Oasis

written by Deborah Oakley

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2007.  I was living with my parents, trying to get my life back together. That summer, my brother and his family came to spend a week with us.  He and his wife have 4 kids.  It was wonderful being with them!  I’m 4 years older than he and, because of when our birthdays fell, we were 5 years apart in school.  So, I was out of the house before he entered high school.  After that, he and I had spent our adult lives hundreds or thousands of miles apart.  First, I went in the military.  Then he joined.  Then he got out.  Then I got out, then he went back in …  I met his first child when she was 3 months old.  I didn’t see them again until she was 4.

The kids were still quite small then, but they grow up so fast!  When they left to head back home, I stood in the driveway, crying.  “God, will You fix it so my brother and I are in the same place for a season?  I want to know his wife and kids.  I want to be a part of his family.”  I had no idea how that would work out, but I wanted it SO badly!  I put my request in His lap and went on about my business.

I did get a vacation from pain that year.  Some folks in our church were going on a mission trip to Jamaica.  I desperately wanted to go, but there was no way I could afford it.  But, thinking about it reminded me my passport was due to expire that year.  I dismissed the thought.  I didn’t have money to spend on a passport renewal, and I didn’t need it because I certainly didn’t have the money to go anywhere.  But the thought kept coming back, nagging at me.  Finally, I decided maybe it was God, and sent my renewal documents in.  I got my new passport in the mail on a Saturday, just before my old one expired.  When I went to church the next day, one of the people going on the mission trip came up to me.  “Deborah!  We need another person to fill out our team on our mission trip.  Can you go?”

“I’d love to,” I replied, “but I don’t have any money.”

“That’s okay.  Some people from church said they couldn’t go, but they donated money for someone else to go.  We can pay for your trip.”  So, I went to Jamaica.  That was another lesson that stuck with me:  when a thought comes to you, out of the blue, and it won’t go away, pay attention.

Around July 2008, I began to get the feeling things were about to change again.  I didn’t know when, and I didn’t know what, but it seemed like I’d be going somewhere relatively soon.  I was also fairly certain I’d be going overseas.  I stopped making long-term commitments.

“Deborah, can you do … in a few months?”

“Um, I’m not sure.  I will if I’m here.”

“Where are you going?”

“I don’t know.”

“When are you leaving?”

“I don’t know.”

I’m pretty sure folks thought I was a little off.  I didn’t blame them.  I was just happy about finally getting to leave the wilderness.

In September, I got an email from our Associate Pastor.  It didn’t say much.  Only a couple of lines, saying someone was looking for English teachers in South Korea, and please email this person if you’re interested.  I wasn’t.  I wanted to do something like dig wells in the bush of Africa, not teach school in a first-world nation.  I started to delete the email and felt a “NO!!!” rock through me.  Stopped me cold.

“What?  Is this You?  Seriously?  I don’t want to teach school.  You know I’m not all that crazy about kids.”  He didn’t say anything else.  “Okay,” I told Him.  “I’ll respond to this email.  If it’s You, open the door.  If it’s not, close it.  You’re the boss.”  This was on a Tuesday.

I sent a quick email to the person listed, saying I was interested in learning more.  The next day I got an email back, asking me to send my resume and my testimony.  (The teaching positions were in the South Korean Public School System, but Korea Nazarene University had the contract to hire and manage the teachers, and they were recruiting within the Nazarene Church.  They wanted Christians.)  I already had a resume.  I whipped out a quick testimony and sent them off.  I wasn’t really interested, so I didn’t spend too much time on it.  I also didn’t mention it to anyone.  After all, getting a job in another country would surely entail quite a lot of time and hoop jumping, and I had just begun the process.

That Friday I got an email back from them.  “Great!  You’re hired.  Here’s what you need to do to get your teaching visa.”  God opened that door so hard and fast, He almost smacked me in the head with it.  Now, when anyone asks me, “How did you end up in Korea?” I answer, “God sent me an email.”  And yes, I mean that literally.

There were no hoops to jump to get the job, but plenty in getting the proper visa that allowed me to teach in Korea.  I started the process in September and was scheduled to leave in November.

My brother, Bob, was in the Army Band and, at that time, he was deployed to Afghanistan.  His wife and kids were in Tennessee.  I went to visit them in October.  I didn’t want to miss my last opportunity to be with them for who knew how long.  While I was there, Bob skyped in from Afghanistan and told the family, “Guess what?  I know where our next duty station will be.  I’m getting an accompanied tour (meaning the wife and kids would also go) to Korea.  We’re leaving in October 2009.”

The timing was great!  I had a year to get settled in and figure out how to be a teacher (I had zero teacher training), and then my family would be there with me.  In all, I was there November 2008 – January 2013.  Bob and his family were there October 2009 – October 2012.  My mom even came and spent a couple of weeks with us in 2010.  All the way on the other side of the world, and yet it’s a family memory, and not just mine alone.  Only God could work a deal like that!

Korea was only 4 years of my life, and yet that time changed and shaped me more dramatically than any other of my life.

For one thing, I was introduced to eastern/collective thinking.  You wouldn’t believe how helpful that’s been as I’ve studied biblical Hebrew (language and culture) in the past few years!

I think, though, there are 2 primary areas in which He used Korea to shape me:  how I communicate, and how I view people.  Let’s start with viewing people.

There was an epiphanic moment during my first year there.  I was at the university, standing in a common area, people-watching.  It was between classes, so there were students and teachers everywhere.  There were a few factors here that made my people watching different than it had ever been before:

• I had been raised among people of European descent, and that was the basis on which my perception of beauty had developed. There were rarely Asians around, so Asian features were exotic in my eyes.  In a nutshell, the Koreans were all good-looking to my western eyes.  No one got dumped in the “ugly” bin.
• Everyone around me was speaking Korean, so I couldn’t understand what they were saying.
• Korean culture tends to require better dressing than does American culture. (I’d rather be comfortable, but I’m talking appearance, not functionality.)  So, everyone looked, in my eyes, kind of dressed up and sharp.

I was curious about what was going on around me and trying to decipher my environment.  With all the familiar gone, the overall effect was that I wasn’t making the hundreds of little judgments I tended to make about people without realizing it.  I was actually really SEEING the people around me, without the lens of perceptive judgment that had always been with me before.

For instance, say I came across some strangers here in America.  I’d subconsciously make judgements about them based on:

• Their dress: very dressed up in the middle of the day = “a suit doing business” or “she looks to be high-maintenance” or “must be going to a wedding/funeral/etc.”
• Their conversation: intelligent, simple, shallow, interesting, …
• Their accent/dialect: from the south, from the projects, educated or not, …

There are hundreds of little things that, as we interpret what’s going on every day, cause us to put people around us in all sorts of boxes.  (I’m not saying this is all wrong.  It’s part of the way our brains make sense of all the activity and whatnot every day.  I’m just saying it happens.)  It’s not often we’re dropped into the middle of an environment that’s so foreign, we don’t have preconstructed boxes to put people in.  Those are the rare moments when we actually SEE.  Now that I know about that cultural lens (and I know what things look like when it isn’t there), I tend to be more aware of the boxes I put people in, and I’m more likely to let them out on occasion.

The other thing He shaped was how I communicate:  less is more.  Prior to Korea, if someone didn’t understand what I was trying to say, I’d try to think of more and different words to spell it out.  That didn’t work in Korea.  The kids I was teaching didn’t have that much English vocabulary.  When they didn’t understand, the answer was never to come up with more words.  Instead, find a way to simplify what you said.  Less words.  Less complex words.  Just less.

Why did I come back?  God said.  I was okay with that.  It was time.  I truly enjoyed my time in Korea, I made some wonderful friends, and I’ll be forever grateful for the things I learned there.  But, although I enjoyed aspects of teaching, being a school teacher doesn’t make my soul sing (although living as an ex-pat in a foreign environment does).

When I went to Korea, I thought I was finally heading into the Promised Land.  It wasn’t until some time after I got back to the States that I realized Korea was just my Elim.

Then they came to Elim where there were twelve springs of water and seventy date palms, and they camped there beside the waters.  (Exodus 15:27)

Next Series Post:  The Gift of Foreign