Here's my log from all that I could remember from the first day of the orientation retreat:
So, it’s the morning after the first day of the retreat… I’m doing alright, though the previous day was quite long. But, you have more energy for things that are pressing, and even the beginnings of this ‘journey’ have proved to be so. I woke up yesterday, at 3:30am to get ready to fly out to Minnesota. Everything went smoothly and I mostly slept on the plane. When I got to the airport around 11, Pastor Park picked me up. We had some time to kill before he had to pick up the next adoptee, so he took me sight-seeing. I didn’t know much about Minneapolis, so he took me to see a house/park/statue of this Henry Longfellow-guy. The story is like a reverse-role Sacajawea and John Smith kind of thing, and then he took me to see the hydroelectric dam and barge system. Right across the river, there was a Ford SUV factory, with a big, obnoxious Ford logo sign that stuck out like quite a sore thumb. Then he took me to see five lakes that were right next to each other, outside of Minneapolis. It’s a clean, clean city, and people are all respectful and polite. It’s like a super-suburb: seemingly perfect families spending time together outside, riding bicycles and having picnics and such. Though Friday, there were lots of people out. In comparison to DC, I felt like things were a little too ‘perfect.’ The houses all looked perfect and each and every one of them were unique. Every lawn was cut perfectly and no house looked dirty. Turns out Minneapolis/St. Paul are consistently the best places in the country to raise kids.
Pastor Park and I. (This was Pastor Park's idea. :P Haha...)
They filled that whole section up, just for that one, little boat.
Anyways, I got to know Pastor Park a bit more than just my initial impressions of him over the phone during the application process. He’s one of those people that you just like immediately and enjoy being in the company of. Though 72, he’s quite tech-savvy – using apps on his iPhone and checking e-mails. He’s also quite knowledgeable, knowing much history about just Minneapolis. He told me how 20,000 Koreans lived in the area, but 15,000 of them were adoptees, and as I observed many of the families present in the park, sure enough, there were several white families that had a Korean kid running around with them. This explained why KAMC was located in an otherwise obscure city.
After driving around the lakes, we went to go pick up the next adoptee. His name was David Mehaffey, and he was one of those too-easily-excited, love-to-talk-about-himself types. To me, he felt like another one of those nerds you would meet at ABSK that went to Harvard or whatever, but I found I could relate a couple things to him. Pastor Park took us to eat at Hoban, a Korean restaurant stereotypically located right next to a noraebang [a Korean karaoke]. It was ok… Definitely made me grateful for the Korean restaurants in the DC spread. In just having lunch, I knew that there was going to be much to learn at just this retreat, and even more at Korea.
We finished up and then Pastor Park took us to the Mall of America, the largest mall in the country. Apparently, the influx of tourists every year has made this one of the top ten sights to see in the US. It turned out to be just another mall - just an exceptionally large one with an amusement park in the center of it. David and I walked around a little, and then we met up with the other adoptees and we all ate ‘dinner’ together. First, we met Nick Stuber, 26, who lived in the area. He looked pretty FOBby [FOB is an acronym for 'Fresh Off the Boat,' referring to new immigrants. Now the word is just synonymous for 'native Asian.'] and seemed like he’d fit in with the MoCo [Montgomery County - a rich county in the Metro-DC area] Asians in MD pretty well. Then we met up with the other group, who was another Nick (Nick Hafften), 23, MeriKim Hime, 32 and Raia Hertig, 21, and of course, David was 29. In talking to the others, it seemed just like I was hanging out with some second generation Asians, but perhaps a bit more ‘white’ than usual. We split up and drove over to the retreat center in WI, seemingly in the middle of nowhere.
The Mall of America...
The big Lego store was pretty cool, though.
It seemed that the whole retreat would just be the six of us, Pastor Park and Yoonju SMN, his wife. When everyone finally showed up at the retreat center, we started things with icebreakers that we were supposed to prepare for beforehand. We did two truths and a lie, which proved to be quite difficult since the six of us had already talked with each other for at least an hour. Then I had everyone play El Gato, and then we did the question and match-the-person-to-the-answer game. We came inside and did a human knot and then this game called ‘Ninja.’ It seemed much like a game we’d have played at ABSK, which is funny, b/c it was David’s game. In all this, I felt very in place with the other adoptees, and I think we all felt very trusting towards Pastor Park and SMN.
We ate a snack, and then Pastor Park began the ‘serious’ bit for the night. He was telling us how genuine, self-disclosure was necessary for happiness in our life later, which was a hard concept to grasp at first, until he explained it. Essentially, the ability to be honest with yourself and with those close to you carries over into your relationships with other people, most importantly in marriage.
Afterwards, we went around and shared our testimonies/life stories. Yoonju SMN went first. Her life was not exactly fortunate, and she went through many hardships and eventually married Pastor Park and came to the US. She developed a heart for adoptees through her teaching Korean children at a Christian service. Though some were second generation, she realized many of them were actually adopted, and that there were no programs to help these kids.
Eventually, her testimony merged into Pastor Park’s, who went next. His family was victimized quite badly during the Korean war. His father was killed, and his mother entered a depressed state and could not provide for the family. So, at age 11, he had to find ways to make money and also get food for himself, his mother and his three other siblings. He sold gum, shined shoes and scavenged at the trade market for rice/grain that was dropped from trading. His mother eventually came back to herself and was able to provide again, and he and his siblings were able to attend school. In high school, he had aspirations to be a medical doctor, but was talked into doing business administration. He came to America and had plans on go big with business, but God reminded him about his original ambitions to serve. He wanted to go to seminary, but his wife wouldn't let him at the time. Eventually, 14 years later, at the age of 55, he went. He graduated and had developed a strong heart for adoptees. He realized that nobody was doing anything for them and their issues specific to adoption were not being addressed. He began a program based on funds from a church. The pastor of that church was actually a high school student that Pastor Park had taught earlier, and it was clear that everything was God’s timing and done through his orchestration. He shared how the program progressed and how eventually, the ‘Spiritual Journey’ was created. He shared his dream of the program expanding and adoptees reaching out to other adoptees.
Through this, I felt pretty overwhelmed with God’s heart for me. This whole scholarship opportunity I felt was like a very, very specific medication for my one, particularly rare sickness. I had felt like this whole thing was created for me, because I never personally knew anyone that had to struggle with adoption before. Sure, there were some others that dealt with depression, or maybe poor parents, but none who had dealt with adoption. At this point, though seemingly selfish sounding, God gently told me that He had orchestrated all the things in Pastor Park’s life in such a way that He would make this opportunity to go to Korea and experience the culture specifically for me; that God’s plan for me was clear far before I was even born.
I shared a very abbreviated version of my testimony [an earlier version of the one at the beginning of this blog], which mostly just gave a brief history of myself and my struggle with my family. I didn’t touch the cultural issues much, though I felt like I should have. I was not really sure how things came across – some things present in my testimony some of even my close friends do not know, and I kind of glazed across the issues as if they were no big deal, despite how much they affected me.
The other adoptees shared their testimonies as well, and though none of them share the family disconnect that I have, almost all of the issues they faced I could relate with. It was quite amazing to be sitting in a room full of other adoptees; I felt for once that I shared a background with a particular group, especially after hearing each of their testimonies. I never really related all that much to 1st generation immigrants, but related better with 2nd generation kids than with white people. But, here, I felt I related a lot more to a group than ever before.
Yoonju SMN sharing her testimony. That's David, watching and listening...
Nick S., Raia, Nick H. and MeriKim.
Through all the struggles I’ve had and the times when I felt God was just watching me suffer, I feel now like He let me go through those times so He could show me just how much He loves me right now, that He knows everything about me and that He is in control of everything. Jeremiah 29:11 is most certainly a life verse for me, and I feel like I understand and believe that verse more than ever.
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