ, which I have kept for the past 25 years.

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Before throwing away the name tags for some of the conferences I attended, I took a photo shot as a souvenir.

Kamal in Nairobi, Kenya sent me the following photo, showing a woman riding a bicycle with three children, a bunch of wood sticks, a big pan on her head. Wow!

Definitely, she needed to balance them all. I am pursuing this type of balance in my life, without tilting in any direction. Oh, God, help me. Looking back, the time in Chiang Mai was a blessing in my ways.  - Jeffrey

Six Months since We Returned Home (September 17, 2020)

It has been a long while since I stayed at one place for longer than six months until now.

The past six months have been a time of resting from the accumulated fatigue, recovering from physical dysfunction, and refocusing on the SfK Ministries.

The following highlights what happened during the six months.

COVID-19

This pandemic has thrown a curveball at the entire world. Many people have suffered and died. More people have suffered from economic hardships and political turmoils. This situation is not showing clear signs of stabilizing or recovering. A new norm or new reality is a new vocabulary in vogue.  

Probably I suffered from it, too, although I never got tested. I am grateful that I am now fine.

SfK made Emergency Relief Grants to seven members of SfK MB Community to help them overcome their own cashflow or share foods and basic supplies with the people in need in their neighborhoods. 

Natural Disasters

On top of the COVID-19 pandemic, many countries have been put into natural disasters, such as floods, hails, earthquakes, hurricanes and typhoons, wild fires, landslides, locusts. Many countries have experienced them, but more severely in China, Korea, USA, Bangladesh.

Political Abuse

Many people in power have taken advantage of the pandemic-related lockdowns to strengthen their political power. Fake news and disinformation have been rampant. 

In the midst, God has shown His grace of creativity so that we can still move forward with submissive resilience.

SfK MBA's online training program, called BMT, was launched. It still continues, but it is definitely a creative way to continue our equipping role for missional businesses.

The BMT would have not been made possible without the help of Freedom Film Productions. We signed up a partnership agreement to collaborate for His Kingdom. Their timely assistance has been tremendously valuable.

Amanda is pregnant and the baby is expected to be born in November, the right time for us to arrive.

We have made a decision to leave Thailand, due mainly to hovering uncertainty over Thailand's restrictions on the entry of foreigners into this country. We have sold major items, such as our car, motorbike, sewing machine, refrigerator, freezer, foot massage machine, etc. It is going to be another cross-border move. 

The world still rolls around despite the COVID-19 pandemic. China seems to be now exposed to the world for their lack of transparency and oppression on minority people, including Uighurs of Xinjang, Tibetians, Inner Mongolians, and now Hong Kong. The tension between Taiwan and CCP is growing and the US has taken aggressive steps towards the ever-greedy CCP of China through an alliance of Western Europe as well as Asian allies, such as Japan, India, Australia. Somehow, Korea is still sticking around China and it makes many people antsy and angry. 

In the midst, US is going through the presidential election between Trump and Biden. No one can tell who will win. Only God knows and I trust that He will intervene if the evil forces cross the line. India and China are also growingly more hostile towards each other and they standoff at their mutual border in the Himalayan mountains. Huawei, TikTok, WeChat etc of China are getting cold face from many countries for their national security concerns. 

It is indeed confusing and I do not know where it is going. But, I confess my trust in the sovereign power of our God and I trust that He will reign and take necessary actions as He deems just and good. In Christ I believe, I love and I serve, I move on. - Jeffrey 

CIVID-19 Update (August 10, 2020)

Not that I want to continue to show unpleasant statistics, but I wanted to keep the historical development on COVID-19 with significant numbers.

Now the COVID-19 cases surpassed 20 million and the US alone accounts for more than 5 million. The top three countries - USA, Brazil and India- reported more than 10 million cases, thus representing more than 50% of the worldwide cases. Wow!!!

Lord, please be merciful to us and take this plague away. I pray in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. - Jeffrey