College was finally over and I walked across the stage at Spring Arbor University to receive that ever so expensive piece of paper that said I was smart enough to live in the real world. As most of my fellow graduates were busy celebrating and stressing out about what to do next, I was all ready to board a plane headed back to the Land of the Morning Calm (South Korea). I would take my first teaching job at the very same school that I graduated from a mere 4 years earlier. There was no doubt that I was excited and feeling like I was at the top of the world. But more importantly, I felt like I was finally going home after a crazy college experience. The first time I arrived in Korea with my parents, we arrived at small little Gimpo International Airport. I was just a young teenager with immense fear and curiosity. This time was different, I was an adult and super excited to start a new life and it was exciting to arrive at the newly opened mega airport of Incheon. South Korea was changing rapidly and the economy continued to explode up. The small traditional little houses I once saw litter the city landscape were now replaced with super tall apartment complexes that made the city of Seoul look like a massive chaotic domino set. My years that followed in the classroom had its share of ups and downs but there was no doubt that I loved the kids and teaching Social Studies. I was always a little disappointed when students didn’t feel the same passion for politics, maps and dead people like I did. But I enjoyed working hard to keep students engaged. The student I taught were literally from all over the world and listening to their perspectives on various topics was always fascinating. But most of the time, no matter where they were from, the students all shared the same disdain towards their classes and were united in their belief in sleeping through my classes. However, regardless of where they were from, they would always sit up if the words “North Korea” were ever strung together. Regardless if NK was a real day to day threat or not, its mere presence nearby was always looming in the back of all of our minds. My passion for North Korea decreased to virtually nothing during my years of college and early in teaching career. Oh sure, I would always take notice of the news when NK was brought up and our school would routinely practice air raid drills and evacuation exercises in the event of an invasion. But even those reminders became the equivalent of a fire drill that most schools in America trudge through. North Korea’s nearby presence no longer became something I cared about or found concern for. Every once in a while a speaker would come to chapel or church and lead us in a prayer for NK. But that was the extent of my spiritual concern. I was happy in my little bubble 20 miles from the NK border. As far as I was concern, my life was too busy and important to be concerned about what was going on up there anyways. I stuck with my teaching and basketball routines. That was much easier than worrying about the mystery up North. The reality was simple; I grew very apathetic or indifferent towards North Korea and the plight of their people as did millions of others. Much of this apathy grew as South Korea became more and more concerned with materialism, travel, education, coffee, plastic surgery, etc. The time that was once spent in praying for NK was replaced and I was caught up in it. I would often take small little road trips with friends up North to the border and observe the vast emptiness of the NK countryside and lob up an obligatory prayer for their nation and figured I did my duty as a good Christian resident of South Korea. But every time I practiced this yearly exercise I purposed in my heart to never ever go there and get involved in the work of North Korea. NK was too complicated and I literally had no interest or desire. I did not hate North Korea, I just didn’t care. There was even a really beautiful girl that I got to know while in Seoul that I really liked but never tried to pursue because she had a heart and desire to be a missionary in North Korea and China. As much as I commended her calling and supported her in any way I could, I just didn’t want to get mixed up with that. I also would be constantly asked to join different groups all over Seoul that prayed and supported NK missions and programs, but I declined them all because I just had other things going on. I basically became like so many other millions of people living in South Korea. NK just became a novelty and an empty threat that very few people took notice of or even worried about. But something was about to change...
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AuthorLuke Elie Archives
June 2018
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