The Words of the Inglis Family
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The Words of the Inglis Family |
Julian kindly wrote out the directions for us, and three of us Mike Leone, Yuji and myself set off in a taxi for the Sambong bus station. The cab drove through central Seoul and deposited us safely at the terminal. The terminal was surrounded by these young army men and young schoolgirls jumping up and down to loud music. What was going on? Well, they were playing a video game called stomp, pretty unusual but it looked like fun.
We got our tickets to Sorak Myun and being hungry dived into the Lotteria, a fast food joint. 2 bulgogi burgers and 1 shrimp burger - very tasty.
The bus took about 1 1/2 hours, I noticed that all the buildings were covered in advertising and I mean every one. Covered. Also the bus drivers are pretty wild, red lights didn't seem to matter. After leaving Chungpyung City the bus starts to get more into the mountains, which are pretty steep and quite pretty. Chungpyung Lake is actually manmade by a dam on the Pukwan river. 10 minutes later we arrived at Sorak Myun.
No taxis were available when we arrived so we decided to take refreshments in a little smoky coffee house up the street. To get there we passed some Japanese and some Africans leaving. We wondered what the locals thought of all the comings and goings.
The coffee was good though the surroundings a bit odd - black leather booths, yellow wallpaper, a propane heater in the middle of the floor with a kettle on top, a wall clock with a bird and a fish tank with no fish, and you couldn't see out of any of the frosted or painted windows.
Then we got the taxi and made it up to Chungpyung. Mike had told me the palace was immense, but I didn't think it was too big or out of proportion. Actually I rather liked it, the tree of heart in front being very beautiful.
I wanted to get up the hill as quickly as possible, so I ran up. On the way up when I needed a break I seemed to bump into someone coming down, so we stopped and chatted. The water of life was nice, it reminded me of Lourdes, in fact the whole place did. One disappointment was seeing the water piped in.
I felt God was telling me to get to the top, so I kept going and only briefly paused at the last tree to keep going on to the top of the mountain. And I'm glad I did. Around the top are these beautiful won jun's, apparently not ours, though I did think this would be a suitable spot. The chi was very good. As I arrived at the very top the sun broke through the clouds and I felt very close to God. On the way down I stopped for a longer period at one of the won jun's and very strongly felt the spirit of Young Jin. Again the sun shone through the clouds, very brightly yet very briefly. The first four words out of his mouth were not repeatable on this family forum. I could feel he wanted to be with Americans, perhaps even to come back to America. I felt a lot of sadness, and all I could do was to encourage him to keep going, one day at a time, and that he would get there.
On the way down I definitely felt he wanted to be with the American group. I almost tripped on a vine lying across the path. It symbolized a chain and I had to break it. I couldn't with my hands, so I ate through it with my teeth. Breaking it was good.
On the way down my only observation was that the tree of all things was not very healthy. Reflecting something?
I cannot share very much about the service that the American group attended as I was mostly running around doing things. But I was impressed with Mrs. Hyo Nam Kim's speech. Very basic but good spirituality 101 - what you bind on earth you bind in heaven. I must confess I do not buy into her theory of evil spirits crawling all over my flesh like ants, Father has never taught that, but the rest of it was very good.
Most of the ministers were uplifted and inspired, though quite a number flagged at the end as it did go on rather long.
Tomorrow is the blessing.