The Korean Adoptees Ministry Center and a Testimony

[Prelude]
Welcome to my blog! This was originally written with the intention of keeping memories for myself, and sharing my journey to Korea with just a few of my closest friends. I had no idea that God would be using my testimony like He has... I never expected this blog to reach so many people. That being said, the beginning entries are kind of wordy and a little dry. The middle section of the blog is very photo-intensive (again, taken mostly for memories) and written more in a photo-blog style... However, towards the end of the trip, things begin to come together and I write a little more reader-friendly. So, stick with it! It's a long, wonderful journey. I'll be gradually editing/revising to make the blog a little more readable over time, but I still want to retain most of the original text (you know, for my own memories). I've gone back and added some notes in brackets to help with context. Thanks for reading!

-Daniel
[/Prelude]


Hello all...

This is a blog I've created specifically for my journey to Korea and the introspection of my past. If you're reading this, you probably know that first, I was adopted, and second, my relationship with my adoptive parents is a bit less than ideal (understatement of the year). Here, I will be keeping a blog of my trip to Korea and some thoughts and reflections.

So, to begin with, I got an e-mail from one of my pastors for a scholarship application. The prize was an all-expense paid trip to Korea, specifically for Korean American adoptees to find their roots and for 'inner-healing.' Well, it didn't take much to convince me to apply... I ended up taking a week to get my application together . The essay questions were annoyingly open-ended, and one of the prompts was simply 'My Life's Journey.' Well, I've been through a lot, and I didn't really know exactly what they were looking for in the prompt, so I took this as an opportunity to write out, well, my whole life. I've never done that before, and I figured I might find some things out about myself in looking back. The whole of it came out to seven pages, single-spaced, font size 11, so you might see how it took a week to write. Even if I didn't get this scholarship, having written out my life made clear of a few key issues and turning points in my life.

Now, let's back up a bit... Most of you probably know I don't talk or communicate with my parents... at all. I managed to almost entirely cut them out of my life. I thought I was 'safe' from the issue, but in the past year or so, God has kept bringing up the issue of parents and forgiveness. Well, that wasn't exactly what I wanted to hear, but most likely what I needed to hear. I have to confront my past, and eventually come to peace with it... Come this scholarship opportunity, I was almost certain I'd get it b/c this was just 'too perfect' of an opportunity for me, and the timing was too perfect.

So, needless to say, I got accepted to the program. Quite a bit has happened since I was accepted and now, and I will try to fill in the gaps over the next couple days (I leave to Korea in three days).

The KAM Center

The host of the program is the Korean Adoptees Ministry Center, a ministry center out in Minnesota that "exists to hear the voices of Korean adoptees and their families, and to share the good news of healing, renewal, and wholeness in Jesus Christ with adoptees and their families."

Just the existence of such a thing blows my mind. It took me a while to find out on my own (say, 17 years?) to find out that adoption has left me scarred and with a particular set of circumstances that are pretty rare. To think that there is a ministry that not only recognizes those issues, but focuses specifically on them is... Well, just amazing. Only God could have stirred peoples hearts to move in such a way.

The ministry is led by Pastor Park and his wife, Yoonju SMN. They are linked with several churches in Korea and the funds for the scholarship come from donations from those churches. On the US-side, many adoptees volunteer on the staff. The tagline for the Center is 'A Place to Belong,' and it couldn't have been better named.

The 'Spiritual Journey to Korea,' as they call it, is in its 10th year. So, the program is relatively young, and about five or six adoptees from all over the US get to attend each year. However, prior to leaving, an orientation retreat is held in MN (ok, well, technically the retreat is in WI). I have some journal entries to post from that (and some pictures, yay!), which I'll put up in the next day or so. The trip to Korea itself is three weeks long (July 21st - August 13th) and after the trip, there will be a de-briefing 'retreat' in MN, as well.

A Testimony

Ok, so, my testimony of salvation is, I feel, pretty boring... However, I think all the exciting and revelatory things happened after the fact and many more things are in store for me. So, when I was asked to write a two-page (double-spaced) testimony of my life for the orientation retreat, I was looking at my seven-page-single-spaced-behemoth of a 'life story' and scratching my head, wondering what I was going to do. Well, I did my best to recap it the best I could and got it down to about two pages... I shared it at the retreat and found out later that we (the other adoptees and myself) would be sharing our testimonies with the churches in Korea, so I went back and edited it a little. And here it is as I shared it:

            Anyonghaseo. [Korean for 'hello.'] My name is Daniel Xu, and this is my testimony. I do not read it to gain your sympathy, but rather to thank God for all He has done in my life, for Pastor Park and all he is doing with Korean Adoptees Ministry Center and to you all for supporting him.

            I was born in 1985, in Seoul, Korea, to poor parents who promptly put me up for adoption due to financial issues. I stayed in a foster home for six months, and then was flown to the US for adoption. I was adopted into a white family of three: my mom, dad and an older sister. My parents were happy for a while, but they divorced when I was six. My mom remarried, and my older sister graduated and moved out. I never got close with her. My mom took custody of me, and my dad was allowed to visit on a weekly basis.

            From there, my mom and stepfather would move around and have several foster kids in and out of our home, and eventually adopted some of them. By the time I was in high school, we lived out on the Eastern Shore of Maryland and had adopted five white children. We moved to Florida and when I got accepted to college, I moved back to Maryland and lived with my dad for a couple years. Eventually I moved out and have been living with friends since.

            Things were not good at home. I was always caught in the middle of all the fights between my mom and my dad, and there was also a lot of fighting between my mom and my stepdad. I never really got that close with either ‘dad’ and somewhere along the line, I lost trust in my mom. By high school, I had disconnected myself emotionally from all of my family completely and had made it a goal to excommunicate all of them.

            When I left for college, I moved in with my dad, but this did not bring us any closer. I was emotionally disconnected from everybody and ended up ­­dealing with a lot of depression and thoughts of suicide. I had a few close friends, but I’d only let them so far into my life that they couldn’t really do much for me. I was pretty self-sufficient and made it pretty tough for people to get to know me and know my struggles. I always kept a tight lip about my past, especially anything concerning my parents. I didn’t talk to them, and promptly after I moved out of my dad’s house, I cut all ties with both of them. I changed my number multiple times, never gave out my address and also changed my name. I did not want to be associated with them in any way. By now, I had considered everything about my past shameful and embarrassing, and I wasn’t really sure why. I didn’t really know why I hated my parents so much. While they provided for me, I never confided with them, and I wouldn’t trust them with anything. I had blamed myself for a lot – I thought maybe I was the dysfunctional one that had a problem connecting with people emotionally, and began to think that maybe it was because I was adopted that I couldn’t really develop a ‘real’ relationship with my family.

            Culturally, I had always been embarrassed to be a Korean American in a white family. Until I started college, I had always been the only Asian in school, church, and the whole county. In fact, I never had a real conversation with another Asian until I started college. The University of Maryland at College Park, where I attended school for seven years, has a 30% Asian population out of 30,000 some people on campus during the semester. There are many Asian groups, and I anxiously joined an all Asian Bible study. It was like the scene in ‘The Jungle Book,’ where Mowgli sees other humans for the first time. Between my shame in being adopted and my embarrassment in having a German last name and not knowing anything about Asian culture, I wholeheartedly embraced Asian culture and strived to learn as much as I could from my friends, which from this point on would almost all be Asian. I hated being  the sore-thumb-out, and I wanted to be like my Asian American friends. They looked Asian, but fit in both Asian culture and American culture. I wanted that; I did not want to continue being a cat that only knew how to act and behave like a dog. Over the years, I learned a decent amount of Chinese, got rid of my adopted name and learned enough culture that new people that I’d meet would just assume I was a second generation Asian American. Nobody was sure whether I was Chinese or Korean, though. I think some of my friends still might be confused about that.

            Not too long before I was out on my own, God led me to a predominately Korean-American church, one in which I still attend, called ‘HOPE.’ I’ve been going there for six years now, and have really been grafted into the church as family. This church has one of the closest congregations that I’ve ever been to, and I’ve been to more than 50 [my parents had church hopped regularly]. I developed relationships with friends and leaders there that were more healthy and significant than any of the others I had before. Many of them became closer than family to me. I began to trust people again, and eventually God ended my struggles with depression. Knowing that I was capable of having real relationships with people, I was eventually challenged to understand what was going on with my family. In the past year or so, God has made it very apparent that I need to work things out in that area, and that I need healing for the scars I’ve carried from my familial relationships. I was not to blame, and there wasn’t ‘something wrong with me,’ but my family was more dysfunctional than I had previously acknowledged. Through all the unwillingness and lack of understanding, God has softened my heart a bit towards my parents. I feel like I’ll be able to forgive them eventually, but I have no idea what our relationship will look like. I do not want a relationship with them, and am afraid  that that is not what God wants. Also, in all this, God also has shown me that things need to be worked out with my biological parents. There’s not spite so much as there is overwhelming curiosity, but this trip to Korea and this program are evidence that God is The Restorer and He will work all these things out in my life.

            I am incredibly grateful to this ministry for reaching out to Korean American adoptees. It is amazing to me that there are programs out there that even acknowledge the emotional problems  that adoptees face, not to mention the very specific cultural and identity issues that Korean American adoptees in specific deal with. And then to sponsor trips to Korea for adoptees to learn about their heritage and even try to reunite them with their birth parents is nothing but a movement in God’s grace. There is no gain to be had in giving so much, but it means more than you could imagine to the adoptees on the receiving end. My whole life I have felt like I have had this extremely rare, very specific disease that nobody could understand or even relate to. With this program, I feel like God has prescribed me the one, very specific remedy for it. So, when I say ‘thank you,’ I thank you with my whole life. Kamsahamnida!! [Korean for 'thank you.']

Some Prophetic Thingers

I was on a 'retreat spree' of sorts with Bo [a member of my church's praise team], Treetops Burning [a retreat band I joined recently] and HOPE earlier this year, and then there was also the School of Healing with Pastor Shin... At a couple of them, I got some interesting words.

At the HOPE leadership retreat, Pastor Carlos was praying over me and said some interesting things (at this point, neither of us knew anything about KAMC). He said new spiritual revelations would be opened to me, and God would reveal Himself to me in new ways supernaturally, specifically in dreams. Not really sure what that all meant yet... But one thing he said (and I forgot about this until my phone reminded me) that seems pretty relevant was that by August 1st of this year, "things would be different." I'll be in Korea, then. Save the date, ya?

At the School of Healing with Pastor Shin, I went and got prayed for (well, twice... didn't get anything the first night, but Treetops all went back up for a second helping at the end of the conference). Pastor Shin kept saying that this was a 'new season,' which was undoubtedly true... But a new season in both the supernatural... and the natural. He kept saying 'three months.' Well, this was three months ago. That one was obvious... But, the one thing he said which really got my attention was that God would 'restore all that has been stolen and destroyed' back to me. What does that mean? What could that mean? Well, we'll see... Sounds good though, doesn't it?

Anyways... That's all for now. I'll post up the logs from the MN retreat and the next posts will be from Korea! I AM SO EXCITED!!!!!! Woo!