this past weeked, i experienced something so tangible and heartwrenching, yet it was only a small part of the real-world situation.
i went to CBC's family retreat which was themed "go and do likewise" for the youth. going into the retreat, i didn't even know the theme, but i expected what would normally happen at a retreat- the usual rededications and spiritual revival that would last only a short time before the routine of life caught up with me once again. but this one was different. and it was a good different. it was definitely something that i had never experienced or expected.
friday when i arrived, everything seemed pretty normal in the sense of a retreat, but let me tell you. murrieta hot springs is beautiful. it wasn't like our retreats where it's all nature-y. it was like a resort. and it was so pretty. i even enjoyed the smell of the sulfur. i soaked it in.
beads for thought
friday night began this game of intense bead-trading. and it was such a good illustration. the game started out with everyone having a bag of beads and the object of the game was very simple. get as many beads as possible. along with the beads came a coin where you could bet on heads/ tails in order to earn more beads. as the game progressed, the people with the most beads got more privileges. they could refuse to flip with someone with fewer beads. the "squares", as they were called, received items that they could trade for more beads with the "circles" and "triangles". but for me, as the game went on, the more stupid i thought it to be. because the beads were not initially evenly distributed, i was already doomed for failure. i had given up. in order to shake things up even more, there was a pawn shop and a lottery so that people could jump to different levels. saturday afternoon, the game ended. we had played through lunch, and they hadn't let us out to eat. the people with the most beads sat upon this platform with chairs and tables. at each seating was a jamba, a burrito and salad. they even had people fanning them with palm leaves. in the middle level were the "circles" who had earned a medium amount of beads. they received a sandwich and a bottle of water. but for us "triangles", we were given one dinner roll and some discolored water.
what pastor eugene kim had taught us was that even the "squares" in the real world earned as low as $30,000. that would be considered frugal living in our society. he had taught us that we had to share our blessings. he offered up a really good analogy. the sea of galilee is full of life and, in contrast, the dead sea lacks it. because the sea of galilee has an opening it will not grow "fat" in blessings and become "dead" like the dead sea. in the same way, we must share our wealth with the poor. we must learn not to pity or ignore the poor, but to help them.
god hates it
when we think about god, we usually think about what he loves instead of what he hates. maybe we don't even think about the fact that he hates anything. god hates injustice upon his people. pastor eugene shared about some really sick things that are going on all over the world, focusing on forced child prostitution. in cambodia girls as young as 8 are bought by brothels and are handed over into the world of prostitution. they have no where to escape. pastor eugene had shared that the kids at his church are raising $100,000 in order to free 100 girls from the brothels. and it is, indeed, our duty, in a sense, to care for those that are less fortunate than us.
lots of non-christian organizations do these types of things to feel good or for "good works", but what we do for the oppressed and the poor, we do for god.
so let's not sit around lamenting and sympathizing for these people. let's do something about it. lets share our blessings and use what god has given us to help those that are not as lucky as us. pastor eugene's church is doing something. so lets go and do likewise. | 
