“One thing that comes to my mind though,” Isaac says thoughtfully. “You seem to be focused on death and dying all the time. I would rather focus on showing the love of God to people. I want to tell them about the love of Jesus and his gospel, not be fixated on death and where we all end up. The gospel is about love,” Isaac stressed.
“Yes, the gospel is a message about the love of God,” Adam agreed. “But that message is rooted in the death of Jesus. Forgiveness and redemption would not be possible if it were not for the death of Jesus. Even the often quoted John 3:15-17 stresses the sacrifice and love of Jesus; but it also tells us how we can escape death and obtain eternal life.
Life and how to keep it, is one interest all humanity shares. Since death figures so prominently with life, death is unavoidably part and parcel with life. If you have one you don't have the other. It is through death, that the love of God is displayed to the world. It is through death, that his love found its way to us.”
“Well how does this great conspiracy you keep talking about affect the love of God?” Isaac asked exasperatedly. “How does my belief in having an immortal soul affect the death of Jesus?”
“Your misunderstanding doesn't affect the death of Jesus at all,” Adam continued to explain. “But your misunderstanding of humanities true nature does affect how you interact with those who you say you want to show God's love to. If you are unaware of their potential now, as well of their future potential, you may expect them to make unrealistic choices based on your misconception of how humanity gains eternal life and what will happen to them if they don't.”
“Give me an example of what you mean. I don't see how being wrong about the mortality of our soul could hinder us in showing the love of Jesus to people,” Isaac said emphatically.
“In school did you get any instruction on doing outreach to people who didn't know Jesus? Adam asked curiously.
“Oh yes, we did that a lot,” Isaac replied. “We called it outreach training, or discipleship class. The instructor would run us through all sorts of different scenarios. We did lots of role playing in those classes. It was good to imagine some of the different excuses people would come up with for not accepting Jesus.
As Christians, it is vital we bring the love of Jesus to those who are lost. They need him so badly and it's up to Christians to reach them, but there are so many out there that don't seem to recognize their need for Jesus or the salvation he brings. They are in danger of being in hell's fires for the rest of eternity. ‘Behold the fields are white, ready for harvest’,” Isaac's voice crackled with emotion as he talked about the lost souls of humanity.
“Let’s do some role playing,” Adam suggests. “It may be easier to address any doctrinal inconsistencies, while we are actually practicing. I will be the unconverted newcomer and you can be you.”
“OK,” Isaac replied. Feeling confident in his abilities, Isaac seemed motivated to put into practice his outreach talents through role play. “But I want to be an aid worker in a refugee camp. I will be one of the nurses, no wait, I will be a trauma evacuation technician, flying in a medevac chopper. That way I can cover a wider area and interact with a broader diaspora of people.”
“Ya, that job may let you see a wider range of people,” Adam agreed. “And it does sound exciting, it is sure to impress people back home, but it may not give you much time to build a relationship with the people you are there to serve. It would be hard to have a meaningful relationship with someone who is so close to death that they need to be evacuated to be saved. It seems to me that it would produce a very one sided conversation, as the sick person would likely be preoccupied with staying alive.
Besides, being so hopped up on drugs, or in such pain, they would hardly be thinking straight, even if coherent. I would think it best to be in a role where you can interact with people when they are relaxed and have time to think and ponder the life altering topics you are discussing.”
“Oh, I didn't think of it in that way. I wanted to be in a role that addressed people’s most urgent needs,” Isaac replied thoughtfully. “Helping them through a trauma, or an emergency, seemed like the best place to be. So what should I do there to help, pass out food and water?”
“Well I'm not sure either, I've never been in a refugee camp,” Admitted Adam. “And I don't think there are many people who get medevacked out of those camps anyway. I think for the most part if they get sick or hurt, they are just left there to die.”
“I suppose your right. Those camps sound like unpleasant places to end up,” Isaac thoughtfully agreed. “Hey, how about if I was an ESL teacher, that would be helpful to the people there who are trying to immigrate to an English speaking country and it would give me the time to build a rapport with the students and their families.”
“Good idea, an ESL teacher it is. I will be one of your students trying to improve my English,” Adam said, starting to imagine the kind of refugee he would be playing. “I'll be Ting, a refugee from North Korea, he escaped northwards into China, but has ended up in the Mae La refugee camp in Thailand, along the border with Myanmar.”
“How do you know about that stuff?” Isaac was surprised by Adam's quick response.
“I told you earlier,” Adam said with a smile. “You can't judge a book by the cover. The good radio stations have a lot of interesting and informative programs and with this job; I have a lot of time to listen to them.”
“OK,” Isaac agreed warily. “I'll be the missionary ESL teacher and you can be Ting, the refugee from North Korea.”
“Ooh tank you, Mr. Isak sur. Tat wus a verwy good lesson. You come my hows for food. Clas over for today. Yu come, we tok abot stuff,” Adam hollered in his best broken English.
They had been going down the long steep hill for a while now and were still a long ways from the bottom, the engine brake oscillating from loud to obnoxious keeping the rig at a manageable speed. It would be difficult to stop the truck on the hill as it would take quite some distance, at least an eighth of a mile to safely. Adam was watching the road ahead as far as he could; constantly planning ways to avoid any obstacle that they should encounter as stopping in time may not be a viable option.
“I hav questons fo u abowt yo God. I wont to go Canada an need to no abowt yo Kristan holiday an beleefs. Plees come, eet food, an tok.”
“It would be my pleasure to come and talk with you,” Isaac replied sincerely. “I have some yummy food treats that came in a care package from home, let me go get them and we can share them as we talk.”
“Tat good, I like yumy kare food,” Adam continued in his broken English spiel.
“Maybe we could do without the broken English and bad accent,” Isaac complained. “I get the picture of who Ting is and it's hard enough to hear in here without having to guess at what you’re saying as well,” Isaac hollered at Adam.
“No problem. I don't think that I could keep up with the acting anyway,” Adam said, relieved to be free from the vocal acting part of Ting's character.
“How about I talk in my normal English, but you hear it in the broken English of Ting? It will sort of be like hearing in tongues rather than speaking in them.”
“That would be better for me,” Agreed Isaac. “I'll imagine I am hearing Ting the whole time.
So how do I get to your house Ting? I don't know where you live,” Isaac said looking at Adam intently.
“It is hard to describe as there are no signs for the streets and allies. Me and a couple other men have a small house above a shop-front in a back ally. It would be easier if you came with me the first time, so you don't get lost,” Ting replied in Adam’s much better English.
“OK. We will have to stop by my house first for the treats, and then go on to your place,” Isaac replied, keeping in character and staying with the plot.
“Here we are. This is what I call home, for now,” Adam makes a sweeping gesture with his right hand across the windshield of the truck.
“I could have gone to South Korea, but I want to get to Canad
a. I was told that I might have a better chance of immigrating as a refugee to Canada from this camp, rather than from South Korea. My applications are being processed now, but it takes time and the policies are always evolving and changing.
Please sit down and I will put on some tea to go with your appetizers. Supper may not be fancy but it will be filling.”
“Here are the treats from my care package,” Isaac said, pretending to hand something to Adam.
“We can eat them before the meal. So, you have gotten me curious, what questions do you have about Christianity,” Isaac boldly asks. “How can I help you?”
“I have many questions about your Christian culture,” Ting explained. “I have heard random bits about Canada since I was a small boy. My Dad was a respected professor and nuclear scientist in North Korea. Ever since North Korea acquired Canadian nuclear technology, he was a fan of Canada and liked to tell my family Canadian facts and stories.”
“Wait a minute,” Isaac interjected bluntly. “Canada never sent nuclear technology to North Korea. Canadians, my uncle included, fought against North Korea during the Korean War. There is no way Canada helped North Korea gain nuclear weapons!”
“Things aren't always that straight forward,” Ting said, as Adam wagged his finger at Isaac. “North Korea didn't get the nuclear technology directly from Canada. But if Canada hadn't sold its Cando reactors to India, who used them to produce nuclear weapons, then Pakistan wouldn't have stolen that nuclear weapons technology from India. Who in turn, wouldn't have sold weapons grade nuclear material and know how, derived from Canadian technology, to North Korea. After all this espionage took place, my father always had a warm place in his heart for Canada. He saw Canada as helping to liberate the outcasts of the world, intentionally or not.”
Adam leans back in his driver’s seat as Ting reminisces. “Oh yes, my father saw things differently than most others in our secular, non-religious North Korean society. He was a true man of science and evolution. Until the day my twin brother was hit by a car and killed in front of our house. We were only three years old when he died. My mother was so overcome with grief that she jumped off a bridge to her death, leaving Dad to raise me and my older brother by himself.
Dad was never satisfied with the teachings of evolution when it came to the death of humans. He felt it made our lives so meaningless, if we just died and that was it. Our energy going to fertilizing some flower or weed with no other purpose or future good.
He started studying the origins of the universe and learned science taught that before there was the big bang there was nothing at all. Then something happened that made the big bang boom. He could never learn what that something was. He wanted to know, what started everything before there was anything?
After several years of looking for answers, dad started to go a bit crazy with grief over my mom and brother dying. Along with the stress of his job at the university and raising two rambunctious boys, he started to say things he normally would have not said out loud to others.”
“I can see how he might have been pushed to his breaking point,” Isaac said sympathetically. “What kind of things did he start to say?” Isaac's curiosity was getting the better of him.
“Oh, he would mock his fellow scientists by saying that, everything came from nothing, or he would misquote Marx by saying, if religion is the opium for the masses, then evolution is heroin for the learned.”
Ting is silent for a short while as he remembers his past.
“But what really got us all in trouble was when he kept saying that Kim Il-sung, North Korea's first supreme leader should have learned more from his Presbyterian minister grandfather. That was when our family was relocated to a re-education camp in the northern mountains. We were starving there, forced to memorize and chant state policy and rules. We suffered through mindless work and brutal beatings if we didn't adhere to the smallest rule.”
Adam now fully immersed into Ting’s character, pulls his t-shirt up over his right side ribs and back, exposing a nasty series of scars he had received from crashing his dirt bike when he was in his late teens. “See, the guards would beat us with sticks if we got out of line. They enjoyed their jobs,” Ting complained.
“Sounds like your family fell out of favour with the government. What happened next? How did you end up here?” Isaac was intrigued by Ting's life story, seemingly unaware that it was Adam doing the talking.
“You have to remember that Dad's sanity unraveled slowly,” Ting reminded. “We were in the camp for a year before we started to plan our escape. By then my older brother was the true leader of our family. I was barely fifteen when we got our chance to escape. It is all a blur to me now, running in the snow and cold, heading north, north to more cold, but to the warmth of freedom. I have been running ever since.
It took me three years to get through China to Myanmar. Working at any job I could to get transport and food. Living wherever I could, to keep from getting caught and sent back to North Korea. Almost another year of struggle to get here and now, I am out of winters frozen grip of oppression and I can relax a bit in my spring time of release. Here in this refugee camp, I am the closest to my summertime of freedom in Canada than I have ever been.”
“Well I hate to break the news to you but summer in Canada is short, but we make up for it with freedom. It's not utopia, but it's pretty good,” Isaac boasts. “Do you live here with your dad and brother? I haven't seen them at classes. How is their English?”
Adam bows his head with a sad dis-meaner. “My father and brother died escaping. They both sacrificed themselves to save me. If it hadn't been for their acts of selflessness, I would have died a long time ago,” Ting's voice was quivering with emotion and Isaac could tell he was on the verge of tears.
Tenderly Isaac said. “We don't have to talk about it now; we can give it a rest if you want to.”
Adam shakes his head and sits up straighter in his driver’s seat as he gently applies the brakes to slow the trucks decent. “No. I want to tell you. It will bring honour to them if I do,” Ting says with optimism in his cracking voice. Adam takes in a long deep breath. “My brother was the first one to go. We were almost to the Chinese border. A couple of days more and he might have made it all the way here with me.
We had to cross a frozen river. It wasn't very wide, ten meters or so. I was supposed to follow in dad's footsteps on solid ice and then my brother followed behind me in my footsteps. Dad stepped over a fallen tree, frozen in the ice, it was too high for me to get over, and so I went around it. I broke through a patch of thin ice and into the bone chilling water. I couldn't hold onto the edge of the ice with the fast current pulling at me legs. Dad was too far away to get to me and I was going under.
My older brother jumped in behind me, pushing me upwards to dad's reaching hands and forced himself deeper into the cold dark water. Dad barely got to me in time to grab my sleeve before my brother and I both disappeared under the ice. What Dad did to warm me up, I can't say. I only know that when I woke up, I was warm and dry, but my brother was gone.
Dad didn't, or couldn't talk again after that day. I think that the losses he suffered in his life had finally overwhelmed him. We walked for two more days, stealing any food we could find. Then we came to the border with China. North Korea had armed guards at the crossings and they were checking for permits. We hid in the bushes and saw two defectors, hiding under the deck of a truck, get shot and killed for their efforts. I didn't know how we would get across safely. Dad just watched the guards as they checked everyone.
It was almost dark before Dad got up from our hiding spot and motioned for me to follow him. We walked out onto the road and joined up with a group of families. There was about fifteen or twenty of us as we headed towards the border check point.
Some of the guards had left for the barracks and now there were only three manning the crossing. We waited in line at the crossing towards the end of the group, but not the last. Dad was pushing me into the guy in front
of me as he was showing his papers to the guard. Then just as the papers were being handed back to him, dad yells for me to ‘GO’. Giving me a huge push, shoving me into the guy and the guard. All three of us fell to the ground, papers flying everywhere in the dwindling light.
Then dad starts to run around like a crazy man and yelling his head off, all of the guards start to chase him down the road back into North Korea. As they disappeared into the darkness, I heard shots from a machine gun. The rest of the group and I quickly fled over the border crossing and got into China. The Chinese guards were so busy trying to see what was going on, they completely ignored us. If it hadn't been for my brother and dad, I never would have gotten out of there. My freedom came at their expense,” Ting was beginning to choke up talking about his dad and brother. Adam wiped his eyes with the back of his hand.
“I am truly sorry for your loss Ting. You have suffered a lot in your life already; I hope that I can help bring you some piece of mind. When you’re ready, I will try to give you all the answers you need,” Isaac sits thoughtfully quiet, waiting for Ting to be ready to continue.
Chapter 19
Show Them Love