The Wild Bulls of Paju

About the Author.

John Reason was born in Africa of British and South African parents. He is married to Helen, a Kiwi, and they have two children. After graduating from Rhodes University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in the early 80’s, he emigrated to the United Kingdom. He became a Christian at a Luis Palau Crusade at Clapham Common, then attended St Mark’s Church, Kennington, before joining Youth With A Mission (YWAM) in 1984.

After completing a DTS (Discipleship Training School) at YWAM, John went on to study at Kensington Temple’s Joshua Program and then Liberty Bible Training centre under Pastors Rod and Julie Anderson. He became assistant pastor at the Word Church, a satellite church of Kensington Temple in London, where he served for some years before going on to help plant other churches.

John and Helen have been instrumental in helping launch three churches, and now live in New Zealand where they lead an intercessory prayer group. Apart from his job as a financial advisor, John writes ebooks, blogs and likes hill walking, travelling, golfing and hanging out with Holy Ghost people.

Copyright © John Reason 2016 All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the author, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the purchaser. For permissions contact info@johnreason.com. Nothing contained herein is intended to express judgment on or affect the validity of the legal status of any character, term or word as a trademark, service mark or other proprietary mark. It contains the personal views of the author only and although this is a work of non-fiction some names have been changed by the author. Every effort has been made to ensure the content provided is accurate and helpful for the readers at publishing time. However it is not an exhaustive treatment of the subjects. No liability is assumed for losses or damages due to the information provided.

Cover design by Jared Reason

Unless otherwise stated Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

You can visit John’s blog at: HTTP://johnreason.COM

JOHN REASON

THE WILD BULLS OF PAJU

God’s Answer to Fear, Stress and Mental Oppression

Many bulls have surrounded me, strong bulls of Bashan have encircled me.(Psalm 22:12)

You pushed me violently that I might fall, but the Lord helped me.(Psalm 118:13)

This book is for: all those who go to bed feeling lonely, and wake up feeling like they face the world with no helper.

Thanks to my awesome family Helen, Jared, Zoe; Ralph and Penelope, Jack, P.J, my church friends and Nathan who made a tough time go easier.

THE WILD BULLS OF PAJU

God’s Answer to Fear, Stress and Mental Oppression

Whose Wisdom Are You Listening To?

PRAYER OF SALVATION

THE WILD BULLS OF PAJU

Introduction

Imagine waking up one morning and finding that the left side of your face was paralyzed. You look in the mirror and see your mouth stretched up in a weird, lop-sided way on one side and not being able to smile or blink one of your eyes. Your head pounding, you think you have had a stroke.

You then remember your family are half way round the world and that your nearest friend is about an hour-and-a-half away from you by train. You are in an area where the majority of people cannot speak your language and to make yourself understood at the doctor’s, at the bank, at the shops or even by your colleagues at work - is near on impossible.

Then add the fact that there is a crazed dictator across the border threatening to fire nuclear weapons and launch attacks on the country you live in. And your flat is a few miles from the border! This is after you have decided you will continue with your work contract, come what may, illness or not, weakness or not, with a dwindling class of students, most of whom have been coerced into coming to lessons.

Outside your rented flat the temperatures are regularly under minus ten degrees Celsius. Talk about having opportunities to fear, be stressed or depressed! That happened to me!

This is my story of how I arrived in the situation and then learned through the Word of God and the Spirit of God how to deal with impossible situations and who my real enemy was.

Some people in this modern world scoff at the notion of there being an actual devil who actively seeks to resist the plans and purposes of God in the earth; who desires to steal from, kill and destroy people, particularly those who represent Christ. People scoff at the Cross, seeing it as an ancient religious symbol, but do not understand that it was there that Jesus administered a defeat over Satan. This defeat was total, permanent, and irreversible.

And there is considerable ignorance of the satanic kingdom of principalities and powers that operate, as the Bible says, from the heavenly realm and continually seek to devour those who are not under the protection of God. If not rebuked and countered by the Word of God, the devil and his demons will inject fear and depression into people, and even cause illness.

This is something modern psychology does not tell you, but I learned firsthand that the Bible is absolutely correct and up to date with regard to the spiritual war or wrestling match Christian believers are involved in, whether they know it or not, and which Paul describes in the book of Ephesians.

God has given some answers to that and although I did not enjoy the experience I am grateful for the lessons learned. I hold no grievances against the people of Korea or against anyone I met there, even though the experience could easily have tempted bitterness.

Fear, as we learn in the Bible, is a spirit. It is also a major tactic of Satan in these Last Days to snare and cripple the Body of Christ and keep the rest of humanity under his sway.

Depression can also have spiritual roots-the spirit of heaviness. God wants to give you a garment of praise. As I shall attempt to show in this book, we as believers in Jesus, can get free of fear and depression as well as the stress that so easily besets us in this unforgiving, modern world.

Because of my life’s detour in Asia, I can confidently tell you that no matter how impossible your situation seems, there is a way out. In my time of trial I chose to be a victor and not a victim by listening to what God’s Word had to say about my predicaments and trials and not what other people and circumstances were telling me. You can too!

(If you are not a believer, or life’s storms have battered you so much that you feel you no longer can believe in the Bible or the notion of a good. personal, loving God then please turn to the prayer at the end of this book before reading further.)

There is a way out for you, dear friend!

CHAPTER 1

A New Career

I had taken the plunge at the age of 50 into a new career teaching English in Korea. This involved me leaving my family behind me for a full year (a decision not made lightly) whilst I went out to investigate the new potential career. It also involved quitting my frustrating (because it was commission-only), but fairly reliable, job.

I had done surprisingly well at the sales job, considering as I had no background in sales, and although it did not offer me guaranteed income, God had blessed us in such a way that all our immediate needs had been met.

I had experienced the usual stresses of life working in various roles-mainly in sales-in New Zealand and, prior to that, in England, but life was about to take an even more stressful turn.

We were asleep in bed in our home in Christchurch, which is in the South Island of New Zealand, when we were awakened by a violent shaking one early evening on 4 September 2010. Buildings in Christchurch were affected as well as services disrupted, but amazingly, no loss of life. We walked round our property and, apart from a few cracks, saw nothing major had broken or collapsed. We learned it had been a 7.1 magnitude earthquake. We thanked the Lord and, although saddened to see that others had suffered property damage, by and large got on with our lives, with frequent smaller aftershocks reminding us of what just took place.

Then the more dangerous one came in February 22, 2011.

I was in a supermarket in the south of the city on February 22 when the ground started to shake, grocery items were propelled off shelves and shoppers and staff alike started to scream. I felt like a drunk trying to walk a straight line but managed to get out to the car. People started hurrying out of the supermarket; my car was being shaken around like a large toy on a slab of jello. I managed to drive out of the car park and thence home. (You can read more about this here on my blog. Many people at this time began moving to other cities within New Zealand, as well as abroad. I felt the need to look at job options away from our area, diversify and try something else.

Friends in the past had commented on my teaching gift and although this had been employed mainly in church I decided to complete a short TESOL (Teaching English as a Second Language) course with my wife’s encouragement.

Korea, or South Korea more exactly, seemed desirable as the pay there was higher than in other countries; a second impetus for me was meeting a certain missionary called pastor Jack who was going to plant a church there. I offered to help and he seemed excited by this unexpected offer of help, and said he would pray with me for a job there.

I was told it would be near-impossible for me to get a job at my age (early 50's) in Seoul, especially if I didn't have an American accent! Having just gone through two earthquakes, continual aftershocks and seeing the visible deterioration in the quality of life in Christchurch, this did not deter me and just made me all the more keen to see a door open elsewhere.

I fired off a lot of C.Vs (resumes-for my American readers) and received a lot of rejections. Koreans can be very blunt and one Korean agency rep said "You too old for teacher-you have some grey