Once I have settled down in Australia My brother who is 11 years younger than me came to join me. To send their kids to overseas to study was a big dream of many Korean parents. Since it wasn’t my brother’s own decision to go, although he ‘agreed’ to go, there were times he insisted to give up and go back to Korea in the middle of the school year. To pacify his frequent homesickness, I sent him back home twice a year which resulted in me hardly being able to save up.
There was a moment that I was called up by his school principle and being called as an inadequate guardian due to his rebellion in class. His first serious girlfriend was a non-christian to start with. There was a time that I was overwhelmed by having to live a life of a single mom and cried out for a freedom. But there were definitely countless joyful moments, like driving to nearby islands and sleeping over, parties and fellowships, him playing a bass in the band, and him completing the architecture degree in one of the best universities in the world.
Josh 2004
most recent
Turning 21, he decided to go back to South Korea to serve in the national army, because his choice was to remain as a Korean. He has just arrived in Seoul yesterday, without any guarantee to go back to Australia any time soon. I feel perplexed, knowing that I will be in Australia alone, again. Knowing it still my decision was to call Australia home. I guess there is no perfect place as long as we live on the imperfect earth..
This Christmas our family will be gathering in one place for a first time in 11 years. We will take a upgraded family picture and we will all look so different. Now sister is married with a 6-year-old girl. One thing that did not changed is the Lord who held us together in his safe hands. Once again, we will gather in our living room, and talk about our journeys in different parts of the world and the Lord’s faithfulness on us, for a long, long time.
Bringing him up and watching and caring for him has certainly brought much anguish, heartaches, worries and financial costs to you. But you pressed on as best as any responsible caring sister and stand-in “mother” can be because you love him and have a deep sense of duty as an elder sister.
For that I salute you and hereby award you the highest award of “World’s Best Sister and (stand-in) Mom”!
I am sure your dad and mom are also very pleased and happy to have a daugther like you! I can just imagine them smiling and beeming with pride as you step up to receive your award!
But I can understand your perplexness… I guess it’s a bittersweet feeling… you are glad he is all grown up and moving on and yet it means you’ll be by yourself again… it’s like a parent experiencing an empty nest… i guess from all these experiences you understand your parents quite a bit better… perhaps all these are in preparation for whatever path He might be leading you into?
It’s tough being separated from loved ones as it means where is home? But I think home is more than just a physical place with love ones physically present. I venture a proposal that home is really all the memories of our loved ones that is within us. And that means home is always inside us, in our minds and hearts so that even though when loved ones aren’t physically present, we can always experience home when we think of them.
That is why photos of loved ones are very important and precious. As they help us remember… they help us recall the experiences of home again. (Other helpful mementos of home would be letters, notes, cards, presents, gifts, long talks, time together, diary entries, blog entries, etc… these are treasures because they remind us of home.)
So it’s good that your family is going to have an updated family photo taken as it will become a memento of your home. And of course the gathering for long long talks too…
Enjoy your time with your family this holiday season!
p/s The statement “the gathering for long long talks”… i can’t help but think of those scenes of gatherings of the Fellowship in “Lord of The Rings” triology… wonderful moments together…
p/s I like your brother’s name – Josh or Joshua. A name of a brave biblical soldier who believed in God. Only he and Caleb out of the 12 spies had faith they could take the Promised Land even though it’s filled with giants. And the hebrew root name for Joshua is Yeshua where we get the greek name Jesus
and it means “Yahweh is Salvation”. Surely, this shall be true of your brother even as he parts way with you… that Yahweh is always his salvation wherever he may be… for isn’t brother also called Joshua or simply Josh? 
Cheers!
His name is Joshua which we call him josh. In fact he was a promised son to my mom when she was almost passed a child bearing age. She dedicated the son to God even before he was born that he is going to be the servant leader who delivers many people from the darkness. His Korean name means ‘praise the Lord only’, when he came over to Aussie land I named him Joshua for that reason. Thanks for the feedback!