7/21/2011 4:12pm On the Flight

Well, here I am… On the flight to Incheon, South Korea. It’s just now starting to settle in that I left the US. How do I feel? Well, really, I have no idea of what to expect… But, God’s been telling me some things.

I just finished up my lunch of bibimbap on Korean Air. Though everything was neat and organized, and complete with wine, fruit and a toothpick, it tasted kind of mundane… But, it took me until I was almost finished eating it to notice. I got a bit emotional b/c of something God spoke to me. Something tells me that is going to happen frequently on this trip...

In just reading this blog, you’d think that I was a really emotional guy, huh? Well… I think I cried a grand total of twice for the longest time… The first was when I was depressed with life back in high school and vowed I’d kill off my emotions and leave my ‘family’ as soon as I could. The second was a bit of an angered slip-up when I almost lost it in ‘fight’ with my parents. I fought back everything and just pretended nothing happened. Fast forward to my two previous relationships… I’ve been described as ‘emotional as a rock,’ and about as stoic as they come.

But, God’s been softening me. First with some friends, and now with all this He’s been doing for me with this Korea-business.

While mulling over my food and getting all choked up, God was showing me how everything has come together on no credit of my own… That during these next three weeks, He’s going to show me just how much He can do for me. Being in another country, unable to speak the language, read the signs or ask people for help is analogous of my life altogether from His perspective. Though some friends might think I came all the way to where I am in my  life and accomplished all that I did, from His perspective, I’ve been as helpless as I’m about to be in Korea. I don’t know what to expect from the environment in Korea and I have no idea how these events planned out for us are going to go… It’s all going to be a trip of grace. In no way, shape or form could I possibly take credit for what I’m about to embark on; it would have been impossible on my own. I ask myself, what have I done for God that could measure up to what He’s done for me even prior to this trip? What could I possibly do for Him that could compare with what He’s about to do for me? I have no answer… I have nothing. I am totally undeserving of this, and yet He had crafted this into the plan for my life before I was even born. If I have ever known what grace is, this is the heavenly lottery. I’m about to spend three weeks in nothing but grace.

Anyways… Some journal-keeping. Much has happened since the orientation retreat. When I left, I thought I would focus on Grace Retreat, then it’d be life-as-normal and smooth sailing until Korea. Well, it was focus on Grace Retreat, and then I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Yeah, I was still going to make it to Korea… But, several things came up. I got behind on rent, but I was thinking I would fix things once I got back and things would actually settle down for a little. Came around and kicked me in the arse pretty hard… Some details left out, but essentially, I was on track to coming back to the US and not having a home to stay in. To top it off, my bank account was depleted, and pay from my second job was offset and I wouldn’t be seeing any money for a while. Add in some other ‘events’ that arose which might have had some serious consequence, and I was doing pretty crappy. Around this time, I started hearing some lies being told to me. As if I weren’t beating myself up enough, here I have little voices telling me that I’m a failure, and that I don’t deserve the friends I have, and that I can’t fix my own life. Well, I don’t and I can’t…

But, those ‘little voices’ always ignore God’s perspective on things. The devil can only show you your past, but only God can tell you about your future. God was probably just laughing, waiting, thinking, ‘wait until you see what I’m about to do…’ So, the showdown between the two began...

Last week was… crazy. Like, a plane about to crash (uhh… knock on wood. :P ). Not only did I have to figure out how to get an embarrassingly large sum of money together, I had to take care of some major projects around the house and then worry about that ‘event’ coming to claim its justice on me. Toss in two customer’s guitars that needed to get done before I left, and I had a lot of my plate. The best I could hope for was getting all these loose bits together and just being able to make it to Korea, albeit, empty-handed.

Well, I had a lot of people praying for me… And a lot of people lending me funds. I got that sum together… Two days before departure. I got a stroke of genius in fixing one of the major house-projects, and I managed to get that knocked out, and the other went more smoothly than I thought it would have. The guitars? Well, the first one almost went arse-up. I screwed up… Broke a lead on a pickup which necessitated a rewind. Probably means nothing to anyone reading this, but essentially, I had to reconstruct a pickup, by hand. Pickups are not wound by hand – and this is because that would take hours upon hours to do, and it would not get done right. Well, I tried. I spent hours upon hours… And it didn’t come out right. I had to order a new pickup. The guitar was doomed to wait in the shop for three weeks. What happened? Well, I talked with the owner, telling him I screwed up… How’d he respond? He smiled at my honestly and effort, shrugged and told me that I should cancel the pickup order and toss in a spare pickup I have lying around. Umm… Wow. Just, wow. Meanwhile, I had received another Les Paul with a cracked headstock. The crack was nasty – mostly because it wasn’t a complete break (this makes it harder to fix), but also because the way it was cracked made it impossible to break it completely (the truss rod was holding it together). Add in a customer who did not want to pay much for the repair, but wanted a top-notch job done with finish work that would have cost well-beyond the amount of the quote… Yeah. I had bad feelings about being able to repair the guitar as it was, but add in a potentially troublesome customer, and I almost didn’t want to take the job, especially with a four-day deadline. I happened to have a good pickup to toss in that first guitar, and got that all wrapped up by T-2 days… Then I started on the second, with two days for a fix. Ick? The repair itself went… well, surprisingly well. I had it finished and ready to go the day before departure (yesterday). Both customers picked up their guitars yesterday… The first was super-pleased and though *I* cringed at looking at the bill, he was more than happy to pay it. The second ended up just being really cautious about the repair because he knew nothing about guitars – the guitar was actually his son’s, and he was just doing his best to get it fixed well. He was satisfied, paid and then complimented me on being so organized. Bang! Not only did I have two less things to worry about, I had some spending money for Korea. To top it off, with those two repairs, I came about one major repair bill away from my business breaking even. That was a pretty good feeling…

All those things put together are things I have come to expect from God. I know He will take care of me. What I did not expect, though, was all that happened in the last two days. Though I wasn’t going on missions or anything, and as I would have seen it, going on a seemingly ‘selfish’ trip (the whole thing is for my benefit; I’m not going for the benefit of others)… So many friends came out to send me off! First, dinner on Tuesday (T-2 days) and then hanging out on Wednesday. I got texts, e-mails, IMs and good wishes from everybody. People were giving me advice from left to right… And I was also getting envelopes from many, including someone’s really generous mom (I only met her once!). In two days, I went from having no money at all, to having all my bills paid in advance and then having the recommended amount of spending money for the trip. God was merciful in my catching up and past mistakes… But, this was nothing but grace. And then just the amount of love my friends had shown me… It’s a bit overwhelming. I really have better friends than one could ask for.

Packing… Getting the luggage ended up being an ‘event’ in itself… I was able to borrow luggage from friends, and though my day dedicated to packing ended up being a day dedicated to fixing guitars, buying some things for the trip and having friends over to send me off, I managed to get it all packed (it was 1:30am by then). Another cool thing was that I was not sure whether I was going to be able to bring a guitar on the trip (sounds stupid, I know, but if you know me, you’d know I don’t do very well without a guitar around). I was thinking about bringing my Steinberger, which I hate, and pretty much decided it would be more trouble than it was worth… But, one thing led to another, and I ended up being able to borrow Brock’s Baby Taylor for the trip. God was definitely spoiling me at this point.

Another bit… Remember those books we were supposed to read? Remember how I had no money? One of the other adoptees (no idea who, or even if they were one of the ones going) bought me the books straight from Amazon. One got to me last Friday; the others showed up on Monday. Again, God was taking care of everything… Even some of the bits I had neglected in favor of some of the more ‘pressing’ ones.

Steven stayed over so he could take me to the airport the next morning, and we briefly ‘slept’ before getting up and heading over to BWI. I barely slept, really. We got to BWI from my house in like, 40 minutes, including time to get gas. We checked in, and then grabbed a bite to eat and just sat around and chilled… I think we got to BWI at 6:40am, though my flight out was at 9:40am. Just a little early. :P Eventually, we said our ‘byes’ (ok, well, ‘peace’s) and I went off through security. I sat and played guitar at the terminal for the last hour before boarding. Already thankful for having that thing around…

"Yo, mayun.... What are you doing?" 

"Just chillin' before mah flight..."

I fell asleep while the flight was still boarding, and when I woke up, we were already more than halfway to O'Hare [all of us except Raia were meeting at O'Hare to fly out together]. The plane was pretty tiny and cramped, and I had a seat which made my carry-on inaccessible. Oh well… Got to the infamous O'hare ok and met up with MeriKim and David just fine. Pastor Park and the two Nicks weren’t far behind… We checked in together, but it was too late to get seats together. We grabbed a quick bite, and then went through security.

Korean Air... 

Grabbing our 'bite'...

I wasn't really hungry, so I just got a milkshake.

Then… Korean Air. Wow! I imagine most of the larger planes are like this, but they seemed to have thought of everything. They give you a little pillow, travel things (toothbrush and stuff), headphones and a blanket. And gosh. The flight attendants. In Steven’s words, ‘they’re all gorgeous’… And quite gorgeous they are… Very anxious to help, and very gentle in doing so… Quite a bit different than the American ones. :P Steven wanted me to get a picture of them… Haha… I’ll see if I can sneak one without seeming like a creeper…...............

Headphones, slippers, toothbrush, toothpaste, a blanket and a pillow... 

I got an aisle seat, near the exit, so I had plenty of legroom, but was also right next to the kitchen. I got bumped quite a bit... 

Stretching out the feets... It took me about an hour to figure out that I had a table in the armrest. Ended up being a pretty good seat.

Anyways. Yes. I think we are all caught up now… And if you actually made it through all that, I commend you. The posts from here on out will probably be more pics and less words, so don’t stop reading, now! Haha…