city of God

As flawed and emotionally inexpressive as my dad can be, I really am in awe of his wholehearted, unshakable faith in God.

My dad first accepted Christ when he moved to New York. Living in the gritty slums of Queens & Brooklyn (back before the areas were gentrified and hipsterrific), my parents left their comfortable homes and friends back in Korea to be confronted with the harsh reality of urban life. It wasn't exactly the American dream that they had in mind. As they tried to adjust living in this foreign place, they saw the ugliest of humanity... my mom getting beat up and punked around by scary Puerto-Rican women, both parents getting held up at gun-point numerous times, and their store getting burned down by gangsters. They had nowhere else to turn but to God.

It's hard to appreciate God when things are good. Not that I'm exactly living the "hard-knock life" out here, but it is different from living in lazy, sunshine-filled California. Something about that place makes one feel a bit too complacent. I lost my will and urgency to pray. I was spiritually stagnant. As reluctant as my parents were in sending me 'cross country, the only thing that really compelled them to letting me go was this underlying hope. Their hope for me to find God in a dirty city of despair and desolation.