Different Ways of Hearing God’s Voice - Lydia Yoon

00:01 - Speaker 1
And then I watched God do it with people in our community and I'm like wow. At first I'm like wait, don't do it. But then that's also what was testing whether I really saw what he did in my life as good, and I started to see the goodness come out from there, even though on the physical and the reality end it was still really, really hard stuff. My name is Lydia Yoon. I am wife to John, mom to four Adeline, hadassah, maya and Zion. I am a co-pastor at the Tria House, which is a new church plant that will be coming up in January. I'm a worship leader, I'm a singer-songwriter and this is my faith-based story.

00:48 - Speaker 2
Welcome to Faithly Stories, the podcast that brings you inspiring tales from conversations with church leaders as they navigate the peaks and valleys of their faith journeys through their ministry work and everyday life. Join us as we delve into their challenges, moments of encouragement and answered prayers. The Faithly Stories podcast is brought to you by Faithly, an online community committed to empowering church leaders, pastors, staff and volunteers. Learn more at faithlyco. Get ready to be uplifted and inspired as we unveil the heart of faith through stories from the front lines of ministry. On the Faithly Stories podcast.

01:30 - Speaker 3
Could you just share a little bit about your faith story Awesome.

01:32 - Speaker 1
My faith story starts with my parents' story. Both of my parents, my mom and my dad. They're first generation in the faith, meaning their parents, you know, were not believers. My mom ended up going to church when she came to the States. She married and then came to the States and her mom, who was a Buddhist, told her to go to church because that's where all the Koreans are.

01:54
My dad was the chipsanyeom, or the deacon who just came to church, because my mom went to church and then would smoke on the rooftop and gather the other dads and drink after church. And then there was a traumatic story where my mom's younger sister passed away early and then he wrestled with life and death for the first time. So he was home alone and then literally radical like Jesus encounter. He came to him, he got saved, baptized in the spirit and called into ministry. All at once Jesus asked him do you love me? Three times and he didn't even know that was in the Bible. So that's pretty cool. So that was the context in which they started to pray for a daughter.

02:34
They picked my name from the Bible, so my brother has a pagan name but I have a Bible name, lydia, and so they picked my name and I was born into that context and again, because my parents, my dad rather, was saved so radically, his faith and spirituality also looked very radical. We started off as a house church in our basement and in our living room and we knocked on the whole church and that was our home and that was church. That was church and literally the mentally ill, the physically ill, spiritually, all these all different kinds of poor people would go through in your house. And what ministry looked like to my parents was literally deliverance wild, you know, casting out demons, healing the sick. We had cancer and AIDS patients being healed. That was normal Christianity to me.

03:27
And even as a child, I just remember knowing what the presence of the Holy Spirit felt like. I would weep, not knowing while I was weeping, and it really wasn't just because everybody else was crying, it's just this. You know this sense that I've come to know as the presence of God. So my relationship with him was always real, but I would say it wasn't until college, until I really wrestled with the fruit in my life. I came to Matthew 7. It was a time when you remember Paul Washer and he was preaching a hard the real gospel, and I realized that a lot of my life I had not seen a lot of good fruit and I still was wrestling with sin patterns and I came to this form of Christianity where it was powerless, even though it was genuine. I didn't have victory over sin. I didn't have that fruit that really showed in my life, and so I wrestled with that and asked the Lord to undo a lot of what I thought was real and then kind of put a fork in the ground and said this this is, this is where either you're, this is all wrong and it's not true, or I've just got it wrong and you need to teach me. And that was the same year that my dad started to disciple me, as well as a bunch of my friends, including my husband. Now it was really, really good. It was the first time the gospel actually started changing my life.

04:57
And the following year was when my dad's disciple, who was also a pastor, he, came and then he asked me this question. He said have you ever heard God's voice and do you ever listen to God? And I was like, no, I don't think so. And he said well, is it prayer or conversation with God? So is it conversation two-way? And that's when he first introduced the concept to me of listening to the voice of God, and once he activated me in that, I mean, that's history was made. It changed everything. It changed the way I pray. It changed the way I live my life, because we live according to our thoughts, and when we're limited to only our thoughts, that's all you're limited to, right. But once you start listening to God's voice and you start feeding to God's voice, everything changes, and so even the names of our children, like where we live geographically, what we're called to. All of that came from, and continually comes from just walking in that lifestyle of hearing and feeding God's voice. And so that's a short version of what my faith journey has looked like.

06:06 - Speaker 3
So I want to ask you to you, because my theory is I feel like God speaks to all of us differently, meaning like his voice sounds different. And for the longest time in my life I had no idea what that meant. I always thought hearing God's voice is like oh, I know scripture, so just memorize scripture. But now it's more of oh. Okay, in language there's a way we sequence words right, and when you re-sequence the words of scripture, like God talks to me that way, so like for me, I hear his voice through a lot of my questions to him Like I know you're good, a lot of my questions to him, like I know you're good.

06:46
So there's this contradiction in my mind where it does this thing that I believe makes you not look good. So how do I reconcile this? And then I kind of work my way through and I'm like, oh, and so when I begin to understand things in a more clear way, in a way where I feel like he understands it because he has his fatherly heart, then I'm like, okay, I'm being more aligned with my thoughts, with his thoughts. So when I say he's speaking to me and I hear his voice, I mean it as in I'm beginning to understand what kind of person he is, based on what he's done, what he's saying through scripture. But for you I don't know what that means, so could you elaborate on for you? What does it mean when you say I hear God's voice?

07:31 - Speaker 1
Yeah, I mean, first of all, that breakdown is pretty mind blowing to me because it is so different from the way that I hear him. You know, it's such a logical way that he would speak to you. That's really cool way that he would speak to you, that's really cool. Um, for me I would say lots of pictures and then feelings, more like intuitive. Yeah, so I'm much more. It's it's still small voice, you know, on the inside and it just it does sound like myself.

07:57
There is a distinguishing. I think more and more actually, the more that you practice hearing god's. It is his design that we would become one with him in thought, and so sometimes I do believe it is that when I'm thinking something that it is him thinking something in me, because we have my Christ. But again, that's a whole sanctification journey. I don't want to have others assume that oh, whatever I think is God, that, oh, whatever I think it's God. But through the journey of becoming one with them, I do believe that it does become more and more like one. As you know, they're sanctified of becoming more like him so yeah lots of pictures, words, feelings, intuition is probably the biggest one.

08:40
The way my mentor taught me was he said okay, so just like a conversation, you ask him a question and then, whatever first thing comes to you, you use that to have a conversation. So the first thing I remember he asked me to pray for was him. He said so, ask God what he thinks about me, what he wants to tell me right now and how he wants to tell me right now, like how he wants to encourage me. And again that first corinthians 14, context of prophetic, you know, ministry. And so, um, it's really important to know what, how the bible breaks down, hearing god's voice. And so then, when I prayed for him, the first image and word that came to me was the color pink. And then it was. It was the word pink, obviously, because I'm looking at it, um, and I told, and I was like this is not working. I told him this is not working. I just got pink, super random, and I think this is me.

09:30
But he said, no, okay, now you got something. Now ask him what it means. And so when I asked him, um, I got romance, valentine, um, my first love. And when I told him that he said that's exactly the season that I'm in with the lord. I'm like no way that works. That is so insane. That was literally my first experience of what it what it was like to hear god's voice, but I mean more and more. I think that's similarly how I use that conversation just getting some raw material from the Lord in the conversation and then using that Like okay, if you don't get what it means, just like in basic conversation, you would ask the person what you mean by that, and so you just keep asking questions and then, to back it up, you could always ask for scripture.

10:18 - Speaker 3
Part of me is like I wish I believed in hearing his voice intuitively sooner.

10:24 - Speaker 1
I think it's a good way to explore a new dynamic of relationship with the Lord, but I couldn't believe because it's always in context of friendship with him and I'm like I couldn't believe for all of my life up to that point, which was, I don't know, like probably second year into college or something that I was that friend that showed up and always just talked about myself, never asked how you know, like the other was doing, how my friend was doing, how they're feeling, what they think about the situation. It's just you're ranting and he already knows everything too right. So it's just, I think it took a minute to come out of that, but it's so good. I think that's what really leads us to repentance and it's not condemnation. You don't want the enemy to take that like bar and then actually it's ironic because then you really make it about you if you fall into that. But it's just this great, through this gratitude and then this awareness, to want to be a better friend to jesus. So I think that's really what hearing God's voice is about.

11:26 - Speaker 3
Yeah, once I started letting go of all the concerns or I should backtrack I realized, the more time I spend thinking about the kingdom and trying to unpack it and understand God's heart and his mind and his understanding, like my concerns for myself and everything kind of like faded away. You know, and a lot of that was because I realized, like once, you don't want anything. And how should I say this? Everything I've ever wanted in this world, right, came out of a desire in my heart, right, and when you don't get the thing you want, that's suffering. Right, and for a long time, like you said, I was operating in this mode of like jesus, I want you on your presence, I want you, I want you, I want you Because I felt something missing, but it wasn't until something clicked in my brain, was like, oh wait, I don't want Jesus, I have Jesus. And that of like, oh, I don't need to yearn for him, I just need to believe he's fully here with me. To yearn for him, I just need to believe he's fully here with me.

12:29
And when I started interacting, as if he's real, like like this sounds crazy but like like my imaginary friend. Literally you have to be delusional in this world to be like sane and upright in the kingdom. But that's so much better, like my heart is so free and full and, yeah, it's been a crazy ride I love that.

12:47 - Speaker 1
I think, truly, the christian life is just unpacking what we, what we already have, and I think that's kind of the sad part. The sad reality is we fall into religion thinking we have to gain something that we already have. But you know, all of all of ephesians tells us we just already have. But you know, all of all of ephesians tells us we just we're blessed with every spiritual blessing we brought everything we need we have the holy spirit? Oh my gosh, you know that's insane.

13:14 - Speaker 3
I had to work through a lot of my baggage and so-called trauma, but mainly it was just me not realizing. I didn't deal with all the traumatic memories and the negative feelings.

13:26 - Speaker 1
Absolutely.

13:26 - Speaker 3
Because this is what I've been learning more and more is that, like, the memories we hold with any meaning is always attached to an emotion. And it wasn't until, like, I was quote unquote healed. When I say healed, I mean more of like, oh, I'm no longer carrying my past as like, in a perspective of like, oh, pain and suffering. Pain and suffering, right, like I said, it's a bad thing. Yeah, taken more as the pain and suffering drove me to Christ. Yes, and it's in Christ that, like, I became healed. So now I'm thankful, right, yeah, not that I want to go through it again, but I'm like, okay, god used it, thank you, and I'm able to move forward absolutely, I 100% agree with you.

14:08 - Speaker 1
I think that's the journey that he had me take to in the last. I would say like seven years. Could you elaborate? Yeah, um, okay, where? Where do I start? This is gonna be a deep podcast. Yeah, wow, I don't. I don't even know if I ever really broke it down anywhere.

14:26
So I had a cousin who I was very close with when I was younger and he was a really integral part of my story, even growing up. So I ended up really kind of like praying for him ever since I was five, really kind of like praying for him ever since I was. But he ended up straying away both from the church and from the Lord and just lived a pretty wayward life. And this was while our family was in Kansas City. One day the Lord just started to have me remember all the prayers that I had prayed for him as a child and John and I we began to our base director at the time. He introduced this concept to us. It's like he would write a hit list. It's like a hit list of intercession, and then you write their names, you write their original design, their calling in the Lord, and you just pray until it happens. And so we put his name on the hit list and started to, you know, receive prophetic words about the way God's made him and what he's made him for. And I specifically remember, even as a child, there was this like prophetic grandma that came by one time and prophesied over all of our family children, and there was a prophetic word over his life that when he was 40, that he would return to the Lord and serve the Lord. And so I'm like this must be it, and so, you know, I'm agreeing and praying, along with a lot of these like prophetic confirmations. But I believed, you know.

15:59
And then, about a year from that time, I get a call from my dad and I hear that he's in a coma. And I remember going to the prayer room that day and I was going so that I could plead for his life, you know, asking the Lord to save him. But all that came from my mouth was just like God's heart and how, how like to. To me, my cousin was just one prodigal son. But what? What the Lord was showing me was he's just one of so many that I'm still waiting for. And then he just had me pray for the masses of the prodigal sons and just to alleviate some of that pain in the heart of God. And, um, soon after he did pass, there was a little bit of like a miracle story in there too. He was supposed to be completely brain dead, but my parents had gone there and they prayed all through the night I think at least two of the nights or so and right before he passed they said he was looking towards one direction and then when they prayed and they looked up like he was faced the other way and there were dreams and other things that you know the Lord had confirmed that. You know. He was able to hear, you know, receive the Lord, you know, in the nick of time. And so that was like the beginning of it, where I didn't understand again, because it felt like God led us, he was the one who provoked us to believe for something that did not come to pass. Now, this is the thing that happened over seven years.

17:35
So after that, a few years later, I had this intense spiritual encounter with the Lord one day. It was one of the Wednesday nights it was probably a few years before you came in where I just couldn't breathe while I was praying and all of a sudden I was interceding for, like fathers and men, and just something, again, just deeply grievous. And then the next day I heard that my uncle has stage four lung cancer and I was like, wow, lord, this is what you must have set everything up for. And also, because I've prayed for my cousin my entire life, I was praying for my extended family, really, because it connects with his mom and all of our relatives and again, my parents being the first believers, there's a lot of brokenness outside of our family, and those were the things that I had prayed for for a long time. And so, with my uncle, I'm like this is it, this is how you're going to redeem you know even the previous story and this is how you're going to have all of our relatives come to the Lord, you know, in a meaningful way.

18:50
And this one was harder because my uncle has three young kids. They're all kind of similar in age with my kids, and so I was so sure honestly, I was so sure God was going to heal him that I wasn't even worried until I got another call in the middle of the night one day and they said he's on his deathbed, he's going to pass soon. And it was the first time I was like, oh my gosh, he actually might die. And John had fallen asleep on the couch that time and I felt like the Lord had come to me and he asked and he said Would you trade one of your kids for his life? Like the life of one of your kids for his life. And it didn't feel like a hypothetical question, it felt real. It felt like death was at the door. And if I said which one, that he would switch and was at the door, and if I said which one, that he would switch and give him the opportunity. And so I was super anxious, I couldn't say a word.

19:51
I woke up John, I told him this conversation that I'm having with the Lord and he said I know he's your uncle and so it's harder for you to say, but for me it's a no braineriner, I can't do that, I can't do that and and that's. It was a no-brainer for me too. I just couldn't say it right. So I'm like you're right, there's absolutely no way I can do that, as I felt almost the guilt and the weight of my inability to do that. The lord said I did, and he's talking about jesus, right, and then he goes.

20:25
But imagine that you did say. For instance, you gave Dassa your second born and then your uncle got a second chance at life and now you know he's really grateful and he's living life and he's, yeah, he's doing well. But then, like a year or two in, he started picking up bad habits again because he was a smoker and you know he had lung cancer and so imagine he starts wasting away his life again. How would you feel? And I was utterly, I just had no words and he said, um, he was talking about believers, he was talking about the church. He paid with the life of his son and yet we're oftentimes not living in awareness of what that costs him and we're wasting away and we're not grateful, we're just doing what we want and living how we believe, and oftentimes it's a destructive lifestyle for ourselves and other people.

21:29
And then, three days later, my uncle passed and that was honestly a life-changing thing for me. Life-changing encounter because up until Up until that time, like you were saying, that suffering and that grief was so centered around what my expectations were of God and even the things that he promised me that everything was such a downer. You know, everything was so hard. And even three days after he passed. I actually, even though it was so true and so real, when the Lord had spoken to me, I was still stubborn and I was like I don't want to talk to you, like you're totally right and I can't deny that, like you have every right to feel the way that you do. But I didn't expect you to talk to me like that, in the midst of me hurting, you know, and I had to really sit on. Yeah, I didn't talk to him for three days.

22:23
I just was like I think I was really considering even like is it worth living the Christian life to the fullest, as I had been up to that moment? Because it seems like every time I give my full faith, like nothing comes to pass. If anything, the opposite happens, so like why would I keep giving myself to live this kind of life? But it was there and he was patient with me and I remember that whole year he had spoken to me with jeremiah 31 and there's this verse where it says set up a guidepost that you would remember the way that I brought you. And I knew exactly what he meant from that conversation. He said remember what I told you your life is not your own and I paid for it and I also did what you couldn't do, and that was perfectly embodied in the word. To tell a side, and when he told me, when he reminded me to set up guideposts, I just knew I had to do something drastic to never remember, to never forget about that moment and to never forget that my life is not my own and I just don't, I can't live for myself, and that's basically yeah, and so from there I passed by.

23:39
Then he had already delivered me so much from my entitlement to see you know like how things ought to go, and so, though we were praying for healing, there was this peace inside of me, after struggling through that last one, that God has everything in his hands. And there were moments we were still very, I was still very offended, like John's mom still had COVID through the whole funeral, and so we couldn't even be with her, and that was like the beginning of the whole thing coming out. So it was just. It was, yeah, really rough, but again, god was so confident and so sure. He was like you, you step back, like she's my, she's my wife now. That's what he said to us. And then, a number of months after that, we got pregnant and then 10 weeks later we found out I was having a miscarriage. That was a whole nother ordeal.

24:35
He was using, I think, layers of things that the scaffolds that I had set up in my own life where I was still functioning out of my own strength, and he literally stripped everything away and dwindled everything down to the point where I couldn't. I couldn't be strong anymore, and it was him delivering me of not just my weakness and not just my sin or whatever other negative things. It was now the positive things, you know, that we thought were our strengths. Yeah, that was the last bit that he did. Yeah, and there was so even in our community.

25:08
Um, there was another one of our members. His mom wrestled with cancer for a long time and it was a so many promises that he spoke to us and so, like, he brought me through this process of grief over a period of seven years. And then it was just this past June that, when I went to Israel, he told me it was done, and then I watched God do it with people in our community and I'm like wow. At first I'm like wait, don't do it. But then that's also what was testing whether I really saw what he did in my life as good. And then when I started to even relinquish God's people, even though they were never mine to be had right, when I started actually surrendering them and walking them into the plans that God had for them, and I started to see the goodness come out from there, even though on the physical and the reality end it was still really really hard stuff, that's when I knew wow, you've healed me.

26:11 - Speaker 3
You're forever ruined, you know, for eternity and for him I'm like trying not to cry because you just described your joke moment. Yeah, at the last chapter of joke, I love what he says, because he gets smacked down by God, because he's complaining and God's like okay, were you there when I created everything? Do you understand the measurements of every little thing? Do you not understand my promises? Isn't in your timeline that, like, I will promise, promise you things, but it will happen unexpectedly so that you believe I'm god right. And then he says the most job, says the most beautiful words, like I've heard you with my ears. Now I see it's my eyes and so, yeah, the whole taste and see and experience is goodness. That's like the gift and, as you were saying it, the one that the word that kept coming to my mind is yes, he's dismantling every expectation and he stripped down all of my needs and wants.

27:12
Right, outside of like living right, because now that I have all that I need in him and want him, everything now, now is a gift, and every day I live without expectation and like realizing life is super unexpected. But if life makes me wait, what I do in the waiting is I just think about the kingdom now and I have so much fun. And so it's like this week I was like wait, I'm immortal, my spirit is immortal. I'm going to live forever. Death is just a gateway.

27:43 - Speaker 1
Yeah.

27:44 - Speaker 3
Yeah.

27:50 - Speaker 1
I think our goodness often was really void of. You know pain and suffering. But God's goodness is through the pain and suffering and it's so much better than the avoidance of the pain and suffering. But it's so hard because you literally can't teach that. You just have to go through it, like every single person has to go through it and taste for themselves that surely he is good through the pain and the suffering. That's good.

28:18 - Speaker 3
Such a crazy ride and it's like none of this, at least for would have happened if I wasn't shocked into taking initiative of like do you remember I might cut this out, but do you remember Like I was like on track to do like undercare and like with the PCA and then one day, like I got shook and I was like all right, I need to change this, I need to figure out what is going on? And so I explored and that's why I started joining you guys.

28:47 - Speaker 1
Because I was like, oh, I need, there was a big pivot there.

28:49 - Speaker 3
Yeah, I needed a space where I can just be like emotionally free and like do my thing and not get judged. And I was like what's the most charismatic place I feel safe in, what's your place? And I was like all right, let's go, let's do this, because I didn't really know like the theology behind it, but even that got like used to like. Take me to like. Was it quantum physics?

29:15
And like all this other stuff and I was like oh, okay, okay. But then now I realize, oh, he was just showing me that he's in everything Like art, science, like literature, philosophy, like everything he infuses meaning because he wants us to know him, and like he's just everywhere. You just have to have the right context.

29:36 - Speaker 1
Yeah.

29:37 - Speaker 3
Yeah, and I see him everywhere now and I like laugh, like oh.

29:41
I'm so stupid so I have a question for you. So, as a mom of four, how do you go about, like, because you want them to experience what you've experienced right, yeah, but like it's not like you want to like intentionally inflict suffering on their lives because we got all through that. But like, how do you navigate that on top of your homeschooling and stuff? And like you know you got to worry about that? So, like, how do you navigate that on top of your homeschooling and stuff? And like you know you got to worry about that? So like, how do you incorporate all of that and their spiritual formation as a mom.

30:10 - Speaker 1
I think, um, as long as, like, what I'm experiencing is real, the invitation into that and just the vulnerability to some degree right, like age, appropriate, wise um, is what gets them to taste and see at least what I've experienced and then it opens the door potentially for them to experience it. So, for instance, um, you know, through the missed period, we prayed together as a family. We even asked the lord what the baby's name was, which which is really cool because, yeah, that's a whole story because Addie got the name Josie, yeah, something like that, and when we looked it up, it means it was like a nickname for Joseph, and Joseph means may the Lord add to me another son. So that was really cool. And um, dasa had seen this, um, three-stranded cord, which meant a lot, and that was the lord was doing in me.

31:08
You know, having people surround us and learning to be a community, then it's like hard for them too, because they went through those losses too, right, they lost their grandpa, they lost their.

31:21
You know harabuki, right, and grandpa they lost their. You know harubuji, right, and they lost their brother, and we still talk about it, we still talk about it, and so I think there's this measure of allowing that vulnerability to hold them in that space together, especially when it's something that relates to them. I think Koreans don't do that very well. You know, in just cultural, these people we want to, you know things that are uncomfortable or painful. We just rather would not talk about it, but to invite them into that space and then to hold that space together and help them process through some of that stuff. But spiritual formation-wise, I mean, it really is just about making space. I don't think you can force anything, but just be a representation of what we've experienced, maybe from first gen. Oftentimes it's like good intentions. I remember when I first started activating Addie, which is my first child, right, we feel so bad because everything was trial and error.

32:25 - Speaker 3
When I. She's great though.

32:27 - Speaker 1
Great, great. Her name is Jubilee, so middle name is Jubilee, so there's lots of grace and redemption there. But I remember when I first activated first was training her in it. She would get really frustrated. And so there there were seasons, entire seasons, where I would not even bother like doing it because I didn't want it to become like. That would be so terrible for her to feel like. Hearing the voice of god is like math. You know what I mean and she hates math too, so you know there were times where I'd draw back.

32:59
But she, you know, eventually they kind of pick it up on their own, as long as we're practicing it together. And it's a part of the culture where, even when we're making family decisions, we'll pray about it together. Every year that we've decided to homeschool, we have to get the grade with us. Um, yeah, and so I think number one has to be real for the parents. Number two, learning to invite them into that real thing and creating space for it. And then the last thing I'd like to share I guess about a year or two ago the Lord made it really clear what we're going after and it really is just the first commandment Loving the Lord with all your heart, with all your mind, with all your soul, with all your strength, the Lord, with all your heart, with all your mind, with all your soul, with all your strength. And so we built even our schedule and our values and our homeschooling, everything to satiate at least something of that sort. So, you know, loving the Lord with our hearts, we're, you know, intentionally making time to worship. Right, you know we're not like, fully consistent with everything, we're not perfect with all this, but conceptually, you know, this is what we try to practice.

34:08
What do you do as a family? So Monday mornings John will teach. We've been just going through the book in order, so Genesis. Right now he makes like little PowerPoint presentations and he teaches them on a story and then really hones in on one principle. And then we also love to do flag worship in our home. We do body worship, we do intercession. There's great kid songs where you like, pray over specific nations and stuff. Well, pray over specific people. That's about it.

34:40
Also, mondays we have family days and then one parent will go on a date with one child. So typically, you know, john will go, first john and maddie, john and dessa next week and then john maya next week. Zion's not in there yet. I think you have to at least be three or four days, maybe we'll see, yeah, and then the next month I will take. You know each one. And so there's intentional there's so many of us um connections being made, and that part I put under even loving the lord with our soul. We need to be a healthy family, we need to have healthy connection in order to learn strength. There's physical aspects that we definitely need to revisit, you know exercise, healthy habits, the mind. That's where all the homeschooling academics comes in bible memory versus what do you do for homeschool right now?

35:31
so addy is a middle school student who is enrolled in a christian accredited school online, so it kind of runs like college courses. Honestly, she can finish. She can start and finish. She can go at her own pace. She's she's been doing well with that and she does most of that. My own schools with ng, my sister-in-law that's been really great, um, because she has two youngins too and it just helps with, you know, the group mentality. That that's it. It's been really. I mean, after we set the norm and because our kids are pretty, you know, used to our routine and what, what I think the best part of homeschooling is is they're independent learners, like I don't need to, you know, keep figuring or anything. They know what to do and they're actually learners Like I don't need to, you know, keep figuring or anything. They know what to do and they're actually pretty self-motivated.

36:27 - Speaker 3
Wait. So that sounds like a very ideal, but I'm pretty sure a lot of parents are like oh, there's no way my kid's going to self-learn because he's not motivated. How did you get your kids to be self-motivated?

36:36 - Speaker 1
Well, that's the hard part. I think if you're transitioning from traditional school to homeschooling, that would be really difficult. But because we've done it from the beginning, since I was three, it's built into homeschooling. And also because it's not a one-size-fits-all thing. I've used multiple curriculums for all of my children because they're different kinds of learners and so really accommodating to how they pick, you know, and then it's not strenuous, just like work that you have to do. They're actually gaining knowledge, and I think it helps most that my first born is such an avid reader. She loves reading, and so once you love reading, you can learn anything through reading. And I think that was genetics from John john. They all have their own strengths and strengths and weaknesses actually. So, and I'm okay with that, I don't, I don't care for it, you know, like I'm not gonna be that parent where, like you, have to be good at everything. You just find out what you're good at and be really good at it and help people. So, um, yeah, that was really bad.

37:46 - Speaker 3
Yeah, and a lot of things until I was like 30, so I didn't. I never finished the book until I went to seminary.

37:54
I mean a lot of grown-ups were that way but it's interesting because, like, I feel like that's the advantage of homeschooling. It's not like Because I think right now there's this understanding, like, oh, I don't want to homeschool because I don't like public school, but I think it's more of the oh, I get to tailor, make and customize their learning. And I think that's so important, because something that's been coming up more and more in my mind is this idea of customized faith. Even though faith is for everybody your faith, customized faith Even though faith is for everybody, like your faith, my faith it will be so different because we have different, like limitations and strengths and weaknesses.

38:30
And so God is like perfectly like refining your faith, which will look completely different than me, and he knows how like wicked I am, so I need a lot of suffering. I've suffered for years but when you're like ah, 22, that's fine, that's good enough, yeah, so like yeah, and that's why I'm like more understanding of people too, because it's like, oh, I don't know their story. I need to know their story first, and I need to know how they got through the steps, and so it's fascinating that, like that principle applies when you're doing homeschooling, like yeah, oh, I really want to know what their interests are.

39:04
Uh, what were their strengths and weaknesses? Because even if addy hates math, you're not going to be like I don't worry about math because right yeah, yeah, that's cool so with the context of um.

39:15 - Speaker 1
So if you're wanting to go for homeschooling, you can't bring the traditional education expectations into homeschooling, right? Like't bring the traditional education expectations into home, right? Like it's the same thing as church, right? You can't put a religious thing on the new thing. You have to have a completely new set of expectations according to what the children need, right? So it's not um. I think that's why people get overwhelmed, because homes's homeschooling. When people think of homeschooling, they're thinking I have to do what they do at school at home all by myself. Absolutely not. I do, honestly, barely anything. Because my children again, there's independent learners. It's a whole new set of expectations. I don't have the same expectations for them to perform on tests, to just fulfill, know, fulfill all the expectations that you have in public school, right. So that's what you have, kind of, have a renewed mindset if you wanted to make the switch over to yeah I think it also challenges like parents or even educators of like, what is the purpose of education, right?

40:23 - Speaker 3
is it just to know a lot of things, or is it to spark curiosity and help them be motivated and like go learn and discover life? So I have a few questions for you. What is your favorite childhood memory?

40:37 - Speaker 1
oh wow, my memory is terrible. I remember building forts with my brother when we had moved to California for just a little bit and then we came back because there was an earthquake, but I remember just the we just had a lot of fun together what was fun about that? That's a good question. The creativity, the bonding and my sister was just one too. It's just a lot of fun being together with my siblings.

41:17 - Speaker 3
Is there anyone you've lost touch with over the years that you would love to reconnect with?

41:22 - Speaker 1
Wow, these are very profound questions. I'm such a present person that it's hard oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, um, our, we have a friend named james. Um, he just forgot about us, but he married a wonder girl a wonder girl.

41:45 - Speaker 3
What does that mean?

41:47 - Speaker 1
oh, like an actual like so he's in Korea.

41:52 - Speaker 3
Yeah, yeah, yeah, how'd you guys meet?

41:56 - Speaker 1
he was one of John's groomsmen. He came to. He's normally from Canada, but he came to he was he's normally from canada, but he came to new york and did um like um. He did some school ministry and so I was a student and john was, um, just my boyfriend, I guess. But we all became friends that way, and then john actually roomed with him for a while, we got married and then we moved into his place. Actually, he wasn't there anymore. Of course, he went off to missions in Haiti and that's where he met Sonia.

42:36 - Speaker 3
Interesting.

42:37 - Speaker 1
That's a whole testimony too.

42:38 - Speaker 3
Yeah.

42:39 - Speaker 1
Because his biggest prayer request was like I'm single, I'm never going to get married. I'm going to haiti and we're like don't worry, the lord's gonna take care of it, and bam I guess I gotta go to remissions.

42:52 - Speaker 3
Well, james, if you're out there, reconnect. So that actually brings me um to a question that I want to talk about, um, about you and John and how you met, because when you met he wasn't a Christian right.

43:08
Yeah, I didn't know that, but he was not, and so you know, like the reason why I want to talk about it is because I think there's been so many like different perspectives of like the holiness movement, the purity movement and the yada yada yada. But like you holiness movement, the purity movement and the yada yada, but like you're a real life story and not to say, oh, it'll work out, because you didn't know and he didn't know, right, so going into it, what happened, and when you found out, it's not like you ran away, you're like I guess I gotta pray for it like what happened well, I have to.

43:42 - Speaker 1
I have to. It's not that he wasn't a christian, it's it's like, by christian. What we're talking about is, you know, real believer who's following jesus. Right, he was a christian by name, but like everybody else would say that they are, and so, um, if, like outright, he was like no, I don't believe in jesus, and obviously there would, there wouldn't have been a chance. But when we met, he was still genuinely looking for, looking for jesus. He just really wasn't walking with him, he was living, you know, rebellious life. He was an elder's kid and just you know, kind of done with like religion and what he had experienced, the christianity, um, but when he came, when we just around, the time that he, that we came into each other's lives, um, he was exposed to real Christianity. So then, now he's curious.

44:35
Um, so, even you know the premise of like what my dad, the Christianity that my dad left out, and what our ministry looked like was very different from what he had grown up in. He was, you know, korean Presbyterian Church, and so he never heard stories of healing. He never heard, you know, like real, he never really saw real evidence of, okay, this God is powerful and real and able to change lives, you know. But then what really drew him was, honestly, like my circle of friends. He used to be in a circle of friends where, you know, they were always under some type of influence and, you know, with the culture, it's just, you're always trying to one up somebody, you know, and it was always that kind of I don't know atmosphere that he was in. But then, with our what he would call these people like nerds, and you know they just got nothing going for them, but they're happy. He said what was what intrigued him? Yeah, first intrigued him to our group of friends, but then intrigued him to the jesus that we believed in. Um, so, yeah, just to make it clear, it wasn't that he was not christian, he just wasn't following jesus at that time. But as we formed relationship and we didn't date for quite a while.

46:10
As we formed that relationship, he was now on pursuit, in pursuit of Jesus. And so it's very unclear, and John and I both would never, ever, ever, if I knew where he was with Jesus, I would never, ever, ever um have said yes, and he him too. You know, just in in retrospect, if he was aware, if someone had spoken into his life, he never would have gone into that relationship, because our relationship was not easy for that reason, because God has designed a man to lead, but he was not in the place to right, and so the kind of burden and pressure that puts on me is not natural, even though we've oftentimes accepted it to be our norm, especially in my korean families. That is not normal, it's not, it's not the design that god has, um. And so what are you talking about? What's that normal? For a woman to be leading spiritually in the home, right, um? And this was like I'm talking about relationship even before we got married, right, um? Because that's preparation for marriage, and so I don't think our relationship was by far ideal.

47:36
It was again.

47:38 - Speaker 3
But what made you stick around? Are you just like?

47:41 - Speaker 2
oh, I love pain and suffering I think I was just so young and naive no, no, no, that's not an excuse.

47:48 - Speaker 3
There's something because, knowing you, I think you're the same person as you were back then, because you're very intuitive. So something caught your heart and was like you know he's worth it.

48:00 - Speaker 1
Something had to be like it was first of all he, john, like, was so sure we were going to live our lives together for the rest of our lives, even before, because our relationship was six and a half years before we got married and from even day zero he knew we were going to get married and I just that kind of just came, I guess I was convinced that we were going to get married and I just that kind of just came, I guess I was convinced that we were going to get married. And so whenever we had issues in our relationship or even issues personally, it was we're always asking the question how to work through this and not like wanting to press eject. There were times where we had to take what we called a time out.

48:51
Yeah, it wasn't even so much of a break. We were like, let's read this book and not meet up until we're done reading the book. And we finished the book in one day, oh yeah.

49:06 - Speaker 3
Oh, that's such a movie theme. No, I love it, it.

49:10 - Speaker 1
I love the better thing the notebook's one of my favorite movies. I do love the notebook, oh man, yeah. So again, I don't. I don't recommend the way we did it. That was just in spite of everything that god worked it all out. When we counsel couples now and we see them walking the way that we did, we're like don't do it this way, go get healed, go find out who Jesus is and then come back together.

49:40 - Speaker 3
Obviously, that's ideal, but what I take away from your story is this beautiful idea of why covenant is so important. To say I commit to you, no matter what, yeah, we better work this out, or we're going to either kill each other, but I ain't leaving, you know. Yeah.

49:59 - Speaker 1
Yeah, no, thanks for pointing that out, Cause I think that really was the mindset that had us go through everything and not not leave. I don't think I I don't know why Never really had the thought of leaving. That's grace.

50:16 - Speaker 3
Yes.

50:16 - Speaker 1
I think so, yeah, yeah, but again, lots, lots of healing, lots of work that the Lord has done over the years. We are not the same people.

50:28 - Speaker 3
Yeah, and you have four beautiful children. I don't know about Zion yet, because he's a little baby and he's a boy, but your girls are great. A couple of last things. What are you hoping for at Faithly?

50:45 - Speaker 1
I would love to see more natural connections across the body of Christ. Um, that's such a huge piece that, um, the Lord's put on my heart too, especially in the region. Um, it's so easy to get sucked in in our own little ministries and it really is enough work to just focus on that. But, um, but that's not what's on god's heart. You know it like even. Um, yeah, we have, like I felt the lord with me, a fresh assignment for this region to to kind of um, bring together worship, the worship community, and I think it's the same concept, it's just j Jesus prayed for John 17. He prayed those words before going to the cross and he still has yet to receive the fullness of his prayer. And, yeah, my prayer for faithfully would be that it would become a tool to give Jesus what he desires, and maybe it'd be in the body of Christ.

51:50 - Speaker 3
Do you guys have a prayer room that you're starting? Yeah, worship room.

51:56 - Speaker 1
So it's basically the concept is a mobile house of prayer, and because of the John 17 heart, because I initially wanted to just establish a house of prayer, but the Lord really overtook it and was like no, I want it in the spirit of unity, I want it, I want it as a buy-in with churches that are already existent. You know, um, and so right now we've john just created the organization for me, because only he knows how to do that stuff. Um, it's called the Tent, and so we're hoping to go to God. You know, we'll be going around different churches. We'll also be hosting a worship workshop, a worship event, so three-part workshop in the daytime and then a worship night. This will be in February and, alana, yeah, Do the New York first.

52:52 - Speaker 3
I'm like dying to pray and go to a prayer meeting and I don't know where to go, except there's a city where I'm like New York first. I missed the prayer room.

53:04 - Speaker 1
Yeah, I mean they have prayer rooms in New York too.

53:09 - Speaker 3
You need to Tell me where, because I, again, I'm very specific. I need the ones you guys do, because that's how I grew up and that's what I know and that's also what I implemented For like youth group and stuff, and that's my jam.

53:26 - Speaker 1
You mean the songs?

53:28 - Speaker 3
It's the whole vibe, the whole vibe, the whole vibe of like Interesting Put on music. It's dark and go wild and it's just you and the Lord and like Like hours and hours. And I know Church of the City has that Anyone watching this, but it's so far from my house and to go back and forth and I just yeah, there's just nothing around me. So that's that's what I missed the most about you guys. I'm sorry, I'm so selfish that's great. That's great oh, that's so good yeah okay cool, that's exciting.

54:03
The tent oh, that's such a good name.

54:05
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I was like finishing up numbers and stuff and like a mind-blowing fact.

54:13
I don't know if you know this, but like I found out, like the way they arranged the, the, the tribes, with the tent of meeting right, and when you zoom up from the top, it's a cross right. So from the very beginning, god was planting seeds that we didn't even know and like, looking back, it's like, oh, and like the east portion is longest because that's supposed to be, um, like where the gate of eden was in the east, showing like I was, like man, and this is the kind of stuff that I would have instantly rejected, because like, but now that I believe, I'm like, oh, this is so good. It's like a childlike imagination, because here's the beauty there's no way you can prove that it's false and there's no way I can prove that it's true, but the fact that it helps me think that God is so good, yeah, that's the prize so you can make up anything now and I make up the craziest stuff because it helps my heart sing and yeah, that's just the most important thing now crazy, how can we breathe?

55:26
praying for you and your family?

55:29 - Speaker 1
definitely just health overall for the kids. They got hit all of december. Um, we definitely feel that what the lord is asking us to build is for the next generation, especially with the tree house. He just kept bringing me back to Noah's Ark and it doesn't make sense now, but it'll make all the difference later and I feel that, yeah, with I don't know, we honestly don't know a lot of what we're doing. So we're just really just following the Lord in this and I think it's very unusual and we're just really grateful for the people who are willing to go with us. Yeah, so just prayers for protection for the family, but that we would stay faithful to whatever and however God wants to build.

56:30
Regional unity is definitely, again, something huge that we're going after. Our long-term vision for our community is to become a hub for the region and to resource and train up leaders and other churches. Like, not, you know, no competition. There is literally. We want to help you, um, in whatever ways we you know we can. Yeah, that all all this would come from the fruit of abiding. Yeah, I don't. It's like I know it's a given, but it's often not. Not that you know, john and I truly be walking with the Lord and everything come from that place of rest and abiding in him.

57:15 - Speaker 3
Amen.

57:16 - Speaker 2
Yes.

57:18 - Speaker 3
All right, well, thanks for coming on the podcast.

57:21 - Speaker 1
All right, thank you, danny.

57:24 - Speaker 3
That's it for the podcast guys.

57:25 - Speaker 2
Awesome. Thank you for tuning in to the Faithly Stories podcast. We pray this episode gave you the encouragement you needed to continue on your journey. The Faithly Stories podcast is brought to you by Faithly, an online community committed to empowering church leaders, pastors, staff and volunteers. The Faithly digital platform offers innovative and practical tools and resources to enhance connection, foster collaboration and promote growth within the church and ministry space. Remember to subscribe, rate and review our podcast to help reach more listeners like you. Stay tuned for more uplifting tales from the front lines of ministry on the Faithly podcast. Uplifting tales from the front lines of ministry on the Faithly Podcast. Stay bold, stay faithful and never underestimate the power of your own story.