Last week of ministry

Once again, I can't believe how fast time flies. My time here is almost over; I'm going home in about a week. That's crazy. But I'm not going to think about how much I'll miss everyone here. At least not now.

So last sunday our team had our presentation in church, which consisted of three songs - 'Beautiful One,' 'Savior King,' and 'Beautiful Things.' It went pretty well, although I was one of the two singers, and it was a little cringe-worthy hearing myself over the microphone, especially when it came time to hit the higher notes. The other two guys shared their testimony and words of wisdom from the Bible.

On Monday, we had our last chance to rehearse for the Christmas program for Sunday service, but things didn't go so well. There's this new bunch of 10-year-old rowdy boys who have been completely disrupting things at youth group - they fight each other all the time, they kick and punch girls, and they scream about everything. So we had to sit and write down rules for youth group, and I could see how upset the original kids of the group were; they really didn't like the newcomers. In fact, I think 'hate' was the word used a lot.

At first I sympathized with the new boys. I mean, they're boys. And you never know what kind of background they come from or what they're going through right now. But I guess that's still no excuse to hit a girl or be completely disrespectful toward everyone. And just seeing how frustrated and upset the other kids were, I kind of agreed with the youth group leader on banning the boys for a week or two. You could sense the huge sighs of relief when the boys finally left.

On Tuesday, we went to Birmingham for a team outing lunch, but we couldn't decide on what to eat. I really don't get why some people always want to eat at Subway. For every meal. Don't they get sick of it?? Finally we settled for German burgers and fried potatoes, which were really good. Then we separated and gave out tracts near the German Christmas market. People were pretty receptive; I talked to this guy who told me about his friend going to Singapore every three months to visit his girlfriend. I also talked to this guy who migrated here from Hong Kong, and he kept telling me to do good to people and life would be alright.

Thursday was my last Prayer Emphasis Day, and it was a day of learning. I learned about the reality of the situation in North Korea, and how the concentration camps there for political prisoners are as bad as Nazi Germany's. It was quite shocking to hear what was actually happening there, and it was an eye-opener. We were told about this Korean American guy who went to North Korea to proclaim the gospel in an outright manner, and he got beaten to an inch of his life. And he still wants to go back to preach to the people, who are starving because the government's first priority is the 'royal family' and the army.

It just made me think. After hearing about all these stories of injustices going on around the world, what can we do about it? What are we supposed to do? Simply pray? Give money? We obviously can't go to every part of the world and help solve every problem there is. That's only up to God.

Saturday we went tracting again, but it wasn't so successful. Maybe because it was evening time, and there were a ton of people there drinking German beer, eating German food, and being merry. We found lots of tracts on the ground, some ripped into pieces, some folded, some crumpled... and it was a little discouraging. So we gave up and went home after an hour. At least it wasn't an all bad day. Before that, we watched the new Narnia movie, which was pretty good. I was a little surprised by how... clear the Christian message came across.

The part about Eustace not being able to turn himself back from a dragon to a human... but he could do it with Aslan's help... and it hurt when he transformed, but it was a good pain... And the part about the children knowing Aslan in the Narnia world so they could know him in their own world... Is it just me, or was that totally Christian? I mean, I know the books are written by a Christian author and they have a Christian message, but I'm just surprised Hollywood allowed the message to be so overt. At least it came across in a good way.