Preface: You will find that some of the words in this introduction are highlighted. Please move your mouse over or click the highlighted word to reveal a small popup that will give you more context as you read. Their order of importance is determined by their color:
“Heavenly Father, please use me to do your will. It would be my honor. Thank you for this opportunity to be alive at this time. I promise to do your will…” – 1998
At 13 years old I had found God and I became quite the serious young man.
The first several years of my existence on Earth, however, I was an utterly mischievous child constantly on the prowl for new adventures. From orchestrating how we’d raise steal enough money to buy the semiautomatic BATTERY POWERED bb-gun, to deciding where we’d stash our Sports Illustrated Swimsuit collections and fireworks, my fellow young explorers and I were always involved in things we knew we weren’t really supposed to be doing. What could you expect; we were children of expatriates, and South East Asia was for our conquest.
The first 13 years of my life I was not a good student. I could barely even read until about the fourth grade, and most embarrassingly, I stuttered when I read out loud. I was on the chubby side and was always somewhat emotionally sensitive. Below is a picture of what I looked like when I was 10 years old. Behind that innocent smile was the cunning of a fox!
My parents primed us children well to accept a life of spirituality and faith before sending us from Guangzhou, China to boarding school in Seoul, Korea. They had each of us three children read the full 400+ pages of the Divine Principle in 40 days. They explained to us that this would be a spiritual condition and that it was like adding money to our spiritual bank accounts. Don’t ask me why, but that concept made perfect sense to me.
Ten pages a day was the condition. It was hard to do, especially for me, but I did it even though I didn’t really understand anything. I did, however, grasp that sex before marriage was a bad thing and that Adam and Eve really screwed up, literally. Notwithstanding, the seed was planted and this whole spirit-world thing really seemed important.
About a week before my 13th birthday, I walked into the Sun Hwa Dormitory in white baggy jeans and a red sports jersey with two suitcases. It would be my first day at boarding school in Korea. Unlike the other Blessed Children that moved here from the States who knew several of the others, I walked in knowing no one but my sister. Walking through the hallway and up the stairs to my room I quietly assessed everyone that I passed. By the top of the stairs, I realized to my delight that I was the coolest kid there, and with a silent grin I thought, “Sweeeeet… this is going to be easy.”