Trip Updates #3--Saturday

Saturday morning (Friday night to you) we had time to at the host home to sleep in and unpack. Our family was so prepared for us: hangers ready for our clothes, shelves cleared for us to use. We had a big breakfast. Friday night I tried some of everything because I thought we were supposed to and now I may have a reputation as a big eater. Oops. :) Of course, Luke is the one Isaac calls the vacuum cleaner. For breakfast we had scrambled eggs, sausages, grapes, milk, juice, and a bread like french bread with fruit and nuts in it and a cheese spread on it. I was very nervous about the sausages since I don't like them at home, but this was good and very different than ours. We sat around the table and talked and looked at the pictures I brought. The pictures were great to start conversation about family, church, Knoxville, etc. The sunsphere was hard to explain. Isaac said Jessica looks like Pocahotas! :) The girls enjoyed Samantha's myspace and seeing the pictures of Disney World. It is neat to talk with Christians in other places about their vision for the church. Incredible.

After breakfast we played a board game--blokus--which is a simple game but was hard for us at first. It's like tetris, but backwards.

The view from the balcony is amazing. Seoul is a tall city, they build up where we build out. From the 22nd floor I got great pictures of the area we're in.


Isaac asked how many people go to our church. He said "that's all? we have over 200 kids. We take our shoes off when we go in. That's 400 shoes!!"I don't think I could ever explain how welcoming the family has been. At the desk in our room was a basket with bottled water, candy, chocolate and kleenexes. As soon as we got there, Sayone put our flowers in water and put mine on the desk also. Isaac told us we can use the phone and internet (though I'm not comfortable doing that here--privacy is a rare thing here it seems.) Sayone gave us their phone number to give to our parents. They are great. We are very blessed to be with this family, and the girls, Hanul (sky) and Sarang (love) are precious!

Isaac and Sayone are teaching us to use chopsticks. We practiced with "trainer chopsticks" kind of like the plastic silverware we have for toddlers.

For lunch we had fruit and bolgogi. I was a little nervous again. 1-lunch was not far removed from a big breakfast. 2-I don't really like beef. But again, I kind of liked it. (I don't know if I really like it or if it's so many people are praying specifically for me and the food.)

Then we went to church to start working. Today was very hard for me. I flet like I never knew what was going on. We walked into the cafe thinking we were going to find out the plan for the day and stepped right into the action. Todd and Leeanne had gone early and a woman came by who had never heard the gospel. Todd and Pastor Won shared with her and she prayed to receive Christ right then. Then someone else came and someone else...as the rest of us arrived we were given an English/Hangul version of the "Steps to Peace with God" presentation and told to look over it quickly. Before we really knew what was happening, church members were bringing people in from the street and having us talk to them. We would read the English side and lead them through a prayer. We saw many decisions, but still I struggled with why we are here. The church members are really the workers. I think we--the Americans--are just drawing people here. I know that is important, but I felt somewhat useless at times.

I also wish we could spend more time with the team. I'm used to ending mission trip days by sharing stories of each other's day and being able to talk things through and pray together. Here, they take us back to our host home as soon as activities are finished. I know they are doing it out of consideration to us, to make sure we rest, but I would give anything for some time with Leeanne and Leah.

We spent the afternoon in the cafe talking to people as they were brought in. Then we had dinner at the church--another big meal. We were talking about how much we have eaten since we've been in Seoul and how stuffed we constantly are when a man came and told us to go downstairs for dinner. We had salad, soup, rice, spaghetti (with corn in it), and what I thought was chicken until someone later asked me how I liked the pork. Also, where we make sure everyone has a drink before the meal begins, here a drink seems to be an after thought. That is very different for people used to a lot of beverages and who are a little unsure about the food.

After dinner we had a time of games for youth. Everything is already planned out; we just participated with the students. The students are in a program to learn English, so our main role was to be the "native speaker" in certain word games.

We went back to the homes around 10pm (9 am in Knoxville). Samantha and I practiced "Behold the Lamb" for Sunday's service. Sorry to the people on the 21st floor. We forgot we weren't on ground level when we were practicing the jumps. Oops. When we were practicing I didn't know what Isaac and Sayone were thinking. They walked out of the room and I thought we'd done something bad. Then they came back with cameras.

Hanul showed me her "passport" for Bible school, so I showed her mine. Then we compared dollars to won. Even with the language barrier it was good. She got up and left and I thought maybe she was frustrated with the barrier. Then she came back in with her coin collection and showed me coins from the Phillipines, China and Australia.

I am exhausted, but still a little surprised that it's just 11:30 on a mission trip and we're ready for bed.

More later...