Urbana 2009 Day 1 and Day 2.

Hello world! So currently I am in St. Louis, Missouri for a Christian Missions Conference. I am here with friends, older friends, and younger friends? The names of the people are: Pastor Joseph Chang, James Kim, Sangyub Lee, Jason Kim, Kenneth Cheong, Patricia Park, Hannah Kim, Paul An(an old student of Pastor Joe's from Onnuree), and myself, Charles Chung.

So for the next few days I will be blogging daily to give you an update on the life from the city of the great Arch. I will be hooking you guys up with videos and/or pictures of our life here.

This where our journey starts. Please enjoy it until the very end.

Feet into my Burton Mission boots.. into Burton Freestyle bindings.. on my Burton Custom X '09 147 board.

Yesterday, I went snowboarding! I should end up my post here, but I won't haha. It was a great time overall. Went with Benjamin, Jason, Will, and David(Ben's bud). It was a sweet time. It was great to just get back into snowboarding and just letting loose. I feel like when I'm boarding with the guys that there is no worries, no frets. Just smooth shredding and carving like there's no tomorrow. It puts me at ease temporarily and it is my escape. It's one of the things that I have a passion for, it's more than a hobby, I really do enjoy it a lot. I think there are a few people that share this passion with me and even though we don't considerate our life, it is something big to us. I think it's because we don't live in the suburbs of North Jersey that it isn't our lives, but thank God right? So, for those of you that are dreading to go boarding, I feel bad for you suckas! Just joking. Let's ride together, and let's die together. I wish I had some pictures or videos of us, but nobody has a camcorder. Boo =(. But anywho, life is good and I enjoyed my day yesterday.

Money ain't an issue.

I know that in these next two weeks that I will be having more posts than usual. It's gonna be a busy few weeks, but no more school work! YEAAAAAAAAAAAH! Last 2 finals were today and they were easy as getting a gutter in bowling. I feel pretty good right now.

Let me give you the low down of my pretty decent day.

-Woke up at 10am.

-Went to the gym with Ben and Jungmin by 11am.

-Came home and ate some good korean food with them.

-Got to school by 2:20pm and took my New Testament final. I did the 20 multiple choice questions in about 2.5 minutes(no exaggeration), but the 2 essays after were a little tough.

-Had a 3 hour gap in between the next exam so I decided to study and chat. I caught up with Bruny, which i haven't done in a while and it was a great 2ish hours of just laughing and joking.

-Took my Philosophy final at 6pm. Piece of pie in the sky!

-Took the train back and Ben picked me up from Sheepshead Bay Station and we went to get his car wash and oil change.

-Picked up Jason and went to go eat at Kings Plaza Diner and it was dang good.

-Picked up Will after and we went to Dunkin' Donuts and we chilled like villians.

-Also, we played a huge prank on Jason that we weren't going to go snowboarding tomorrow. Everyone was in on it and then I told him by the end of the night before Ben dropped me off.

-Now I'm here typing all this stuff up, but what really motivated me to write in the blog was something even cooler.

So, I'm one of the few "lucky" people going to Urbana 2010 and as you all know and it's pretty darn costly. The total price of it is $550. I got in a good chunk of it because of help from people, but I still have about $150 left to pay off. Crazy thing is that I didn't really think about the debt of money that I must pay back Pastor Joe, but then people these days have been talking about the price of it and all. Also a friend of mine kept on asking me, "How are you doing with the finances for Urbana?" And I always reply, "I'm good. I'll pull through somehow. No worries." And I really didn't worry at all. Now this brings me to my point.

I'm chilling in front of the computer and all of a sudden my mom brings over a letter for me and she's like, "Oh, this came for you from PBU." I open it and I see a check inside.

A check for $103.96.

It was a check from working that I didn't receive. The date of the check is labeled as 05/22/2009. Crazy! It's about 7 month's later when this check comes in and it's right when it's needed. This somewhat convinces me more of how good God is. He even handles my finances, shooooo. Haha. God is so good.

He kept this check from me for 7 months because He knew I would need it in 7 months. I feel so blessed because I see God working more and more evidently now. You know when you get some money from like holidays and stuff from your relatives and then your momma takes it and says she'll "save" it for you. I feel like thats exactly what God did for me here, except that I got to actually see the money, haha. You are amazing Father.

Just wanted to share with you a bit of what's going on in my life currently. It's really great right now. Loving life, loving God, loving friends, and loving this time. Bless us, Oh God, so we might be a blessing to you!

Shalom in the name of Christ,

Charles

Perfect timing.

So, it's pretty early for me to write in the blog because I usually write at night. I usually write at night because I go throughout my day and live to tell the story of my day(s). This time though, it's only 11:46a.m. Something interesting happened to me this morning after I woke up. I'm going to get a little more deeper and personal, so hopefully you guys will respect it. Hopefully you guys won't go around and flipping with your friends about whatever.

Anyway, I wake up this morning from a phone call from Pastor Joe. He was just asking me something and I decided to just stay up even though I was pretty sleepy. So I went upstairs to my room (I slept in the basement), turned on the computer, and then I sign onto AIM.

Yesterday, a brother comes up to me at chuch and asks if I got his IM. I didn't get it. Not that I knew of. He said he sent it while I was offline, so the next time i sign on I could receive it.

So my computer turns on and then I obviously open Google Chrome and AIM as usual. I get an instant message from that brother and I was like oh this must have been what he was talking about. But, this whole time I was thinking about going on the computer and doing the stupid stuff that people, not just males, do on the computer. Yes, masturb... You can finish it, but you get my drift right. (People under the age of 16 follow these directions. Put your hand over your mouse. Take the cursor to the top right corner of the screen. There should be a button that has an "x" on it. Now click.) Just kidding, read whatever. Blogs are for the public! Back to the story. So, in my mind I was set on going to some site and blah blah. But an amazing thing happened.

I get the instant message and it was an accountability thing and he was encouraging me to stand firm in my walk. I let him and a few others know that I don't do well in the middle of the week because I get dried out. He sent the message on Thursday while I was offline and I signed on on Saturday noonish.

This was the instant message.

[Offline IM sent 1d and 13h ago] hey brother charles, i know todays a thursday and this when the donwfall of your week goes so i hope u are standing strong right now and hope u continue to stand firm with your walk throughout this week till sunday. =] well do your QTs and hopefully this can encourage you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRIRrMcVb6I

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y83-vMeWc9E

He linked me to these two songs that are amazing songs that lifted me up. This took my mind off of everything I was about to do and my eyes got fixed on God again. It really just opened my eyes because it saved me from doing something so stupid that I do over and over again. I really want to stop, but I can't give it up. It's so pleasing, yet so dumb. I've been struggling with this issue since forever and at times its really rough and at others it's a little more at ease, but I'm always struggling with it. Today, a brother saved my butt from a prayer that would have been unnecessary and repetitive. What's crazy is the timing.

If I go back to how it all could have happened this way, then I could go back to the start of my Bible Study. About a month ago, I started teaching Bible Study as most of you people know. I wanted it to be a small group thing where our class becomes more of a community and accountable to each other. To know each other's problems and praises. To live a life of Christianity together, as God intended it to be. We were always meant for community, for fellowship amongst each other and especially with God. So this prayer request and weekly accountability thing started up and as you can guess the instant message was from one of my students from Bible Study. He sent this message that saved me from sinning at exactly 1 day and 13 hours before I read it. If I read it any earlier or any later, it would have probably been looked over as an encouraging message from a friend, but it was more. It's like God made it happen this way. That I wouldn't go on AIM for 1 day and 13 hours. I go on AIM every single day and I'm usually on multiple times a day, but for some reason on Friday, I didn't go on at all. I signed on on Saturday right before I was about to wack off. And it saved my life.

I don't know about you guys, but it just amazes me how God works. It's so perfect. The timing was flawless and He used a vessel, this brother, to get to me in one of my darkest problems. That's called perfect timing from a perfect God.

P.s. Feel free to leave a comment or a response. I want to know who reads my junk, but if you don't want me to know then that's cool too. Even if you don't have a blogger you can comment and leave like your AIM or you're facebook site so I can know who you are. Thank you readers.

Faith+Hope+Love.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

Fearing God does not mean to be scared of Him or making sure you obey Him every moment of your day. I mean those things are included, but it's much deeper than that. I think to fear God, means that you acknowledge and fully believe that God is God.

"God is God, and you're not."

-Jhan Moskowitz.

That's the beginning of wisdom. Knowing your place, and knowing who you are compared to someone like God. Whenever you think of God or feel His presence, that you are just in total awe and amazement of who He is. How grand He is and how small we are. That a perfect God would even dare to know the dirtiest scums on the earth, us. We say we're sinners and we say that we do bad things, but in God's eyes it must be so beyond that. God is the definition of "good", He is "perfect", and to see us, man we must be like grease towels that mechanics use but worse.

Fear God. Love God.

The day after my 19th birthday.

So for my birthday celebration, I decided to go hang with my bros. We got some Pat's cheesesteaks at Philly and attempted to surprise Mark at UPenn. He had a little clue we were doing something cause of me. Anywho, we ate, talked, went to get some gelato, and then went to a diner to get some coffee and hot chocolate because the gelato place had to close. We left Mark and the rest of the gang(Me, Ben, Jason, Jungmin) headed for the Turnpike to go home. And this is what happened in between Philadelphia and New York.

My 19th birthday was great. 2 years until I'm dead.

See you soon Mr. Blog.

What's in your box?

Currently I am reading a book called, Seeking The Unseen God by Martin R. Berglund. It's a book that I picked up from a book give-away from a teacher from Philadelphia Biblical University that I attended last year. I got it from Matt McAlack my Youth Ministry teacher and counselor. A few days ago I decided that I wanted to start reading a new book and this was a book that was on the bookshelf that I never read so I picked it up and it has been telling me the things that I am telling others these days. And that was enough for me to say, "Let's write in the blog Charles." So, I'm here on my computer doing what I do... not best, but I enjoy it haha.

So, I recently became a bible study teacher for my Youth Group in FKCB and I teach the senior class. This class consists of Richard You, Gieun Lee, Hwitaeg Oh, Yoojin Lee, Seran Lee, "and that kid David but he hasn't come out in a while." -Richard You

Also, I have led a few of the prayer meetings for the Youth Group's Friday Night Meetings and it has been a blessing. One of the topics that I brought about was the topic of life's decision and plan. I stressed to those at the previous prayer meeting and also in my bible study the importance of doing what God wants for us. Doing what is pleasurable or what is purposeful. I was pleading, "What is your passion? What is your purpose? What do you truly want to do?" These things were the conversation's focus in our bible study.

Now going back and re-focusing on the book that I have told you guys about. There is a little section that I read that was talking about just this. So in a way, this is directed to my bible study students and for those that are in this situation of what to do, where to go.

Could God have a purpose for letting you live in the richest country in the world? Is there a purpose for you being one of the most educated people in the world? (Even if you only have a high school diploma, you're far more educated than most people in the world.) God has a grand plan and a purpose, and just like Moses, you've been put in a very strategic place. Don't miss the opportunity.

In the book Halftime, Bob Buford tells how, as the CEO of his own company in his forties, he began asking himself questions, just like a modern-day Moses. He had come to a point in life he calls "halftime"-the midway point-and he was beginning to wonder how he should live the second half. In the first half of life he had been very successful. But he decided he wanted more than success in the second half; he wanted to do something significant.

Ironically, God showed him the solution to his dilemma through the words of a friend, a business consultant who was not even a believer. After he shared his struggles, his friend asked, "Bob, what's in your box? You know, if you open up a clock, you'll find a mainspring inside you wind it up and it runs the whole machine. What's your mainspring? What's driving you? What are you excited about? What do you want to become? You tell me what's in your box, and I can give you a plan."

Bob explained that he was looking for a new way to live out his Christian convictions and was serious about shifting at least some of his energies away from business pursuits into some unspecified realms of service.

His answer didn't satisfy his friend, because he replied, "I'm gonna ask you again: What's in your box? For you, it is either money or Jesus Christ. If you can tell me which it is, I can tell you the strategic plan you need to implement. If you can't tell me what it is, you're going to oscillate between those two decisions the rest of your life."

No one had ever stated the issue that clearly to Bob before. He realized he would never do anything significant or know the purpose God had for him, until he devided. So he said, ""I put Jesus Christ in the box." It was the best decision he ever made. He went on to start a ministry called Leadership Network, which has had a profound impact on the U.S. But it never would have happened if he hadn't answered his friend's question, "What's in your box?"

Let me ask you: What's in your box? Have you made the decision between purpose and comfort? People, please wrestle and struggle with this. Don't answer the blog or me, answer yourselves, answer God. Think hard, think long, but give an answer to yourself. What is it? What's in your box?

Shalom, blog.