(In this video...) I will never forget this moment... I even hit record on my computer because I wanted to remember this moment.
If you haven't seen the first part of the story this video won't make quite as much sense
So I'd recommend you watch that first, but this is my continuation of my Korea story.
Basically there are three sections of my life as far as when I've lived in Korea,
so I'm going to call them Korea 1 (which is the first time I went ... shocker) Korea 2 - the second time I went,
and then Korea, I guess, today because it's like the now. Like, I moved here, I live here, I have a long-term visa
and let me express - Korea 1 was definitely the worst of the three but probably the most growing of the three
I mean they've all been very, very growing. Very difficult, very challenging in their own ways,
but Korea 1 for sure I hit, like, another different kind of rock bottom.
Korea 1 had a lot of firsts: there was the first video I ever made
which is just like so amazing because now I have this whole youtube channel where I get to help you guys and I, like, love what I do
but it was also the first time I ever went on a trip without there being any above supervision
like there was no organization that planned everything or like a friend that had the whole thing laid out
it was the first time I was just like whimsically going on a trip
and that led to the first time I really faced anxiety living abroad and worry of like: how the heck do I do anything?
I feel sick...
I remember when I got off the quarantine bus for the very first time,
me and my friend like stepped out and we were like: we literally don't know how to get a taxi.
We don't know how to get on the subway if we wanted to get on the subway because we don't even know how to pay.
We knew nothing and so I remember feeling so anxious and so worried
but that's what led to the first video so I don't have regrets about it
but again it was the first time I was facing these emotions
but one thing it was not the first time doing was it was not the first time that I was running away from my past.
I don't know if anybody can relate to me but
I often, in my past, have used traveling or moving as a way of coping or a way of healing
you think you can just run away from your problems and then you do that
and actually when you travel often your problems kind of become amplified
or you could say they're brought to the surface
and it's really hard to go through stuff like that in a foreign country
because often the comforts that you find in day-to-day life that you would in the country that you're from are harder here
like going to the store and buying groceries isn't just easy.
Like you actually have to think about, "How do I check out?"
Going to a cafe you have to think about, "How do I pay? What do I say?"
the stuff that is not something you would think about in your hometown, you're now having to think about it
so all of those moments where you have to think about it is potential for something to go wrong
and often, if you're already in an unstable state like I was, and all the little things kind of start to go wrong,
it really piles up a lot quicker.
In America I wasn't really stable.
I didn't really know where I was going, I didn't know who I wanted to do life with, I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life
and so I thought going to Korea and getting away from it all would be great,
but ultimately it kind of just... like I said before,
it amplified all of these feelings that I was having of unworthiness
and looking for love in maybe all the wrong places
and so it led to a lot of relational regret I guess you could say...
Well maybe I should just be more honest,
I was in such a state of panic and desperation that I ended up befriending people that maybe I never would have befriended
but I was literally just doing it because they were Korean
and I was so terrified to be in this country and not understand anything,
first day out of quarantine I literally met up with like a stranger
who was not a stranger that I ever wanted to meet again let's just say that and...
but I did it because I was anxious and worried
but at the same time, in Korea 1 there was a guy who I did not date
but this guy, even though he'll never see this, I thank this guy so much because
in America I knew there was a guy who I wanted to be with but he wasn't really making the effort to want to be with me,
and he just kind of worried about his work
and I just wasn't worth it to him to relationally like make the commitment
and I had settled for that for months
and I got to Korea, and here was this random guy who saw my worth,
and I made it very clear that I wasn't looking for a relationship or anything like that
but he helped me in so many ways, he was so kind to me,
and he treated me so well, with so much respect, that it really helped me see my own worth.
Even though in Korea 1 there are a lot of experiences that I have that I regret,
I hurt people, I hurt myself, I didn't see my own worth
a lot of things that I can't change and instead of sitting here wishing I could change it
what I realized is, you know, traveling is not going to solve your problems
if anything it brought into the surface but in the act of my problems being brought to the surface
in the act of really struggling with my purpose and struggling with my worth and
struggling with, "Who am I? like - why am I in this world?"
the way that it unfolded it was dark, but by the end of the trip there was light at the end of the tunnel
there was hope because here was this guy who treated me so well that it reminded me of my worth
and at the same time I started making these videos and I realized I could really help people
and I know how much the anxiety of traveling can really build
and I know that there's a lot of questions that I could answer for people in advance that could be really helpful for them
so that even if they are running away from their problems, even if things in their life aren't going the way that they wished,
and maybe they are using travel to to kind of like get away,
at least I could help solve some of these anxieties and worries and concerns
and so I had this hope in myself and I had this hope and my purpose again
but I had to go back to America...
my flight home, the original flight home from Korea 1 back to America, it got canceled
and they said in the email i had until the end of August to fly back home or to use that flight voucher credit
I actually genuinely tried to extend my visa round one
fun fact: you can't extend tourist visas
I thought you could. I bought my Airbnb for literally another like month and a half
Immigration was like, "Nah, you can get a new ticket. There's tickets back to your country."
"You have to leave."
So all of a sudden I had to like cancel my Airbnb,
I had to pack up all my stuff,
I thought I had like I month and a half, now I only have two weeks!
I have no choice at this point but to buy a plane ticket home
and it's so crazy to me because like for some reason it was less expensive for me to buy a round trip than like a one-way
so I just literally picked a random day that was cheap in the future.
So I just randomly buy a ticket for September as the returning ticket
but I was just like, "I'll cancel it... I'm just gonna go home."
I knew I loved Korea and I knew I would love to come back but I didn't know how
it kind of just seemed like maybe I'll come back, maybe I won't, I don't know
so I end up going back to the states and I'm just like, "You know what I'm going to keep making these videos!"
"I filmed so much content, I'm going to just make as many videos as I can about as many things about Korea as I can"
"and then once I run out of content I guess we'll just kind of see like do I want to keep doing this whole video thing"
"because if I do I kind of need to be in Korea to make videos about Korea..."
so I was just in the states and all I was doing was editing and working
and then in August I get another email that's like, "Due to the coronavirus situation..."
(how many times have you heard that phrase?)
"...we have extended that you now have until the end of the year to use this flight voucher."
and I was like,
"Wait a minute!"
*beep beep beep* (that's me doing math in my head)
I technically still have that flight back to Korea for September
and you're telling me I now have like a free flight home
so if I leave in September, a tourist visa is three months...
wait a minute...
like I technically have a round-trip ticket that's already bought...
I'm going back to Korea~
so I just decided like, I want to go back anyway, I like making these videos,
and my YouTube channel during this break between Korea 1 and Korea 2, my channel got monetized
(referring to the bloody nose) I don't know if it's because I'm so excited but I did it!!!
I did it, I did it!
I have a bloody nose but I got a 1,000 subscribers~~
*more random noises*
(What are you doing?)
So now I'm like making money - well not a lot, I'm making quite a small amount of money
but I am making money
so I was like: my channel's monetized, I can go back to Korea,
I don't have to buy the ticket!?
Let's go~
so I go back.
You guys might have seen in my quarantine vlogs
the trip started off not well
I ended up getting into a quarantine facility that didn't have an openable window and I'm claustrophobic
so I started having an anxiety attack because I felt like I couldn't breathe
and then I got sick, I had a fever in quarantine,
I thought I was gonna be taken to some like hospital, hospice
you know - I don't know but I was panicking already about not being able to breathe
and then you add like getting sick on top of it - it was a mess
but what really lifted my spirits was while I was in quarantine,
I got onto Bumble BFF to try to like make friends
and I matched with a girl who tells me about this church
she said, "I think it'd be, you know, I think you'd really like the church,"
"it's a good way to make friends, meet foreigners, kind of have like a home away from home."
she tells me the name of the church
and then a subscriber who I have yet to meet in person
who just so happened to land in Korea the same day, 30 minutes after me,
so we're both in quarantine together, we just ended up messaging,
she said, "Oh, I already had a church actually that I was going to attend."
I was like, "Oh, what's the name of your church?"
and she said, "Oh, here's the name of the church."
and I said, "Oh that's funny because that's the same name..."
"that's the same church that the other- "
so the same day I had two random strangers both telling me to check out this church
so I was like...
all right I'm going to the church I guess!
and I forgot to say this but it's very important
I don't know how much you know about this concept of church but
maybe you would have no desire to go to church like I had no desire to go to church
I had, at this time, a lot of negative views on church. I had a lot of church hurt
and I had no desire - absolutely no desire to go to a church
I thought: me, myself and I. I'm good. I don't need those people.
I don't need more hurt basically.
So when I had two separate individuals telling me I should check out this church, I was very against it still
and I remember thinking like, "You know what... I don't have to go in-person but I'm in quarantine, I've got time..."
so I watch the message online and within the first five minutes there was a prayer that the the man prayed and said,
"There are so many people here (in Korea) who are hurt and lost and they are looking for answers,"
"they're looking for hope, they're looking for truth in their life and they don't know where to turn."
"Bring people to Korea so that we can collectively love people well in this country"
"and point them to true love, to true purpose..."
and I remember being in shock and in awe because
I felt like that person was talking directly at me
and I realized: Wow. I had been hurt and I had every reason to be upset
and I had every reason to not want to really put myself out there
(if you watched my first video I had lost everything, honestly, at one point)
so I had no desire really to go out to a church (especially)
and feel like it was just full of these fake people who would end up hurting me again
but what I realized is that I was looking at humans as if they could be perfect people
and humans can't be perfect, humans will mess up.
Hurt people hurt people.
And so I didn't want to allow the past hurt that I had felt,
I didn't want that to affect my future because ultimately I could still love other people to the best of my ability,
I could help people in the future to the best of my ability,
and put aside the past hurt
and stop letting those chains of pain hold me down and make me feel heavy
I really realized in this message that I could take those chains literally off, give them to God,
and I could just go out and be the best person that I could possibly be
and I am still gonna mess up, and I still let people down to this day,
I know I'm trying my best and I still mess up
but ultimately i knew in that moment,
my past isn't a curse. My past has shaped me into who I am
and now I have these attributes of myself that I can use to impact other people in the best ways
to love them, to help, them to guide them,
and so I took on Korea 2 like, "Let's go~~"
"I'm ready to impact the world! I'm ready to let go of this past and I'm ready to heal,"
"and I'm ready to see what does the rest of my life have in store."
and that's what I did
Korea 2 was making videos, helping you guys, trying my best to build my YouTube platform as much as I could,
and after the three months, which were an amazing three months,
I went back to America like: I'm getting back to Korea.
I love what I'm doing, I want to keep loving people, I want to keep impacting the world,
It's getting hot because I turned the A/C off so....
but my funds have really - I mean like before, when we started Korea 1 we had a lot of money,
I had been saving up for years,
after Korea 1 and then I worked, and then it was like after Korea 2 you know we got down here and it's like
this is broke - all right and I never want to be broke
so um....
I'm gonna need to work like at least to here because school costs like this much
and then I looked at the plane tickets and they had gone up in price
and so now plane tickets put me to like here
so now I have this much money left
but I want to go back to Korea like now (because my YouTube channel is growing)
and so I just - I was working like a maniac
I was doing like Doordash and (um... what's it called...) Shipt
which are both food delivery services
I was working like 14 hour days sometimes
I was just working as much as I possibly could because I knew: you can't go to Korea with this much money
I remember sitting in parking lots waiting for the next order
and I would just start crying
because I was like, "How am I ever going to make enough money to be able to do all of this?"
like the flight ticket is way out of my budget, I didn't realize how expensive it was going to be
because Rona was kind of dying down, so everybody wants to travel, so flight tickets are going up
I was like, "There's no way I'm gonna be able to Doordash my way to Korea..."
"like there's just no way I can make that much money..."
and I hated it, I hated it so much,
but I just thought to myself: look,
I love making these videos, I know some people have found these videos helpful,
I should make a Ko-fi page
(if you don't know what Ko-fi is it's KO-FI... it's a Patreon it's just a little different.)
(It's like buying somebody a cup of coffee as like a thank you basically.)
so I created this Ko-fi page to say: If, you know, you found any of my videos helpful,
if you would like to donate, this is the place to do it.
and I put like a little goal on there.
I felt dirty asking for help, I felt dirty for needing help,
I just put it up there thinking, you know, maybe I'd get a few people that would donate like 10 dollars
or, I don't know, maybe someone would get spicy, go crazy and donate a 20 dollar bill or something like that
mind you, I had been praying about this with my friends for like the past week
"God, I'm gonna need help. I don't know how."
I felt dirty asking help but I knew I needed help.
I was sitting in a cafe, I will never forget this moment.
I even hit record on my computer because I wanted to remember this moment.
and I'm sitting in this coffee shop with Reese
If you remember from the first video, Reese is who I went to Korea with (round 1)
We're sitting in a coffee shop,
we've really bonded over the fact that we're stuck in America and we don't want to be in America (we just want to be in Korea)
but you know the timing has to be right
and if it's meant to be it'll happen,
so we just got to trust God in this
you know we just gotta trust that if it's meant to be it'll be
in that moment i get a notification
No way...
There's no way
and I get notified that a subscriber donated $700
and I had already raised the rest of the goal
like I had raised $300, I had set it (the goal). at $1000,
I literally was like:
She accidentally - I'll send it back! I'll send it back. I know your fingers slipped.
I can't...
I don't know how this Ko-fi website works, how do I get this person a refund!?
So I immediately reach out to them and I'm like,
"Um... uh!?"
and she said, "You know I don't have kids of my own and so I just like bless other people from time to time."
WHAT!?
and it doesn't stop there!
I look at the flight tickets and the flight tickets are actually even more expensive than I was anticipating
it was more than a thousand dollars for me to buy my flight
and I was like...
this dang flight! What do I do!?
Two days later, a man emails me and says,
"Hey, I know you were raising money to buy your flight ticket,"
"I fly all the time, I'm from Hawaii, I have all of these flight points (like flight miles)"
"I'd love to buy your ticket for you."
I can't make this stuff up.
Like this story is so crazy and we're just getting started - all right?!