Inside North Korea

In training last week we watched a National Geographic documentary by Lisa Ling called, “Inside North Korea,” where I saw this:

A Nepalese eye surgeon travels into North Korea to help one thousand people blinded by cataracts to see again. The procedure, he explains, is actually very simple. Make a slit on the side of the eye, pull out the cloudy lens, and insert a new lens. It’s only minutes before he’s ready for the next patient.

In the next scene, all patients are gathered in a huge room wearing bandages to protect their healing eyes. The doctor begins to remove the bandages that they might finally see. The first patient he approaches is a young woman brought to the surgeon by her father. The doctor uncovers her eyes. Do you see? She stares at him. Touch my nose. She does.

Where is your father?

She turns to her right, and when her eyes see the face of her father she immediately embraces him, weeping, Father! Father!

The father quiets her and walks them to the front of the room where Kim Jong-il and Kim Il-song sit in framed portraits, gazing ahead of the crowd. The father and his daughter bow deeply to the leaders. They give thanks to the images, as if they were addressing real people.

As the doctor continues to remove bandages, each seeing patient follows the example of the first young woman. They bypass thanking the doctor or his staff, and hurry to the front of the room to bow, thank and praise the portraits. As this process goes on, the worship of the leaders becomes more passionate and tearful and loud until, in the end, the entire room is singing and dancing before their “dear” and “eternal” leaders.

And he received the gold from their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and made a golden calf. And they said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!”

And my cheeks were hot and wet and I felt like throwing up.

With all the horrific things I’ve come to learn about life in North Korea, nothing is as enraging as knowing that an oppressive man is worshipped and glorified on behalf of God’s work.

Caleb wasn't a fool for believing

The righteous care about justice for the poor, but the wicked have no such concern. (29:7)

When I read this Proverb, all at once I understood a lot of things. Ignorance about human oppression is a pattern of the world…something I should never feel comfortable in. I begged that I would stop looking to the right and left of me to determine the things I should care about. Except, of course, when the people around me are outstanding examples of love. Like Ashley, who cares so deeply about buying clothes that were made fairly that she’s gone to the cash register with a shirt, realized it was made in a sweatshop, and walked away without it. Do you know anyone else who even thinks about the rights of the factory worker? And Amie, who wanted so terribly to do something immediate about sex trafficking that she’s spending the next year abroad working for IJM. It’s absolutely selfless.

I think the world’s wisdom would have a lot of answers to these convictions. Answers meant to reason us (Christians, students, Americans) out of changing anything about our lives. But my friends take their cues from God’s wisdom. There’s no word I can type that expresses how I feel about that. Maybe it gives you the same feeling.

So, in a very compressed sentence: that proverb compelled me to apply for the LiNK internship (something I wrote off weeks earlier) and God took care of everything.

I pray we can all be obedient to God’s upward call of Christ. I’m not talking about social justice...I’m talking about anything our God is asking of you. Here’s a quote from a sermon by Francis Chan about the faith of Caleb (from the Exodus):

Some of you have heard specifically from the Lord. You know of things that you were created for. And just because no one else does it that way, you’ve backed off. Isn’t this book filled with people that were examples of ‘no one else did it that way’ and ‘everyone else was against’ them but they stood?

Caleb believed the Lord even when everyone else threatened to stone him, and God preserved his life because “he has a different spirit and has followed me fully”. Those are God’s words! If you’re interested in the story, its Numbers 13-14:38, with the grand-slam conclusion, 45 years later, Joshua 14:7-12.

on "pressing on"

This morning I read a newsletter from a friend who just began living abroad. She featured the scene in Luke:

Yet another said, " I will follow you Lord, but let me first say farewell to those at my home." Jesus said to him, "No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God." (9:61-62)

Yes! Reflecting on this fact has completely revitalized my excitement about the LiNK internship. While I've entertained feelings of reluctance/F.O.M.O. (That is fear of missing out. Thanks, Amie.)/sadness in my final days at home, it feels like I've just been splashed with a cold glass of water. I wipe my face, open my eyes, and there's Jesus, packed and ready for California, with a big smile saying, "Come on!" And what else can I do but grab my bags, give Red a little kiss, and follow Him?

Because Lord, how I want to be in that number, when the saints go marching in.