It's Been A While

Wow, it’s been a really long time since I last posted and honestly I don’t have a good reason why. It’s probably because things have slowed down around here and living in Korea is starting to seem more like a lifestyle rather than an experience. I guess that’s a good thing since learning the lifestyle is what I came here for. These last couple of weeks have been very interesting. I’m getting to a point to where I know a lot people around campus and around the neighborhood.
Last weekend I was able to attend the Passion World Tour. Louie Giglio, Francis Chan, David Crowder Band, Matt Redman, and Chris Tomlin made their way to Seoul for a weekend conference. While I was standing in line to receive my ticket, I met a Korean American from New York City who attended Yongsei University. Yongsei is one of the two biggest and most prestigious universities in Seoul. After talking for a while, he told me he was standing in line to get the tickets for his whole group. He was part of a campus ministry that met at the campus on Tuesdays. It’s called the Yongsei International Christian Fellowship. This group is open to anyone, but Korean Americans who decided to come to Korea, either for college or as an exchange student, made up the majority of them. Since I was there alone he invited me to meet the group and sit with them in the concert. Most of these students were either from Seattle, Southern California, or New York. It was probably the biggest group of Americans that I’ve been able to interact with for a long time. This past Tuesday I went to Yongsei University to worship with the group and we went out to eat afterwards. I’m thinking I’ll probably be spending a lot of Tuesday nights with these guys.
Now that things are slowing down a little, life kind of has a routine to it. I thought I would run through it quickly.
Sunday: I usually hitch a ride with Don Kinder, one of the American professors here, and James, his roommate, to Hanmee Church of Christ. Church usually lasts from 11-12, then we eat lunch at the church from 12-1, and we have bible class that lasts from 1-2. Since most churches in Korea, especially ones that are catered to English speakers are later in the evening it gives me the opportunity to worship with other churches in the city also. After worship, I usually spend the rest of the day lounging around in my dorm.
Monday: I have my Korean Culture and History class at one o’clock with Dr. Park. Dr. Park is a Korean who has a doctorate from Harding Grad. She teaches English, but the school chose her to teach me culture and history. A couple weeks ago, Dr. Park directed me to a website that had at least a hundred essays written by Korean professors in English. She told me to pick about 7 essays that I found interesting and I was to read them before class and then we would talk about them during our session. It’s really interesting because she’s always asking me these simple questions that I have a hard time answering. It’s funny (and quite sad) that some of the fundamental things I believe in I actually don’t fully understand. And it doesn’t just happen in her class, it happens to me all the time here. People are always asking me, “Why does America do this? Why does America believe that? What do you like about your country? What don’t you like about your country?” And even though those might seem like remedial questions, it’s not easy having a conversation about them with a person who didn’t grow up believing in the same ideology that you did. Ironically, I can say that this semester has taught me more about America than it has Korea. Monday nights is also the time for cleaning the dorm. Every month each dorm room picks a certain tasks out of a hat which tells them what they will clean for the next four Mondays. Luckily, I haven’t had to clean the bathrooms yet (knock on wood).
Tuesdays: I don’t have any classes on Tuesdays, but my Korean language teacher has me come to his daycare and teach his 6 and 7 year olds English for a couple of hours. I teach four classes, twenty minutes each. Each class has about 20-25 students. It’s pretty fun and the kids are the most hilarious characters I’ve ever seen in my life. Afterwards I kind of just walk around the city and find random things to do until it’s time to head to Yongsei University. It would be a waste of time to go all the way back to KCU and leave right back out. That night, our dormitories have small groups which for my group start at 10:20. There are all different kinds of small groups, but since I’m a native speaker, they placed me in the “I want to learn English” small group. They also have a movie small group where they watch movies and they have a small group where they play games…just to name a few.
Well this post is already extremely long, so I’ll finish my weekly schedule in my next post. Thanks for your prayers!