Korean Prayer and School Stuff

Well this has been a rather normal week, although we got an extra day off AND we also had a short day on Thursday. This week marked the end of the session/school month or something like that, so we got Friday off. On Thursday we got to come in late because the Korean teachers took our kindergarten classes on a field trip to Everland, which is basically Korea’s Disneyland. So we didn’t have to come into work until 3pm, which meant that Jenn got a significantly shorter day than I did since I usually come in at 12ish and she comes in at 10am.
In other school news, my schedule has changed so that I am no longer eating with my kindergarten class. Since this was my first “class” I am not able to come in even later in the day (which my wife is a little jealous of, but I don’t blame her there) and on Wednesdays and Fridays I don’t have to come in until 1:50pm. Keep in mind that the price I pay for this late start is a late exit. I don’t get off work until after 8pm on most nights, and I have virtually no breaks in my teaching schedule. Jenn starts much earlier than me, but gets off sooner and I am pretty sure she has more breaks than I do.
Another change at school is that we have had some additions to some of our classes. One of my classes of two students has ballooned to be a class of eight. Since I was only expecting three more, not six, I was a little surprised (and irritated) by this development. I will get over though. Jenn has had several additions to a couple of her classes, and my other class of two is now five, unless there are more students being added that they “forgot” to tell me about. I haven’t taught this class yet, so we’ll see:-)
Since we had a three day weekend we had decided to do the tourist thing and we planned on going to see an old prison (from the days of the Japanese occupation) turned museum and maybe something else. This did not occur though, because, I was not feeling up for an adventure on Friday and just wanted to hang at home, and on Saturday neither one of us felt like going initially, but when we did venture out of the house it was rainy and icky. So, we settled for a couple pastries from one of the local bakeries and went back home. By the way, there are at least four bakeries within a two minute walk from our apartment building. That is dangerous.
Church was good on Sunday (today). The only really noteworthy thing was the prayer meeting after the service. This was the second week they have done it, but our first week attending. Basically it was a time to share with some of the other believers about our week, prayer requests, etc. There was also food, which was quite good (kind of an inside out kimbop). After everyone had shared prayer requests everybody prayed. All at once. It was rather nice really. In America all prayer meetings I have been to have generally followed the same format where you wait for each person in the group to pray, usually following a specific pattern, such as left to right around a circle or something like that. It both saved time and did not have that irritating pressure to pray for half or more of the prayer requests that were listed. This was especially nice since I can’t usually remember the specifics of half of them. It’s not that I don’t care, but my mind doesn’t work that way without heaps of repetition, which there is not time for at such meetings. So we liked the, everyone pray at the same time thing.
We are also supposed to start our Korean lessons this next Sunday. So as long as everything goes well we should begin learning the Korean language soon:-) I am both excited and terrified of this. I hate trying to learn new languages. It has never been easy for me, but since I am here and am planning to be here for a few years I want to learn at least a little. So please pray that Jenn and I get a good grasp and learn quickly and well.
Tuesday is Children’s Day here, which seems kind of like every child’s birthday at the same time. Kids get gifts and such, and we get the day off too:-) We are hoping to spend some of our extra day off touring the prison turned museum. So hopefully we will be telling you about that in our next blog (with pictures too).