Journey: Into The Never-ending Way

Chapter 5: Treasure Hunt

Mr.and Mrs. Merwin traveled to South Korea looking for treasure.Treasure holds out the promise of wealth, something that one can trade for a larger bank account with which to buy greater comforts or exciting travel opportunities. The Merwins were living in the never-ending way where the greater treasure is found in the Father's agape-love.

In the English language love has so many meanings and applications that I need to use the term agape-love. This is the Father's love for which you can find a great description in 1Corinthians 13. But more about that later. I'm interested in talking about the Merwins and there treasure hunt in this chapter.

They had arrived at an orphanage looking for a baby boy to love, adopt and nurture. Instead they found Stephanie. She didn't look much like a cute little treasure. Her lice infested hair sat atop a scared face and a malnourished body, popping with boils. But the Merwins became convinced that there was treasure to be found in this little girl.They couldn't get beyond the certainty that the Father's agape-love was ready to do a miracle here.

The treasure that they knew and cherished and, choose to pursue determined how that wealth added to the quality of their lives. (Matthew 6:19-21)They knew that wealth found in earthy neighborhoods does not last. It can be stolen, destroyed or lost. They were finding the Father's treasure in the never-ending way. It is His Spirit dwelling in our inner being, where we are rooted and established in love...love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all fullness of God...according to his power that is at work within us. (Ephesians 3:16-21, NIV)

That was the power working in and for them. They had to adopt this little girl.

They packed another suitcase and took Stephanie to their home in Indiana, where supported by their agape-love she bloomed into a beautiful teenager. She was even the homecoming queen and won the citizenship award in high school.

In one emotionally charged night she found Jesus and began living with him in the never-ending way.

She'd come down a dangerous and winding path to get to this point in her life experience. She'd been born into an uneasy relationship between a U.S. serviceman and a Korean woman. Stephanie was a half-breed, not an acceptable mix in a culture that would expel her into an uncertain earthy neighborhood.

In order to get back into the good graces of her family, the highest priority for her family,Stephanie's mother would have to marry a Korean man and get rid of her daughter.

She put Stephanie on a train with the promise that her uncle would meet her at the other end. The uncle never showed up at the end of a long trip. There she was, four years old and standing in the middle of an empty train station ramp.

For some reason, unknown to her, she survived tramping through the open countryside, living in a foxhole and stealing food from whatever field or farm she happened to stumble into.

At the end of three greedy years she'd ended foraging in a garbage dump and joining a child-gang at the edge of a large city. The child-gang introduced her to the ugly trauma of a torturous experience.

Sick with cholera and responsible for her little friend, who she'd found on the street while escaping the child-gang. Hungry and fighting with farmers again for survival, she encountered an angel.

This angel turned out to be Iris Eriksson who, after an unexplainable call from God and a few restful days at her clinic, took Stephanie to a World Vision orphanage.

At the orphanage Stephanie's job was to take care of the babies, since she was one of the oldest children. It was here that she first experienced love when the babies reached out to her as she poured herself into caring for them.