Chuseok!

Ok, so Friday was a pretty good day. First of all, I taught my first college class. I mean at first I thought the class was just something the students wanted to do and it was just me helping them learn English, but it's actually a real class that the stduents are auditing. An actual professor came in the class to do a small introduction of who I was and thank me for teaching the class. Then he prayed over us and left (at KCU they pray before every class meeting). That was a neat experience. Now I think about it, I got papers to grade! Anyway, that evening I met up with Ted Simons, a graduate of Oklahoma Christian who is here teaching in English in one of the schools. We went to a noodle shop with three people he met at the church he had been going to. First we have Hannah. Hannah is a girl from the United States who is an international student in London who is on an exchange program here studying at Korea University. Then we have Anna. Anna is Finnish and she's also here studying at Korea University as an exchange student. Then we have another young man, I forgot his name, who is also here teaching English in one of the grade schools. After we ate noodles, Hannah had to go back to her dorm, but the rest of us went to Ted's apartment and played Apples to Apples. We wanted to play at a coffee shop but after we walked to the Olympic Park and found out that it closed at midnight we just went back to Ted's. It was my first time playing it, but it was pretty entertaining. When we got done it was like 3 o'clock in the morning so I just stayed the night at Ted's place. That was my first night to spend away from the dormitory.
This morning Ronda introduced me to her friend Anna Marie who is Indian but is a citizen of England. She's been here for a few months teaching English. We went shopping at the Hyundai Market then we did some more shopping in Itaewon. It was a long day! This weekend is Chuseok weekend, which is one of the biggest (if not the biggest holiday) on the Korean calendar, so everybody's gone home for the holidays so to speak. There's only a couple people left in the dorms. And when I say a couple, I mean a couple. Luckily, because of the holidays, we're out of school on Monday. I'm starting to like Chuseok already.

Korea Exchange Student or Korea Visiting Professor?

So last night I was sitting in my room minding my own business when one of the other guys in the dorm comes to me telling me about the English class he wants me to teach. He didn't know English very well but after about ten minutes of fumbling through words I finally make out what he was trying to say. He told me that the class was going to be on tomorrow (Wednesday) at 5:30. I said ok, and went to back to whatever I was doing. Now mind you, people have been telling me about this class for a while now, so it wasn't a surprise, I just didn't know when it was suppose to be.
After a couple hours go by, another student who can't speak English well came to me and after fumbling over his words, I found out he's telling me that the English class that I'm teaching is down stairs in the classroom waiting on me. I'm was like there must be some mistake. Another guy just came in here and told me it was tomorrow. Then it hit me. It was two different classes. Before long, I'm going to be teaching about as many classes as I'm already taking.

Mamma Mia!

Saturday morning Ronda, Samuel, and Winter came by the dorm and we all went to Hyundai Market. Hyundai Market is a huge shopping mall with a movie theater. After we picked up movie tickets to Mamma Mia, we grabbed some food from KFC and sat down and talked for a while. After we ate, we went by some bookstores and looked through the English books they had. Before long, it was time for the movie to start. It was a really good movie. Which is funny because I actually hate musicals. Well I probably enjoyed it more because I don't get to see many movies in English, but either way I enjoyed myself.
Afterwards, we went outside the Hyundai Market to see many other stores and shops. We looked through another bookstore and then sat down at Coldstone and ate ice cream. Ronda and I shared life stories and it really helped me understand her and her family more. I think it's funny how sometimes knowing where someone has come from helps you understand who they are today. That was definitely the case with her. We talked for about two hours.
Before heading back to the dorm, we stopped at E-Mart to pick up a couple of groceries. I love the Korean grocery stores because they have a sample of almost every kind food they stock. They sample more food than Sam's Club! Anyway, after we left the grocerty store I watched the first Pirates of the Caribbean at Ronda's house and then headed back to my dorm. It was a good day!

I can't believe I'm embarking on my third week here in Korea. Time is really flying like I thought it would. I realize that I'm really not going to understand the magnitude of what I'm doing here till I'm long back at home and bored with nothing to do. It will be then when I realize that I have been blessed to do what many have not had the chance to do and I don't just mean being able to travel. On Friday I finally got a chance to go to Itaewon and got to talking to some U.S. soldiers. After talking with them a bit, I realized these guys didn't I have a clue about what Korea or what Koreans were about. I used to think that only if Americans could travel the world then they would see what it had to offer, but I realized that people could very well travel the world and not notice what was right in front of their eyes. I thank God for not only giving me the opportunity to be where I am, but also for giving me an open mind to experience the amazing things this place and these people have to offer. And that's something you can't get by living day in and day out on a military base.

Yoido Full Gospel Church

So Wednesday I was able to go see the one thing I've been anticipating to see since I learned I was going on this trip, Yoido Full Gospel Church. Last week Dr. Moon promised me we would tour the building Wednesday as a part of my practicum. For those who don't know, Yoido at 830,000 members is the largest protestant church in the world. When we got there we couldn't find a parking space anywhere. Most Korean establishments don't have parking lots, because of the lack of space they have parking basements. We had to go all the way to the third floor of the basement to find a parking spot. It was kind of scary to think that you were three floors underground. So after we parked and went inside the building, we found out why it was so croweded. Neither one of us knew that they had a Wednesday worship at 12 noon. Actually they have five different Wednesday worhips and all of them were packed. My ingnorance was very apparent since I was wearing a t-shirt, basketball shorts, and flip flops. I felt so weird walking into their worship where everybody was wearing suit and tie and I had on a Uplift t-shirt. When we walked in the sanctuary we couldn't find a seat anywhere. I mean this was the biggest sanctuary I've ever seen...and it was full to capacity. Not to mention that this was a Wednesday worship in the middle of the day! While I was looking for a seat I noticed that EVERYBODY was speaking in tongue. Now I've been to many different kinds of churches but I've never seen a church where everybody caught the Holy Spirit. I mean we had to interrupt one of the ushers who was "feeling it" to have him help us find a seat.

As we were leaving when it was over, we walked by an ATM looking machine. Dr. Moon told me that people use that to give their tithes. Everything in this church was state of the art. One of the reasons Dr. Moon took me to Yoido is because he wanted me to see first hand what he was talking about in his dissertation. Yoido, like many other churches in Korea, lean heavily on what we call "prosperity preaching." Their motto comes from 3 John 2, and it's written all around the church. Dr. Moon told me that this type of doctrine is accepted here because of how closely it's related to Shamanism, a folk religion of Korea. We talked a long time about how even when a new religion is accepted, the one that was engrained before still has an impact on a person. Even as a Church of Christ preacher, he still deals with issues in the church that roots back to folk religions of Korea.

So after an amazing, enlightening morning I was brought back to reality when I step foot in Korean language class. It was the worst two hours of my life. It's bad enough that languages don't register that well with me. But on top of that, my teacher doesn't speak English that well and he's not a Korean language teacher. But it's ok, I'll get through it. Besides, the worst thing that could happen is I fail the class. Well, on second thought that would be pretty bad.

Cold Noodles!

So today didn't go at all how I planned it. Since I didn't have class today, I woke up and took a shower planning on going to Itaewon which is the part of town where the Army base is. I was ready to see some Americans for a change. So as I was standing by the bus stop waiting to head to Itaewon when one of my friends ran up to me and handed me his cell phone. I was thinking to myself, "Who in the world on this guy's phone could want to speak to me?" When I answered I found out that it was the librarian and she told me that the missionary here on campus, Malcolm Parsley, wanted to meet me. So I headed up to the library and met Dr. Parsley. Dr. Parsley was in the military when he first came to Korea. After his duty was over he went back to the states and got his doctorate from Harding Graduate School of Religion in Memphis, TN and came back to Korea as a missionary. He planted many churches and even was the president of KCU for a while. He took me out to lunch and he introduced me to a new Korean meal, it was basically cold noodles. It was actually pretty good. By the time we got back, it was too late for me to go to Itaewon so I just stayed, finished some homework and hung out in the International Zone. Now the International Zone is a small room in the main building on campus where Korean students come and practice their conversational English. Usually, one of the American professors are in there and they just hang out with the students so they can get comfortable having a conversation in English. I hang out in there sometimes because it's a good place for me to waste time without having to be isolated in my dorm room.

Thanks to Highway

“Thanks to the Interstate Highway System, it is now possible to travel across the country from coast to coast without seeing anything.” This statement was made by a journalist named Charles Kuralt who was tired of the “cut throat” world of journalism and convinced CBS to let him travel around the country on a motor home doing reports on American lives around the nation. Charles was convinced that to really get to the heart of America one had to travel back roads to get where the real stories were.
This quote makes me think of how my life has become a highway. The technology and fast pace of today’s world have blinded me from the things that I used to appreciate and admire. As shallow as it sounds, it made me think about how I’ve forgotten to just slow down sometimes and admire what God has blessed me with, even if it’s only for a little while. I think that’s why Kuralt’s feature on The CBS Evening Show was such a hit back in the sixties because it showed people the treasures life have to offer that we have so easily looked over. We travel from one place to the other so quickly now that we fail to see what we passed in the process. I pray to God that he gives me the patience to slow down and appreciate what is around me in the present. That I won’t travel the globe and miss the treasures the world has to offer because I was anxious to get to the next phase of life. Most of my blog posts have been about what I’ve done. Little have I reflected on the events and savored the importance of what was really going on. Now that the first week is done hopefully things will slow down a little to where that’s easier to do.

N Seoul Tower

So Thursday night some of the students from the dorms took me to a Korean style spa. Don told me the name of it but I forgot. Anyway, it reminded of a Japanese Onsen. It had the very hot tub of water, the very cold tub of water, jet massagers, and many different saunas. The biggest difference with this place was when you got done with all that stuff you take a shower and put on these clothes they let you borrow and go to this large room where we met up with the girls that came with us. This large room had televisions, more saunas, and a snack bar. It even had these rooms were people sleep in these large cubby holes. We stayed up for a little bit and ate and played games. Afterwards we went to the “cubby hole” room and slept till the next morning. We got up around 6:00 and headed back to the school.
Later that evening Sang from Hanmee Church of Christ came by the school and showed Don Kinder and I around town. First we went to one of the Palaces here in Seoul. It wasn’t one of the best ones here but it was just as impressive. Afterwards we went to a place called the Korean House and then we ate at this pork cutlet place. Down the street from the restaurant we ate at was the cable car to take us up to the N Seoul Tower. From the top of this tower we were able to see the whole city of Seoul. It was pretty nice. We stayed up there till it got pretty dark so we could see how the city looked when it was light up. Surrounding the deck at the base of the tower was a fence full of pad locks. Sang told us that the pad locks was a new tradition among the new generation. When a new couple is about to marry they connect two padlocks to the fence to represent their lives together forever. Ironically, there was sign that said, “Don’t lose your key.” I thought that was pretty funny. Before we left we watched a band sing a couple of songs and then we headed back to the school.
While we were at the top of tower waiting for it to turn dark, Sang told us his story of how he ended up in Seoul. It was a story of struggle and poverty. As a young man, his dad sent him to the city with what is the equivalent of three dollars for a better life. It’s amazing to see how God has brought him from being a poor farmer in rural Korea to being a hard worker in God’s Kingdom.