The End of the Beginning - final post (for now!)

March 16, 2007 - August 22, 2007



This is short and my last post as I’m too emotional to really believe I’m leaving and cannot bring myself to close out this blog.

Thanks to all of you who have been so encouraging to me while I’ve been in S. Korea. I have so cherished your prayers, posted comments, our emails, skype and iChat ‘chats’, and letters. I admit I’ve been lonely and homesick on occasion but knowing your friendship and my eventual homecoming kept our hearts knitted as one through Jesus Christ (this is what my dad and mom always tells us when we get down!).

To Dahae -- you are our sister in Christ and adopted into our family. You have been so encouraging to me and Iryna. We pray for your 'homestay' in America soon!! We will miss you but know we also will think of you often. Thanks for all that you did for our family.

Words cannot express our families love and the fellowship we've experienced with the Willing family. We'll always be connected as ONE in Christ. I could take up pages of how you have blessed our family! WE LOVE YOU!!!

The scripture verses Dad suggested I close with are the following;

“And they said to Him, ‘We have here only five loaves and two fish… and He took the five loaves and he two fish, and looking up to heaven, He blessed and broke and gave to the disciples; so they all ate … now those who had eaten were about 5,000 men …’ ” Matthew 14:17-21

We came here with nothing but our experience as a homeschool family and we gave all that we had, believing it to be very meager at times, and left the results to Him; This sustained us when we constantly struggled with ‘are we doing enough?’

“And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance, for you serve the Lord Christ.” Colossians 3:23-24

And we were reminded over and over – including while Mr. Wakefield was here – that we serve an Audience of One ;


An nyong he Kaysayoh South Korea – You will always be in our heart and God willing, we will all be back soon.

This may be the end of the beginning ... but I pray it is also TO BE CONTINUED ...

In Christ,

Sarah

Mr. and Mrs. Wakefield visit from Texas

Wow – time has flown by since our return from vacation August 5th. We leave on august 22nd and this is really difficult as we reflect on our time here yet we are excited to see how God will use this experience when we return to Texas.

Mr. and Mrs. Wakefield arrived on August 9th for a series of conferences. My dad asked to add the following comments;

“It’s been over 1 year since I have been able to hear Norm teach. I will never let that much time pass in the future. I have been blessed to attend 11 sessions and over ~15 hrs. of teaching. Some new, some I’ve heard before – all were tremendously impacting. As I told John Willing and others, hearing Norm speak is like listening to wonderful classical music – you want to listen over and over and the melody just stays in your head and heart.

It is rare I don’t get emotional reflecting on my self centered and sinful life when I listen to Norm. I am not alone. There is not a single session where people, men and women alike, don’t come to Norm with tears in their eyes as God’s spirit has touched their lives to reveal His Son, the Cross, and His blood.

There are too many stories to mention, but I have to share one; A new family was considering homeschooling. The mother was a Christian but the father was not and had all the typical reasons not to homeschool. Many parents had witnessed to this father to no avail. There was an all day session with Norm on Korean Independence day, so this family came, as did the father since this was a holiday. Actually many fathers were in the SRO crowd of over 300 people. At the end the mother came to one of the homeschool pastors with tears in her eyes saying that her husband has agreed to allow her to homeschool. His comment (as translated to me) “I am not sure what is going on, but something different is happening in homeschooling”. Praise the Lord!

In addition to this all day session, Norm spoke to over 1,500 at a church Seoul, then to a church service (the church where Brad is getting married September 15th), to John Willing’s men’s group going through Walking Worthy, and to our high school co op families.

As I type this he is in southern Korea where he has a very demanding schedule over 4 days.

God willing, we will have one last visit on the Wednesday morning as we are scheduled to return (22nd) and they leave the next day.

Norm Wakefield (his 5th trip I believe) will be written into the history of Korean homeschooling as the Spirit of Elijah brought to the people and for generations they will be praising his name. I am so blessed to have just been a witness to God’s power in full display through Norm. ” /ap

Well, it’s hard to add much only that I agree!

I have also been blessed to hear Mr. Wakefield’s messages as I sat in on almost all of them. One of the most impactful to me personally was Mr. Wakefield’s application of “do unto others …” with respect to my relationship with boys: I should see them as the future husband of another sister and act accordingly, and pray my fellow sisters will do the same in the presence of my future husband.

Now I have to pray about my final post. I still cannot believe it!