The past three years of my life—I turn 34 this December!—have been marked by profound pain and loss, but also by sheer survival, resilience, and perseverance. I want to weave these experiences into a narrative for readers and, when time allows, reflect upon them through existential, philosophical, and theological lenses.

It has been a difficult road to travel, one that has tested me in ways I could never have anticipated. Yet, in sharing this story, I hope that some part of it might offer a measure of hope to others who are walking through their own seasons of hardship. This is Part 1.

Where Am I Today?

My present life is that of an English teacher in a small city in South Korea, roughly 50 minutes south of Seoul by bus, where I have now lived for almost two years.

I work full-time, teaching elementary school children in the mid-afternoons before teaching adults in the evenings. Having had to make this foreign country my “home,” I have pushed myself to learn enough basic Korean to communicate in everyday situations while, at the same time, adapting to a culture and way of life very different from my own. Over time, what was once entirely unfamiliar has gradually become something a little more easy to manage and navigate.

It is also here that I have pushed myself to heights I never would have imagined reaching before. I have had to navigate much of it alone—visa processes, immigration systems, hospitals, banks, work contracts, finances, and the uncertainty of my future. In the process, I have learned more than I ever expected to, not only about how to navigate life in a foreign country, but also about myself and what I am capable of handling on my own.

As I sometimes like to tease myself, four years ago, as my 20s drew to a close, I was still a boy, quietly plodding away at a PhD at a university, imagining that I had some idea of where my life was headed. Today, having lost all of that, I am a man—shaped by experiences I could never have anticipated, and by a life that has demanded far more of me than I ever expected.

How I arrived here in Korea is part of the story but suffice it is to say that just prior to my boarding the airplane I had, along with my mom and little dog, Lilly, been surviving on an animal rescue shelter/farm in an arid and isolated arid region in South Africa.

We survived there under difficult circumstances and I have stories and experience from there that I will share over time. There we were given food and shelter in exchange for daily manual labor. The men worked the farm and the women cleaned the main residence and made the dinner. At that time, in the span of a few months, I went from a third-year PhD candidate at a prestigious university in Cape Town to homelessness, having to pull out vegetables from soil in the gruelling heat and load them into a vehicle. Much happened at this farm I want to reflect about. But I am jumping the gun now, so let me rewind.

Lives Unravelled

Within the span of just a few months in 2024, the life we had known collapsed around us.

For nearly three decades, I had lived a comfortable and, in many ways, deeply blessed life. I had attended excellent schools and universities, enjoyed countless meals at restaurants, and had the privilege of travelling overseas on occasion. We lived in Rondebosch, an affluent neighbourhood in Cape Town, and I had grown accustomed to a life in which I wanted for very little. I had never imagined how quickly all of that could change.

But it did not last. The family business bankrupted and the person who had been our primary provider abandoned us. The family home had earlier been sold from beneath us, setting in motion a chain of events that ultimately left us homeless and, in time, residing on an isolated rural shelter farm for abused animals (just mentioned; more to come).

At the time, I was in the third year of my PhD and was forced to withdraw from the university where I had studied, lectured, and tutored undergraduate students in my discipline. I had only just begun the process of establishing myself within academic organizations and institutions, taking the first steps toward the scholarly vocation I had long envisioned. In many respects, that dream was shattered as more than a decade of tertiary education, accumulated throughout my twenties and early thirties, seemed to vanish in an instant.

Other tragedies marked those months as well. I was physically assaulted by a group of five men, an assault that left me with an abrasion to my skull, a concussion, a hospital visit, and a case laid with the police. In the midst of these upheavals, my mom and me were forced to leave Cape Town, the city of my birth and all I had known, in search of affordable accommodation in a rural village, sustained for a time by a decade’s worth of advertising revenue generated by this blog. Later, circumstances led me to Korea, with the costs of travel and accommodation covered by my employer.

These dislocations came at a profound personal cost. I lost not only….

Part 2: The Road Out of Cape Town – From Homelessness to Korea.