Perfect Disaster

The weekend after I left La Cañada, the crazy thunderstorm season started in full blast.
It was strange to see my small town of 20,000 people, that has been unheard of to most of the people I have been around, become publicized in the past year due to natural disasters. Just back in September 2009, we had the station fire that basically stripped all the mountains. Relatives from Korea saw us on their local news channel and people called to check on us. Luckily, my house was not affected, but because of this disaster, the bare mountains became an almost too-perfect situation for the La Canadians fast forward 5 months. People who got evacuated back in September experienced a dejavu this past month when they were red-tagged to leave their unsafe homes. All back in September, we were praying for rain to stop the fire... and now the rain came a bit late and somewhat uninvited, seeing that the naked mountains had no substance to hold up.

...this all comes and goes


When I got to Spain, I thought about this ironic situation a lot. It was too perfect, no? How can this small small town (aka "LC Bubble") that has been so comfortable for all I can remember, be made famous and public for such a horrible catastrophe..?  It reminded me of a conversation I had with my dad a couple months ago, triggered by financial difficulties and disheartening situations. He shared his thoughts about the world and money saying that "money comes and goes..." and how unimportant it really was in our lives. He went from having a grand in his bank account to bringing my family to La Cañada within a few years. That is how unreliable this idol we call money really is. People who have nothing can have everything overnight while those who have lived with no worries can be stripped of everything. He also mentioned that this financial recession was a good humbling experience for America. We have become so engrossed into our financial values, making our possessions our gods and being obsessively dependent on it. When all this is taken away, what is left....? There is God. The less we have, the more we long for... and after longing for worldly things that will not satisfy us, we realize that God is our complete satisfaction.

..and then he sends us his beauty and confirmation

My dad wrote me an email a few days after I got to Valencia. Towards the end of it, he wrote:
앞으로의 삶은 주님과 동행하는 삶을 살려는 것이 나와 우리 온 가족의 꿈인것을 너에게 말한다
잘살던지 못살던지가 중요한 것이 아니라
주님과 같이 사는 삶이 참으로 중요한 삶인것이라는 것을 깨달았거든..

Basic translation: I want to say...From now on, my dream for our family is to live a life in relation to God. Being rich or poor is not the important part. Being with God and living by Him is the most important thing and it is something that I have realized.

Am I blessed..? I think so. To be able to experience God, knowing that He is in control and that all things are beyond this world, through a simple email from my dad. Times like this, fire, flood, earthquake, is when God becomes bigger to me. I am reading Matthews and couple nights ago, I read chapter 24 where it talks about the signs of the end of the age. 

"You will hear of wars and rumors of war... such things must happen but the end is still to come....there will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of birth pains... And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come" (Matthews 24: 6, 7b, 8, 14)

Come on, friends. Lets stop being the older brother from the prodigal son, who was so wretched in heart to rejoice at the lost being saved. At least for me, that has been the condition of my heart for most my life.. We need to share this thing called GOSPEL so that the end comes. I am dunzo with this place called earth. Until then, no stopping, guys!

*PLEASE KEEP PRAYING FOR ME!!* 

I need to find a church. My internet search has been very hard and I cannot find the right one.

Thank you, 13 followers. (I got 3 more since my last entry. Rock on!)

Alive & Well

As you may or may not know, I am abroad in Valencia, Spain. It has been almost 2 weeks now (dang!) and I am about 75% adjusted to my temporary, but of very importance, life here. A few more weeks of walking around town and becoming a "local" española" and I will be set..!


Anyway, after dinner tonight, I was organizing my desk and looking for my QT journal through my luggage. Too many books and journals that I brought and finally, the last place I checked, I found it. The (better &) more interesting thing that I found through my search was my not-too-dramatic will that we had written before our Nicaragua trip during intensive training week. Now, how these 3 pages of paper made its way all the way across the globe to Spain with me, I have no clue...


But that is the funny thing about God.. He WOULD slip it in with the pile of junk I brought along here and have me find it the day I was looking for HIM. You see, ever since I came to Spain, my focus of becoming the light in the dark found its way to the back of my mind/heart. In less than two weeks, I was just another lost foreigner here. After having my "date night" with Him (habit learned from S<3), I decided to read my will...


I am not going to share what I wrote to the selected individuals since it is so over-the-top and A-list Hollywood (-_-), but I will share my "opening declaration" because I think it is something that I need to confess as a reminder to myself.. that this person in me is real and alive by grace!

 July 2, 2009

For whoever reads this:

 I, Estefania Belen Cho, lived a life of failures and sin. Even after I received Christ, I crucified Him countless times without any ounce of guilt in my heart. I would list the crucial moments, but I guess it does not matter at this point. All I can say in this very moment is that I, a hopeless sinner, am loved by my father in Heaven and with confidence, I will be going to my eternal home. I always had a fear of death, but there is much joy in my heart. Consider it a mere commencement and I am entering the forever. I really am most satisfied in Him.

 Can I share that I said the words "I LOVE YOU" to God for the very first time back in April..? Not through a song or in my mind or in my journal, but I said those three simple words that I have been struggling to say my whole life. It was the most liberating feeling I have ever had. In just the past few months, God gave me a crash course on love. It involved so many aspects of my life.. family, relationship, small group, friends, strangers, "enemies".. Something that was a struggle for me was coming so easily into my heart and changing the way I viewed everything. Because I loved God, I was finally able to love myself.. and from there, love His people.

 In the end, all I can say is that I, Estefania Belen Cho, died a lover of God. Really. I love you, God--

".. my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water... because your love is better than life, my lips with glorify you." Psalm 63:1,3

 Signed, Estefania Belen Cho 

There it is...! I remember when we were told to write this, my mind went blank for a good half hour before I started writing. I thought it was lame, but I am glad that KCM made us do this. Just looking back to it, it restores me. I have not forgotten this person in me!

Please pray for me, for anyone who comes across this entry. Considering I only have 10 followers, I know that will limit the numbers a bit.. HAHA.. but I know that God will see your prayerful hearts! (Cadengo & Saehoon! lol) I wish I could say with confidence that there is a body of believers back at home who are praying for me, but not so sure there is besides my parents.. So it would mean a lot...

Thanks friends! I love you because I love Him! :") 

Confuse Me #1

These "Confuse Me" posts will be things that make me tilt my head and wonder why it exists in such a way...


EDIT: Added a third for the night because Spanish nights are too long for me to sit still

• Why do toilet seat covers have a center piece?  Has anyone else ever been bothered by that? I mean, why would I have to waste paper by ripping out the center flap that has no purpose. If I use the toilet without doing so, I get grossed out thinking about what my bottom will come in contact with. Save paper, save time, donut hole all covers!

                                          Ah, much better!

• Why is there an NBA team in Canada? Okay, honestly.. Make your own league! I looked it up and found that Canada had their own National Basketball League that only ran for a year and a half. Thereafter, the NBA tried to expand to Canada with the Grizzlies and Raptors. What kind of huge country like Canada cannot run their own basketball league?! That is very sad. It just bothers me...  I feel like I have something against their fans too... because they are Canadian, right? They probably pay less for their tickets, get to enjoy an awesome league in the comforts of their own country with better healthcare and no economic recession! They do not even cheer well. Blame Canada.

• National Rallying for Team Coco- I love the guy and think NBC made a regretful decision to lose Conan and a part of American history, but people camping out and holding rallies? I guess it would mean a lot to NBC and Conan, himself, but you look at the world in a larger perspective and see Haitians fighting each other for survival packages.. people fighting to live.. All those who are camping out for Team Coco should be more mindful and direct their efforts on a larger cause.

Not enough to go around...

As I am now residing in Spain for the next few months, I have been re-adjusting my life and finding myself at a fork. I realized that my heart wants to be at so many places at once. Here, LA, New York, Nicaragua... and now, Haiti... Home is where my heart is... and that leaves me at a bit of unrest for the moment.

Get off yourself..! 

The Person of Estefania vs. Google, INC

So I took a short hiatus from blogger because I was having some trouble with the website.. and could not find a way to fix it..

Google is, by far, my favorite web search engine, email, etc etc etc., but I found one slight malfunction. Well, it is not necessarily a malfunction, but a very huge flaw. There is no direct contact with this giant being. I wanted answers to my blogspot questions, but there is no one I can email/call for help. Any issue that you may have, Google will lead you to other blogs that they have created for users who need help. More blogs to cure the problems of the one I already have...! It was a very frustrating point in my life. I felt like there was no one to turn to because Will Choi just laughed at me...

All I needed was my "Post Title" back on my layout, but after switching around between layouts, it somehow disappeared. This bothered me so much. I had the first few posts that had titles and then the recent ones were without, which messed up the Archive with my post titles. The aesthetics... It is always about the aesthetics for me... If it looks off, then everything is off!

That was my grand amorestef.blogspot vs. Google ordeal. I have been wanting to make new posts, but my heart would cringe at the thought of the missing titles.. (They make a huge difference). Since I came to Spain, (yes, I am here) I have all the more reason to update my blog. Due to this dilemma, I had decided to create a wordpress.com account. I just did, and I was about to export my blogspot entries to that one... and just as I was about to... I FIXED IT.

I no longer have an issue with posting titles. I am my own Google plumber and did myself the dirty work. Therefore, Google, I will continue to pursue my blogging career through you... but remember, in a mouse click, I will be forever sold to wordpress.com. So, be nice!

I am back, everyone.

Heaven via Pandora

EDIT (1/31/10):
Just watched a John Piper sermon from Jan 10, 2010 in Minneapolis, titled "Holding Fast to the World of Life in 2010" and towards the end of the video, he goes through one of his repeated rantings (lol, love them). The last thing he says, which was not part of his manuscript, was "Avatar is boring!" It reminded me of myself and I got ggpwn3d. Nothing more satisfying than the truth!
------------------------------------------------------------

I just got home from watching Avatar in IMAX 3D... It was breath taking! The whole story was predictable since I went in knowing it would be the traditional "white man saves all" (i.e. Dances with Wolves, The Last Samurai).. but James Cameron really took it to the next level. I walked out with googly eyes that did not want to step out (or back) into reality. Hahaha..

Anyway, that is the besides the point.. So after the movie, I come home and I am chatting with one of my Nica teammates, Elisa. She has not watched the movie yet, but she was sharing my excitement with me. lol. I tell her how amazing it was and how beautiful the world of Pandora was.. Her response is what put me in awe and left me in thought.

elisa: awwwwwasfjksf

elisa: omg

elisa: can you imagine

elisa: heaven is like a billion times that

elisa: cant wait to die lol

Yes! Heaven awaits... I was having post-Avatar syndromes, but I realized that the world of Pandora is just a damn good illusion, courtesy of James Cameron. The real Pandora of true beauty will come in time. Heaven, cannot wait to be there......

Ciao 2009

What an end to a wild, wild year.. 
..and here I am, spending the last hour of it.. blogging about it


Do I mind that I spent the past two days alone, working at WaSa, having 0% contact with the outside world  minus WaSa customers & employees... & 5 phone calls (3 of them being with my dad) and decided not to do anything special to count down the new year? No, not really. Will you think I am a loser and a loner? Yes, probably. Hahaha... 


One word that sums up 2009: Sighahh ©


Now, I put the copyright sign because Saehoon & I coined that word earlier this year. It is a word that describes a long sigh of deep breath from God-given satisfaction.. 


I guess this year marks a very significant point in my life. Through all the sighahh moments, I experienced a part of God that I had never encountered before. He made himself so transparent to me that there were no options for me. I would give you an entire year's worth of testimony, but that would be a bore. 


All I can say is that every decision I made this year was by baby faith, and every sighahh result of it was through grace. Every time God would throw me into a situation, I would be reluctant, disobedient & confused, but there would be no way out (i.e. Nicaragua). Once I accepted the situation, God would just blast it & zoom 200% into it... and I would just sit there, literally, and be ggpwn3d. That feeling goes hand-in-hand with the sighahh's. 


I really do not know why He picked this year, but He did. A lot of times I would wonder if people around me felt the perfection of God the way I did. But seriously, God! When I was in Nicaragua, Will & I would point a finger up to God and say, "That God", while wagging our finger. I think we did that every day in the month-long trip. We experienced God's ggpwnage every day and we would sighahh about it.


This entry is ambiguous. I said a lot without really saying much at all. 


All I have left to say is that 2009 was my favorite year in my life. Definitely something I would be able to say tonight. It is now 10 minutes to the new year and I am very well satisfied in God. He is too good to me. I love you, God. 

Bailamos

It takes two to tango.

This is Annimal & I, post-sleepf.o.l.ver this past quarter. Christina woke up to this.. Like mama, like daughter..<3

Dance with me.