What Was I Thinking?

Yes, that was a long title. I originally considered the title What's Happening?  but decided that older readers might confuse it with the American TV situation comedy from the late 1970s. I think seeing this will make my sister happy. I will tell you a little about what has been happening in my life since my last posting. I taught Sunday school for the first time since coming to Korea. Miss Jadzia has been under the weather recently, so she lined me up as a substitute teacher, since her voice was fading. I was sent via email an outline for teaching about the prophet Samuel anointing David the next king of Israel. I replied asking how long I should plan to teach the lesson, thinking I was doing just the teaching. Another email came explaining that as the substitute teacher I was responsible for everything from the opening song to the closing prayer with the lesson, the craft, the memory verse, and clean-up in between. I was very happy to recall that I had once opened a Pintere...

Today is Easter Sunday and it is 7:22 PM here in Korea as I begin writing this blog entry. For those of you who have been faithfully reading about my time here, you may remember the hard time I had at Christmas in Thailand when I went to McDonald's for lunch and missed being with my family. Well, today I can say that celebrating Easter here with my Korean church family was truly a blessing, and though I wish I were eating ham with my Maine or Mayland relatives about eight hours from now, the potluck lunch at the church was abundant and delicious too. Easter eggs for lunch! Today's service included communion, worship led by the young people and me, me singing a special Easter song (Kari Jobe's Forever) that I originally was invited to to sing at EuroCon with Tina Reaves and Ruthie  Posrednikov, and a message from Pastor DeVries from 1 Corinthians 15 about the Resurrection. We had visitors from America, Dawn's mom and aunt, and an older Korean man that we met outsi...

I hope that I am sufficiently rested to write coherently this morning after being away for some time from Korea in Budapest, Hungary. I slept away most of yesterday, my first full day back home here, so, now that two weeks' worth of laundry has been done, I can give my undivided attention to writing about my time away in the Western hemisphere. I flew out of Incheon on Thursday night, February 26, at five minutes to midnight. I had spent the morning packing and sifting through all my belongings, discovering things to dispose of in a spring cleaning of sorts, making sure I had everything I'd need for a week of conferencing and a week of working at GGIS. Would I need a tie or two? Where were those books I was saving for Paivi Janssen's class? What kind of adapter would I need for my electrical gadgets? Should I bring Advil Cold and Sinus just in case I really had picked up Tain's and William's germs? I was out the door before noon, riding the subway to Myeongdong to...

Last week, Korea celebrated the Lunar New Year, sometimes called Chinese New Year, over the course of three days. It is a time when families travel to be with older relatives to pay their respects. Children get to see their grandparents and, perhaps, aunts and uncles too, who often give them money. The new moon was on Thursday, New Year's Day, so very few businesses were open, but Tain, William, and I were able to catch a local bus to the area near Uijeongbu station and find an open budae jjigae restaurant. We joined families, some dressed in traditional clothing, to eat a holiday meal. Recently, Tain and William have had terrible colds with fever, sinus issues, coughing - you name it - so I have been praying for them to get better and for me not to catch their virus, because they've been miserable and I am scheduled to fly to Budapest on Thursday night. God has been SO GOOD, because I usually catch every cold that comes down the road. Those few hours riding the buses an...