Family story:

A foolish father, a foolish pastor

April 16, 2014, Wednesday afternoon.

Today is the 11th birthday of my youngest daughter Karis.

Although we had her birthday dinner with my wife and celebrated her birthday together before she went on business trip, I took Karis and her two siblings to the Pho restaurant we always go before Wednesday night prayer meeting.

I did it because it seemed to be good to have a birthday meal on the day Karis was born.

After I asked Karis’ older sister Yeri to pray for the mean, we ate the noodles together.

I asked a waitress for a lot of onions in a bowl so we could mix with three Vietnamese sauces and four of us, including Karis’ oldest brother Dillon, ate all the onions together.

 I was little bit surprised that even Yeri ate the onions very well.  Haha.

After the meal I took the children to the nearby Korean Market.

I gave Dillon and Yeri $5 and told them to get the fish-shaped buns.

I knew that with $5, they can only get 6 fish-shaped buns.  But I challenged them to try to get 7 of them. Haha.

After I told them, I took Karis and we went to get some crackers.

But Karis got only one cracker that she liked.  So I told her to get one more if she wanted.

After she and I got some crackers, we went to the cashier and paid for the crackers and were waiting in front of the exit.

After a while Dillon and Yeri came out and inside the bag, they got one more fish-shaped bun.

So total numbers of the fish-shaped buns were 7. So I told them “Good job!” Hahaha.

 I drove my car and came to church.  And a person name Mr. Jung called me on my cell phone (I don’t know how he got my cell number).  And he told me that he wanted to attend the Wednesday night prayer meeting at 8pm.

He said he wanted to come to church little bit early and wanted to receive prayer from me.

So I gave him our church direction.

When he came to church I took him to my office and he began to talk a lot of thing from his high school life in Korea.  H said he went to church at that time.  And then he said this and that.

At the end, he asked me whether I could help him with his bus fee ($85) to northern California to see his wife.

At that time, I got up from my seat and walked toward him.  And I laid my hand on his back and prayed for him since the Prayer Meeting time was approaching.

After I lead him to the main sanctuary, I came back to my office and put some cash in the envelope.

And when I went into the main sanctuary, I gave the envelope to one of the church deacons and asked him to give the envelope to Mr. Jung after Prayer Meeting when he would give Mr. Jung ride back to his apartment.

The conclusion is Mr. Jung deceived me.  He lied to me to get some money from me.

I didn’t know until I talked to my church elder.  He told me that Mr. Jung lied to me.

I didn’t know how Elder Yoon knew that Mr. Jung lied to me when he just heard from me about Mr. Jung.

How the elder heard me and knew exactly who he was ... .

After we finished the Prayer Meeting, I drove back home with my children

In the car, I told them that I was deceived by Mr. Jung.  

Then Dillon, who was sitting next to me, said that Mr. Jung would cheat on other church pastors too as he did to me and that if Mr. Jung gets caught by a strong pastor, he would get a scolding.  Haha.

And Karis, who was sitting in the back seat, thickened her voice and said, ‘What does he (Mr. Jung) thinks about our Victory Presbyterian Church?  Victory Presbyterian Church has a law ....’

When I saw Dillon who was sitting next to me, he was smiling big.  Haha.

When I think about Yeri, she already told me to be careful when I told her about Mr. Jung who already called me last Friday.   

Since I didn’t listen to Yeri’s advice, I had nothing to say to Yeri.

The words of Proverbs 12:15 came to my mind: “The way of a fool seems right to him, but a wise man listens to advice.”