Shalom

Well this has been an eventful week. In school one day we were going over homework as usual, which consists of the students grading each other’s homework (these are my older students) while I give them the answers (having them read the questions out loud). At one point the students were reading their essay question answers out loud and one of them wrote something that said he was stupid. I told him that I graded his homework and I was quite certain he is not stupid and I told him that he (as well as the other students) was quite smart. So he erased stupid and then wanted to know how to spell genius instead:-) I love the kids I work with. They are so much fun:-)

In other news we had Friday off from normal teaching duties, but instead we had a teacher work day. This was to prepare us for a day in May when the parents of our students are going to be visiting while we teach. It seems to be for only a couple of class periods though, because I don’t actually have to teach one. This makes me very happy since I really don’t want a heap of parents in the classroom with me while I teach their children. Just more stress than I want, especially since it is the younger kids that already stress me out more than my other classes. I think it is because I have to spend more time/energy/effort keeping them in line. With my older kids it is a matter of getting their attention and most of them will then pay attention, but I have several younger students I would like to tie town with duct tape. For the record I would NOT do that, but it does sure sound good sometimes…

Friday was also the day we finally got a cell phone. Yes, just one. It seems that cell phones and such are more complicated here. We were given two phones that we could use (both from co-workers). This was great since now we don’t have to buy phones. Well, we went to the cell phone place with Toni, our head teacher, to set up a plan and activate our phones. Apparently the company (our phones will only work for this particular company) will not give regular contracts to foreigners, so the only one they will give us is a prepaid plan. There was also the problem that one of our phones can only function on a normal plan, not a prepaid one. So we cannot use that one. So we set up one phone anyway and we are going to return the other phone to the teacher who gave it to us and see if we can use one of the other ones she has. She has several extras and we chose the one that did not work, unknowingly of course. Additionally, even though we were getting a pre-paid phone plan they had to do a background check on me. I can’t figure that one out. Are they concerned I am a terrorist or something? I don’t know, but it took them four hours to do this background check so I could have a phone that requires me to pay for the minutes before I can use them. Weird.

In church last Sunday we sang a song that talked about how wanting God in our all our dreams and in our darkest hour. I thought to myself how much do we really think out having God in our dreams. Obviously we want Him around during our darkest hour, but I found myself wondering how much I really put God in my dreams. By this I don’t mean that I/we have bad things in our dreams that God would not approve of, but how much do we really, honestly, and actively put God in our dreams? Do we dream of ways that we can serve Him? Or do we think of how the things we want to have can be used by Him to His glory? Or do we just tend to want whatever it is we want (good or bad things) and just disregard how these things can help us serve Him and honor Him better? So that got me thinking about what my dreams were and how I can use what I have now, and also how I can use my dreams to serve God better. It’s still something I am working on, but I thought I would share it anyway.

 
Hi this is Jenn,
This week we attended our first Korean Wedding. Lee is an American from our church and his wife, Michelle, is Korean. We went to a Wedding Hall. It was gorgeous. Here you don’t give gifts, just money and the money has to be in a special white envelope. They provide them at the wedding hall. Then you put the money in the envelope with a note on it and give it to one of the attendants. The attendant then gives you your lunch ticket. The lunch is a buffet style meal, on another floor of the building.

The first thing I noticed when I walked in was that almost everyone was wearing black and white. This concerned me because I brought two dresses that are nice enough to wear to a wedding. One is black with white polka dots and the other is bright green. Of course I would never wear black to an American wedding so I wore the green dress. I kind of stuck out a little. Next time I will wear the black dress.

After saying hello to the groom we went into the reception hall. It was very, very elegant. My favorite part was all of the chandeliers. They were beautifully ornamented and shined brightly. There were also tables to sit at and the chairs were covered in cloth with a giant pink bow around them.

In a back room the bride sat on a chair and everyone came to her and took pictures. It was nice that she didn’t have to get up and walk around. Also they don’t worry about the groom seeing the bride before the ceremony. When the wedding started, first the mothers walked down (they were both in traditional Korean dresses). Then the groom walked down the aisle by himself and everyone clapped. Then the best man and maid of honor (No extra bridesmaids). Finally the bride and her father walked down the aisle.

We were told that the service would be very short. But I think because it was in Korean and they had to translate it into English (you know so the groom knew what he was agreeing to : ) it took quite some time. Not everyone attended the ceremony. Most people arrived, said hello to the bride and groom and then went downstairs to eat. Apparently this is a rather normal custom in Korea. We decided that since it was the first Korean wedding we have attended we would stay for the whole event. During the service the doors were never closed and so you could hear people talking and coming in and out of the reception hall. People would come up to us and start talking and there were sodas on the table that people just grabbed and opened. All of this noise was going on during the ceremony. Strange.

When the ceremony was over we headed down to the restaurant that was two floors down. I have never seen a buffet with so much food. It was great. We ate and chatted with other s from our church for about an hour and a half. During this time we never saw the bride, the groom, any of the wedding party, or the parents. Suddenly we noticed that all of the Koreans had left so we decided to leave too, which was around the time that the bridal party arrived. Lee said that he was very hungry because he had not eaten since 4 am. At this point it was close to 4 pm. They still had not eaten when we left.

Today was also Easter Sunday. I think I missed being home more today than any other time that I have been in Korea. I wanted to attended the sunrise service at our church in America and have a big ham dinner with lots of mashed potatoes and gravy at the Rowen’s house. Only the Christians celebrate Easter here and we had communion for the first time here. I don’t think they performed the communion service like they normally would have. Our guest speaker was a Jewish Christian who lives in Israel with his Korean wife. He said that he was raised in Los Angeles. So our communion was from special bread (Matza bread from Israel) that he brought with him. They had one cup of grape juice and you walked up one row at a time and took a piece of the matza dipped it in the wine and then ate it. The missionary spoke a lot about what is happening in Israel presently. It was a good sermon. We found out later that there was a sunrise service at our church but that it was in Korean. The English ministry of our church is a very small part of the whole church that we attend. Also they are having an Easter play tonight with classical music. They play will be in Korean so we probably will not attend.

After the service they passed out hard boiled eggs wrapped in pretty bags with bows. That was the only special thing about Easter here, nothing more. After church two of the Korean ladies invited us out to lunch at a nearby restaurant. Remember how I said I really wanted a ham dinner with mashed potatoes? Well I got it Korean style. It was cooked pork still on the bone that was boiled in a broth and there were chunks of potatoes cooked with it. So I guess I got my Easter dinner Korean style. Pauline one of the Korean ladies who invited us even got me to eat a piece of Radish Kimchi. It wasn’t too bad but I won’t be requesting it anytime soon. The pork was good. It was a little spicy, but I learned that when eating spicy food, to not let it touch your lips. This helped a lot and I was able to enjoy the meal.