What Difference Could it Have Made?

 

I have been proofreading a doctoral dissertation this week. No, not mine. You won't need to call me Dr. Hardy in the foreseeable future. I'm just the proofreader. The researcher and future PhD is a Korean missionary to Muslims. She explores the experiences of Muslim migrant workers in Korea and how those experiences affect their faith and practice as Muslims. I recently visited Korea, but this dissertation showed me a completely different side of the country.

A King Worth Serving

 

I fell in love with King Arthur and the Matter of Britain (the whole cycle of stories that come out of that legend) in high school when we read Idylls of the King. The language of Tennyson, the mystery of a baby hidden away to be later revealed as the rightful ruler, the promise of his return in the hour of Britain’s greatest need all tugged at my imagination and made me desire more than anything that it be true.

Surprises in Korea

I have traveled a lot and lived on four continents, but a lot of things surprised me in my recent month in Korea with my daughter's family. Here are ten:

Surprise #1: Korea is amazingly first-world—more so even than our last overseas assignment in South Africa. In Korea everything is high-rises, cell phones with ubiquitous selfie-sticks, and state-of-the-art transportation--along side traditional architecture like this restored gate in Seoul. We saw no homeless, little poverty, nothing old or traditional that hadn’t been rebuilt in the past 60 years.  

Violence and Romance in Historic India

I grew up in a missions oriented home. When I was thirteen, my dad took us out of school for three months to journey to India and Pakistan where he worked with a couple missionary doctors he knew. My brother, sister and I knew them too. We had grown up praying nightly for their families.

Those three months of seeing other cultures—not just the tourist sights, but the way real people lived (cooking over dried-cow-dung fires), the way missionaries adapted to simple living (don’t shoo the frog out of the bathroom; he eats the mosquitoes), the different ways Christians of other cultures worshipped the same God I loved (with their shoes off)—changed my life. In the end I spent my adult life, not in India or Pakistan, but nevertheless in cross-cultural ministry. 

Praying for Adult Children

I’m now at that stage in life when my kids are grown with families of their own. When they were small, I saw them every day and sent up hourly prayers for their wellbeing. Now it is a little more challenging to know what to pray beyond, “God bless my kids and their families.” There is so much that I want for them, but despite Facebook and Google Plus, I know so little of the details that need prayer.

Praying through Messiah

Last December I was in New Haven, Connecticut, and attended a Messiah sing-along with the Yale concert choir and orchestra in their marvellous chapel. This fall I joined a local choral group to perform Handel’s Messiah with another regional choir and a small local orchestra. Even though I drove nearly an hour each way for rehearsals and an hour and a half for one of the concerts, it was worth it. We gave three performances, well supported by the small-town communities. 

A Story of Love, Loss, and Grace (especially Grace)

I am not a dog person. I dislike getting licked and slobbered on. I can’t stand yapping. When I see the toothpick legs of a skinny little Chihuahua everything in me wants to see how easily they will snap. (At such times, I carefully keep my hands to myself.) At least I have gotten over the terror of dogs I had as a child. That terror was based on my grandfather telling me that the little girl next door didn’t have any ear lobes because a dog jumped up and bit them off. Now, I can’t in my wildest dreams imagine that he actually said that, but for years that belief was the basis of my hysterical screams when a dog came near. I tell you this to let you know that David Wheaton must be quite a writer to have won me over with his book My Boy Ben. 

[Disclaimer: I was hired by the publisher to edit this book, but these thoughts are entirely my own.]