ggpwn3d #1- Oldies, but Goodies

I have been reading through the end of Old Testament with my accountability partner in Spain, Emily. We started during the end of February by divine intervention. (He answered my prayers!) It is our last week in Spain and we are finishing up the last two books of Zechariah & Malachi. God has been blessing us so much with our reading and our time of sharing. We get so amazed that God would even align our personal struggles from home to be alike so we can really be accountable to one another. We get even more amazed at how much our readings have been revealing our sins and relating so clearly to our lives. I love the feeling of being defeated by the Word.

To give you an example of how funnily perfect God is and how unperfect we are.. Emily & I decided to read the OT and I suggested we go through the minor prophets, since we had limited time. Emily mentioned that she loved the name Ezekiel and how she wanted to name her son that, but had never read the book (haha). So we decided to just start from Ezekiel then and go through Daniel and then to the minor prophets. You know.. just for the heck of it. After finishing Ezekiel and Daniel, Emily got an email from her campus ministry (Cornerstone Fellowship) for their upcoming leadership training. In it, they gave a schedule of the material they will be covering before the year starts with a weekly reading.

Guess what books they were going through...?? Take a WILD guess...

(Yeaup. Unbelievably true..) Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi. From the beginning to the end of our reading for the semester. Now... waiiiiit a minute... Godddddd~!!! Hahahahahaha.. you are so silly! Man, my mouth dropped when she told me.. we felt so ggpwn3d. We literally chose to do that because of Emily's future baby named, Ezekiel. HAHA. But he still came through and confirmed that HE MAKES ALL THINGS GOOD. How is it that we are also perfectly ending the semester in this last week with Malachi...

Even in our imperfections, he is God.

Why God brought me to Spain..

So, ever since I got back from Nicaragua.. (I feel like Nicaragua is now a measurement of my time) I have been waiting to write my testimony. Not sure of what exactly. I was so overwhelmed with the entirety of my experience that I did not know where to begin. Not just the trip itself, but the events that led me there and those that followed after. I felt like the story was just beginning and I cannot (understatement) even begin to describe in words the PERFECTION of God. Sighahh. One by one, things were happening that would confirm that perfection in my life.. that I would continually be left speechless. Each time, I would reconnect it back to the previous chain of events that had led me to that very moment. So in ways, my testimony from Nicaragua has been ongoing...

Now, I ended up in Spain for the past 3 months and of course, that story has continued as God has been unconditionally the same "yesterday, today and forever" Hebrews 13:8. I have not shared this experience during my stay here and for that, I suck. I now have about 40 days until I am back in the states! In some form of regret, I want to begin to share to praise Him while it is not too late. (Without just writing posts of the ambiguous "God is perfect" to me.)

Can I tell you that I have never felt God's love as much as I have felt it here in the past few months? That is not saying that he has never loved me the same, but it shows how much I have been seeking that love elsewhere in my life. As my readers (the very few, but faithful) have read, I came to Spain thinking that it would be an experience where I share God's love and where I can be the light in the darkness to live out the conviction I got from Nicaragua that missions is not a part of my life, but it is my life (which I still hold to). I thought that the Hispanic church I found with my Mexican co-workers before Spain was a form of practice and such. I had my plans and my interpretations of God's work since it was my life. See that? It almost screams like a spoiled attention-whore of a brat who just says "ME, ME, ME!"

Well, the first sin(s) I dealt with in my first month in Spain was this horrible, ugly thing called mr. pride. It is still something I struggle with so much, but God really broke me down and taught me to deal with it through a train of confrontations. (I have received a grade-F in this field my whole life.) 6 of them, in total. The amount of cloudiness in my heart caused by these relationships was definitely a reflection of mr. pride, yuck. Because of it, I was constantly battling within me. Once God led me through those, I felt a million times lighter (not physically, though I wish) and my heart was no longer weighing me down.

From there, I realized that my "mission" in Spain was exactly that.. my mission. ggpwn3d? Yes. What God had planned for me was súper fácil (translation: super easy).

Ready?

God brought me allllllll the way to Spain, half-way across from home, for my last quarter of my college years, with no one/thing around me, to tell me how much he has been loving me and how much he has been waiting on me to see that and to return it. I was so... touched? in awe? amazed? overwhelmed by how blind I had been... so broken by my ugly heart... and constantly complaining to God in my guilt, "Why...? How can you keep loving me so much?? Why is your grace so hard to grasp?? Why do you never stop pursuing after this ugly ugly ugly heart..." and then I would cry in sorrowful joy because His grace really is that good.

This made me see that I had another huge flaw. This sin of idols: People; being a person who is so relational and loves people, making constant efforts to show it and being satisfied and comforted by the return of their love. God has been dealing with this, especially in college. family, kcm, roommates, WaSa, f.o.l., david, UR, nk9 to mention the few. Even though my love for God grew throughout the years, my conception of loving him back was exerted through these relationships. I only had so many hours in a day to tend to all of them, right? So why not kill two birds with one stone and love God by loving his people? Wrong. I failed to love God first. MAJOR FALI. (yes, I meant to write 'fali').

So what does God do? He takes me right out of my self-made world of comfort and puts me in a location of solitude & strangers. It was a sense of loneliness that I had never felt before. Strangely, it gave me a sense of relief. I felt like I was able to breathe in relaxation for the first time since I can remember, without having to deal with all these responsibilities in my life. I did not have a family to drive home to every weekend, no work to wake up to, no one to make care packages for, no one to catch/meet up with, no meetings to attend, nothing! I even went through a month without Facebook. Imagine how that felt! This was all so new to me, even newer than the fact that I was living in Spain with a completely new culture & lifestyle.

This feeling of being pursued after by God... has made me find self-worth in Him. I have been meditating on a chapter of Psalm each week and this Sunday was Psalm 8.

"When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have in place... What [am I] that you are mindful of [me]..." Psalm 8:3, 4

That is how my experience has been in Spain. I have finally found a love that is flawless, that leaves me in awe every waking moment. God brought me here because he wanted me all to himself for once, where he wanted me to pursue him likewise. He went to great extents to make this known to me. Whatever my heart held onto for my own will, he took away. In that time, instead of growing bitter or confused toward him like I normally would have, I was humbled and broken by the intimacy in his love. Amazing, no? Who am I...

As I have been reading through the Old Testament while in Spain.. Every book has been speaking to me directly, in one way or another. From those, Hosea has been a reflection of my experience.. I will end it with this..

"She will chase after her lovers but not catch them; she will look for them but not find them... Therefore I am going to allure her; I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her." Hosea 2: 7,14

 I, like Israel and Hosea's wife, found myself chasing after my own conditional heart. God brought me here, to my desert, to do just the same as he did with them. That is the God that I live for and love. He never fails me, but always satisfies me. He is my entirety and my portion. Saehoon, you told me during the early stage of my Spain experience that it seemed like I was in a desert? After reading this book, and it further confirmed God's awesome-ness. I am ready to go back home...

Google Search(es) #1

 For those who do not know, I am slightly obsessed with Google... in every day situations, I always turn to the good ol' Google search bar for answers. I will begin a thread of posts to share with you, bits and pieces of my random wonders. Do not judge me.

• My stomach has a heartbeat.
  This was a recent symptom I have had. Apparently, a lot of people online have had felt this too. I should also mention that I have a really bad tendency to Google my symptoms and self-diagnose my sickness. I only take it half seriously.
• Healthy ways to lose weight in a month.
  Hahahaha... I am guilty of that, as well as many variations of the diet world wonders.
• Is it possible to surgically lower your belly button?
  ..... Yeah, the answer was hard to find.
• Earthquake 2010 
  With Haiti, Chile, Japan, Turkey, Mexico, California, Spain.. just in the past 3 months.. I have been checking every so often to see the world status. Birth pains, indeed.

Confuse Me #2

World of a Difference

•  In Spain, the only Asian race the people seem to know (or acknowledge) is Chinese. To everyone here, I am Chinese or should I say Chinita. This brought back memories of my childhood in Argentina when kids would slant their eyes and repeatedly chant those words to me, "Chinita, Chinita!" I mean, I know China is the most populated country in the world, but... is it wrong for me to want to be recognized for being a Coreana? It is more amusing than offensive. I laugh when they just say ni-hao to me and take the opportunity to educate them with the existence of Korea.

I typed "Chinese woman" and "Korean woman" on Google. These were the first photo results of each search.  Top- "Chinese woman", Bottom- "Korean woman"

• The richest man in the world of 2010 is Carlos Slim Helu. He is Mexican. Now, I am not being racist nor am I saying a Mexican man does not deserve to hold this title. Props to him for being a self-made billionaire and living his life to see this day. I love Mexico and I love my Mexican community. The one thing I miss most in Spain, besides friends and family, is a taco. Anyway, I guess the part that confuses me is the fact that he is Mexican and that Mexico is still a fairly newly developed country. In the Top 10 of the list, after Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, #4 & #5 are from India. The majority of the people in these countries live in poverty. They do not have the comforts of a cozy home or the consumption of sanitary water. This is not just a certain percentage of the people, this is a good majority of them. It sort of just upsets me. The fact that there is such a huge difference in living. With all those billions of dollars, man.... I bet they could feed those people... It makes me sad.

World of a difference...

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..!