He Prayed That We Might All Be One

Well, I woke up Sunday morning to attend church. We worshipped at a church called Hanmee Church of Christ. Supposedly, Hanmee suppose to stand for Korean-English. The church is bilingual. Don Kinder is also the preacher there. The location of the church is a converted penthouse that is also used as a non-degree seeking preaching school. The school has six week sessions where they bring in different people for each session. This session they brought in James Burch, an adjunct professor from Pepperdine. We had dinner with him on Saturday. Church started at 11:00am. We sang songs together but in different languages. I’ve been to many foreign and multi-cultural churches alike and I’ve never seen it done that way. To a person who wasn’t singing at all, it probably would sound like racket, but if you were singing you would be so in tuned on the words you were singing, you could hardly tell that others were singing in tongue. Weird, I know. Don preached from Mark 12:28-29. It was a really good sermon. After church every Sunday they have a pot luck lunch. All the food is straight Korean…no holds barred. Like I said earlier, we had eaten at the church Saturday too, and a lot of people complimented me on being able to eat all the Korean food. “Not many Americans like Korean food,” they would say. I must admit it wasn’t my favorite either, but having been to China first, it definitely wasn’t the worst.
After lunch we had bible class. Don usually teaches the English bible class, but since he had just got back to Korea a couple days before I arrived, he didn’t have a lesson so we just talked. When bible class ended, Sang, the director of the preaching school and the translator for worship, was walking around preparing for a baptism. His son and another young man were giving their life over to Christ. It was two this Sunday, but last Sunday they baptized four other ones. Ironically, this was not normal for me. I’m used to attending churches where baptisms were as rare as six every two months, not every two weeks! Sang had me take the pictures. It felt good to be needed on my first Sunday at my new church. The church has about thirty members.
Later that evening I watched the USA play Spain in basketball. It was a close game but they pulled it off. Afterwards, I got in the mood to play a little basketball myself, so I went to the courts outside and broke in my new KBA (Korea Basketball Association) basketball I bought at HomePlus the day before. That night, my dorm inspector bought me and some other guys in the dorm some Chinese food. I guess it was kind of like a “welcome to the dorm” gift. It was really good. They were all asking me a lot of questions. Joseph, a guy I met on my first day, was there and I met a new guy named David.
I found out that not only am I the first exchange student from OC to come to KCU, but I’m the first American exchange student ever to come to KCU. I guess I’m making history! Well today is my first day of school and like always the first day of school is always the most exciting. This place is wonderful and everyone does their best to make sure I’m comfortable. I’m really glad I’m here.

New Residence: Seoul, South Korea

I’m finally here. After 19 straight hours of travelling, I made it here at 2:50pm on August 22 (12:50am on August 22 Central Time). The plane ride wasn’t so bad; I got to watch Kung Fu Panda, Made of Honor, House M.D., and House of Payne.
When I got off the plane I went to baggage claim to pick up my luggage to find out that my body wash spilled over some of my belongings. Luckily, nothing was permanently damaged. Mr. Ru (sp?) and Ronda Everson was right outside the baggage claim holding a sign that said, “Marshall Wade,” so it wasn’t hard to find them. The clouds outside were a dark grey and it was drizzling constantly all day, not a good impression of the city. It took us about an hour to get to the school where Mr. Ru got a student to show me where my dorm was. When I got there I made a claim never to talk about OC housing again. My dorm was smaller than my private dorm I had as a freshmen at OC. And to make matters even worse, it had three beds in it! One of my roommates were already there, his name was Husun (sp?). I asked was another person coming and nobody was for sure, but most of them thought somebody else was on their way sometime over the weekend. So I dropped my bags and we all went to eat. By this time, Ronda’s two children, Samuel, 19, Winter, 14, and Don Kinder, a teacher at KCU had made it. We walked to this restaurant that was down the street from the school. I had a pork cutlet, curry, and rice. And of course, like every other meal here, it had Kim chi. Dinner was pretty good. As we walked back in the rain, I realized that I was going to need an umbrella. When I asked Don where I could get one, he just simply gave me his when we made it back to the dorm. When I arrived at my dorm John, the student president, was there to welcome me. Afterwards I headed to my dorm and unpacked. I think that was when it hit me that this was not a weeklong vacation. Once I was done I immediately made my bed and went to sleep. Due to jet lag, I woke up around 2a.m. Don warned me of that. After about an hour, I fell asleep again to wake up at 6a.m. That time I decided to get up and go watch some T.V. in the lounge area. Surprisingly, they had a couple of channels that aired movies in English. I decided to watch Forrest Gump. This is turning out to be a wonderful place. I think I can make it here for four months.

Seven Hours Before Take Off!

Well the time has come for me to stop talking about it and for this thing to become reality. I just finished installing Skype for my mom now we can talk as much as we want to :) Good news is Oklahoma Christian has just issued me a new Apple MacBook so she can see me due to the built-in camera, but the bad news is she doesn't have a camera so I can't see her. But anyway, I'm just blessed to have the communication I do have. It makes me wonder how missionaries did it many years ago. How could they go that long without even talking to their families?

I'm so anxious right now that it's 10:51 and I can't even sleep! Well I think I better use this time to pray about the next four months, so until next time, keep me in your prayers that I have a safe flight and that this trip to Seoul will not only be a learning experience for me, but it will also be an avenue to win souls to Christ.

Some quick thank you's to some wonderful people in my life....

My mom, Pamela Jones
My mentor, Benny Walls
Brian Plumb
Ben Glover
Oakcrest Youth Group (you guys are awesome)
Spencer Youth Group (I can't wait to see you guys again)
Danny and Cindy Minor
John Osborne
Don Kinder
Ronda Everson
Don and Marcia Drew
Nia Kimble
Emroy Jones
Daniel Randolph

You guys have encouraged/helped me more than you will ever know, and I think it's only right that you know that I appreciate it!

Complacency

Man, there’s so much I have to do before leaving. I had to cancel my auto insurance last week and just yesterday I had to call and put my cell phone on a cheaper plan since I won’t be using it while I’m gone. I even had to make sure the couple of monthly bills I have are put on an automatic payment plan since I won’t be here to pay them manually like usual. It takes a lot of work tying loose ends. No matter how much packing and preparation I do I never feel like I'm finished. It makes me think that if preparing to leave the country is this stressful that leaving this world would probably give me a nervous breakdown.
Is it even possible for a person be prepared to leave this world? I mean after everything on my “to do” list is done, I still won’t feel “ready” to go. There will always be something in the back of my mind telling me there’s more to do. That’s why it’s hard for me to understand people who seem like they get complacent with life. It’s like they don’t realize there was a reason for God blessing them with more time. Someone once told me that it’s easy to have purpose and dreams when you’re a young radical college student, but once you get older the daily grind of things just makes life more routine. I pray that my life never gets that way. I pray that my reality never gets so far from my dreams that I settle for mediocre living.

No English On Sunday Morning

Wow! Time is winding down. Tomorrow will be my last Sunday in America for nearly four months. To a person who has never spent a long period of time in a non-English speaking country, this doesn’t sound like a big deal. Oh, but it is. In 2006 I spent two months in Asia. That trip showed me how detrimental that amount of time can be without a worship service in your own language. My spiritual food was not being spoon fed to me like I was used to. Back in America I was more of a spiritual consumer rather than a spiritual producer. I would go to church, get my dosage of the Word, and then pretty much be done with God till the next appointed time.
So taking all that in consideration, I’m going to enjoy my last Sunday in America, but I’m also going to make some serious changes to my spiritual diet this time around. I’m going to take my spirituality into my own hands. I will read my bible regularly and pray constantly. I’m going to make sure this trip is an opportunity for God to get closer versus it been an opportunity for Satan to push Him further away.