Korea: A short introduction

I made it to Korea! I have been here for a little of two months and I'm adapting quite well. Here is a short recap of the last two months of my life.

June 27th- I touched down in Korea. I flew into a city called Busan. It is one of the main cities in Korea, and it is the biggest port city. Shortly after I got of the plane I was on my way to my friends house to stay for the night. The first food I ate in Korea was triangle kimbop. "Kim" means seaweed, and "bop" means rices, so I will let you try to guess what it is.

June 28th- I awoke to a huge breakfast my friend's mother had prepared. I think this breakfast could have rivaled a kings meal. The food was soooooooo good; Sweet beef, tofu, eggs, salad.... the list went on. After eating breakfast we were on our way to church. We wanted to attend the church on campus at Handong(the school here), so we had to drive an hour. I attended my first HIC church service and met some of the people I would spend the next month and a half with. After church my friend treated me to a meal in town. (I thought I was going to lose weight here in Korea...but the food is soooo good) EHDS began that day.

EHDS-every weekday we had two lectures sessions, quite times, outreach preperation, and Flock meetings. The program consisted of one month of training and two weeks of outreach

June 29th - July 3rd : Gary Parrett
--Pastor Parrett spoke about the basic doctrines in Christianity; that is the Gospel and Discipleship. This was a huge blessing to me. Having a cohesive presentation on the basic doctrines in the bible done in a week really helped me tie everything together. If you grow up in the church more often than not I think you are left with this wire frame Christianity. You know the general shape of what it is suppose to look like, but you haven't added the skin to fill in all the gaps. This week was the most helpful for me in that context.

July 6th - July 10th : David Ross
--Pastor Ross spoke about meditation on the scriptures. Meditation can be a scary word for Christians, this is partly due to things like Transcendental Meditation and similar cult like meditation techniques, so I will call it "pondering". Most of what Pastor Ross taught about pondering the scriptures are things that I have already applied in my life. Nevertheless I was happy to see that the things God taught me were things that other people do as well. This is "scripture pondering" as I call it in a nut shell: read the bible, wait for God to speak, respond to God anyway you feel is necessary. The response can be anything; drawing, writing, praying, singing, actions....ect. This is how we are changed by the bible.

July 13th - July 17th : Chris Harrison
--Pastor Chris spoke about inner healing; that is dealing with your past hurts. Sometime these things can hinder our relationship with God if we don't address them in a correct way. This week was very interesting, I have never really had any hardship in my life, but I was learning what people go through when they have been hurt. So, most of what he taught was not directed at me but I feel like I could apply it to my life by helping others.

July 19th - July 24th : David Beckett, Pastor YoungHo
--The speaker for this week was not able to show up, so the two pastors of the International church filled in. We learned about Evangelism, Bible Study techniques, and Christian Living. This week was the last week and it was the perfect end to bring the other three weeks into one package.

July 24th - August 7th : Outreach to Cambodia
--This section will get it's own post-maybe a few post. We will just leave it at God is very good for right now.

August 8th : Graduation from English Handong Discipleship School (EHDS)

August 12th - August 24th : Travel in Korea
--I visited my friends in Korea. I went to Busan, Seoul, Suon, and Daegu. I saw so many things the trip is a blur, but I took a lot of pictures.

August 24th - 29th : International Orientation !

August 31st - First day of classes... Today

Provision

God's provision has not been more evident in my life than in the past several weeks. I have been waiting on a document to come from Handong, the school I will be attending in Korea. I need this document to get my visa. This weekend I was trying to plan out my last week at home. This week I would have to drive to Longview TX and hopefully pick up the needed document, drive to Houston to apply for my visa, and then maybe drive back to Houston to pick it up. This would be a lot of gas money. On Sunday a guy from my church happened to hear that I needed to get to Houston and he offered me a ride. He had to go on a short business trip. This was such a blessing. I still wasn't sure If I would be able to take advantage of the opportunity, if the document I needed didn't come on Monday I wouldn't be able to ride with him to Houston. So early Monday morning I woke up and drove two hours to Longview TX trusting God that the document would be there. After waiting only thirty minutes the document showed up and I was on my way. Now I am in Houston and tomorrow I will apply for my visa. I am hoping to get it in the same day. I leave for Korea in four days. God has already done some amazing things to get me to this point. I have a feeling He is not done yet. There have been far to many big and small coincidences.

Quick Pray List:
-visa
-money I need about $800 more if I am going to Cambodia
-packing
-I needed to get a camera somewhere, or a new battery charger for mine, the guy at Best Buy almost laughed at me when I showed him what kind of battery it was. apparently it's old.

Peace

A Word on the Prosperity Gospel

I saw this video on a friend of mine's blog, and I felt compelled to share it.



It is funny how mankind hasn't changed much. Instead of idolizing nature we idolize technology. We trade the Creator for created things. You can read Romans 1 and it says something to the same effect.

WELCOME

Dear Family and Friends,

This is the start of a new blogging season. I will be going to Korea in T minus 4 weeks! I want to keep updated information about what I've been doing right here. I hope everybody is excited as I am.

I don't know if I have any tech savvy readers, but I can put up a link to an blog feed if anyone would like.

Dear Family and Friends,

Hello! It has been a while since I last talked to many of you; an update has been long due. I wanted to share what God has been doing in my life as well telling you about another opportunity God has given me this Spring Break.

If any of you have been keeping up with my blog you should have noticed I haven't updated or posted anything since December. I want to apologize for this. This semester has really been crazy. I have had to use more time management skills and self-control(doing homework on Friday nights) than I have ever had to use. This has unfortunately resulted in me neglecting somethings. It is extremely easy to get caught up in the busyness and forget to spend time with God. It is important be connected to the vine. Without nutrition we can't expect to grow, bear fruit, or survive in general. I have learned this lesson several ways, usually seeing what happens when I don't spend time with God, but this time I have seen what can happen when I live relying on Him. It is really cool to see God working in my heart and the hearts of the people I am praying for. That is just some free wisdom(if you want to know more I charge 500$ an hour haha) .

As many of you know, I went to Utah this summer, and I had an awesome time. This Spring break I am heading to Utah with a LeTourneau mission team again, and yet again we will be ministering to the Mormon people. Just a quick fact if you are wondering why Utah, Utah is somewhere around 86% Mormon, and the area we are going to is about 96% Mormon. I need to let you know that the nature of this trip requires tons of prayer. The Devil evidently does not like it when we try to interject truth into people's lives. Because of this, there seems to be a lot of spiritual oppression on this trip. I know to some of you that may sound weird, but there is no other way to explain it. There is a real battle being fought. We need prayer for several things.
1. that we would be able to pray.
2. that God will break our heart's for the people we are ministering to.
3. that God will protect us against attacks from the enemy.
4. Pray about the trip up there and back.
5. that God will open hearts and set up people who are ready to hear his truth.
6. Pray for the ministry there.
7. Pray for the Christians there, that they will be encouraged by us just being there.
8. that God will bless us with an understanding of who the Mormons are.
9. that our team will get along with each other.
10. (fill in the blank with what God puts on your heart)

In His Love
Tyler Whitney

Dead Turtle

One day a man came home from work to find his house in turmoil. His daughter's pet turtle had died that day, and her mom had been trying to comfort her to no avail. Now it was dad's turn. After trying the usual bag of tricks to cheer her up he finally came up with an idea. He told her that he would go to the store and buy cake and ice cream and they would have a party for the turtle's funereal . She would be able to invite all of her friends over and turn a time of mourning into a time of fun and happiness. As he was telling her all of this, her face began to change. Her mind was filled with the ideas and excitement of the party to come. The idea of the party had consumed her and left no residue of sadness. So they both walked back to her room to collect the body of the turtle. As they were walking up to the cage the Dad notice something. The turtle began to move. The turtle wasn't dead after all. The little girl stared at the turtle for a moment, and then looked up at her dad and said "let's kill it".

This story describes what we do with our convictions when we let our wants turn into infatuations. We kill the voice of God in the name of pleasure. Take tip from David in the 23rd Psalm and be satisfied.

Story courtesy of: Dr. Lee
More reading: "A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23" by Phillip Keller

Sin, it's ugly

This post is in regards to the recent events that have occurred concerning my church back home.

They start out small, yes those big green lizards we call alligators. In fact they start out small and cute. They are small enough and cute enough that some people, believe it or not, will try to keep them for pets. What harm will that do right? As it turns out, this cute little guy with the help of time and food can grow into a full size alligator. This is bad for two reasons. One, a full size alligator is much much harder to control than a baby alligator. Two, a full size alligator is much harder to hide from the people from whom you must hide it from.

This presents a problem.

But, not to worry, there are a couple of solutions. The first is very simple, but maybe not obvious, that is to not get a baby alligator in the first place. As cute and small as that little guy is you are better off leaving him be. But, if you already have a pet alligator the next best thing to do would be to starve it(metaphorically speaking only, I love animals and I would never actually starve an animal to death) . As hard as it is to watch this thing die, it is something that needs to be done. No food means no growing and eventually death to it. If you don't have it in you to starve it, the next best thing to do would be to tell someone about it. They would be able to help you take care of the situation.

Sin, no matter how pleasurable or inviting it is cannot be allowed to grow. It is like an inviting poison. It tastes good, but as you are drinking it, it numbs you. This numbness is to cover the pain it is causing. This freedom to choose to drink the poison will soon turn into chains. Maybe even physical chains. Most sin is not likely to lead to that point, but it takes away your freedom. When God saves us, we are free to do the only thing we really desire to do, and that is to be with Him. But, when we turn to sin we will be enslaved. God will discipline us if necessary, but most of the time that discipline works out in the consequences.

My prayer is that chains will be broken, blindness will be healed, and that the lame will learn to walk, even run.

John 5:1-15 ya read it

When Jesus asks the lame man if he wants to walk, the man begins go into excuses that are from his perspective. Please don't be like this man. Jesus is asking us if we want to walk. We should have faith that he can do that and say "Yes, Lord, I want to walk more than anything."

I hope that made sense and I hope all of that comes across like I wanted to.



With Love