Trip Updates #6--Tuesday

I am 26 years old in America. I am 28 here. (Lost 13 hours, gained 2 years.) Here you are 1 on the day you are born, and gain another year every January 1. So I was 1 on November 28, 1981 and 2 on January 1, 1982. Crazy, huh? If you are born on December 31, you turn 2 the day after you were born.

We've figured out how to get time together. We meet early before English Village and have the cafe almost to ourselves. We can talk and get online. Sometimes we aren't as early as we'd like to be because our hosts want to cook breakfast for us. This morning...bacon and eggs!

As the kids lined up in "immigration" this morning, one of the ladies told me, Todd and Robert to go outside and say "hello" to the kids. When we walked out there the kids looked and waved and smiled, kind of like 3 Disney characters had walked through the door in our place. And the kids have pictures of all of us on their phones.

While Todd was doing Bible Story time with the kids, Kellie and me went to the cafe to get something to drink. (Not that we didn't want to hear the story; you just have to take breaks when you can.) We were getting ready to go back downstairs and Pastor Won stopped us and told us there were 2 ladies who wanted pictures made with us. I don't know if we had even met them before then.

Today we didn't have story telling time, so in the morning I got to stay with the yellow team. Our first station was a time to prepare for the group presentation in the afternoon. My team was given the story of Jesus washing the disciples' feet in John 13. Me and the teacher I am working with decided to let the kids play while we talked through the story together. We each turned to John 13 in our Bible and sat the Bibles side by side: English and Hangul/Korean. The kids thought it was pretty neat, but they didn't know why some of the words in my Bible were in black ink and some were in red. When they heard the translation of "the red words are when Jesus is talking" they got so excited!

There were 2 main stations today: the police station and the clinic. Before lunch Jeff, Robert and Aaron were the cops and Leeanne and Anthony were the doctors. After lunch Luke, Leah and Samantha were the cops and Kellie and me were the doctors. The clinic taught food vocabulary and which foods are good/bad for teeth. (Pizza and hamburger are on the bad list here.)

After the afternoon stations there was a presentation time for parents. It was insane. At home everyone would be completely focused on their child's performance. Here people talked and moved around the whole time. Most of the time you couldn't hear the kids' parts. The last 'group presentation' was "Behold the Lamb." People seemed to really enjoy it. Even if I did get completely off at the end. But the solos were good and it went really well.

When the presentations were over and we had sung "And We All Go Traveling By" for the 57th time (rough estimate), the kids continued taking pictures of us and with us. It got crazy. People were actually lined up to have their children's pictures taken with us. We probably spent at least 30 minutes doing nothing but smiling for the camera. And they weren't taking pictures one at a time. There would be 10 people standing side by side, all taking our picture. I held my camera at my waist and started taking pictures of them taking our pictures. One mom came up to me and said "Oh, my daughter loves you" like she was talking to Hannah Montana, not me. Then Leah and Kellie took a picture with one of the men from the church. One of the ladies yelled "he's single." Leah heard "he's singer" and got really excited. "Really? He is?!" Leah thought she'd met a country singer, but she may have another fiance.

After English Village we went into downtown Seoul (the oldest part of Korea). We drove part of the way and then rode the subway. First an airplane, now a subway... It's amazing how crowded the subway is, even when we came back around 11.

Dinner was originally at a pasta restaurant, but Isaac didn't think we had time, so we went to . . . McDonald's!! On our way, I joked about there being something crazy like shrimp burgers. . . yes, it was value meal #4.

After dinner they took us to see "Nanta." Nanta is basically a broadway show. It's hard to describe, but picture a comedy version of Stomp, set in a Korean restaurant kitchen, with audience members--including Aaron--pulled into the scenes unexpectedly. It was amazing. And tickets are not cheap. The church has had this planned for us. Between tickets, subway rides and dinner, tonight's price tag would be close to $1000. And that's just tonight. I still have not paid for anything here.

When we left the show there was a parade going on. It was for "Memory Day." People were walking down the street with flags and candles. It was really cool once we knew for certain it was a parade and not a protest. We can't read the signs, you know.

The Nanta stage was in with a movie theater. I got a Korean movie poster for "Indiana Jones" and "Prince Caspian."

Lunch today was not my favorite, so I didn't eat much. McDonald's took a while to get all our orders ready. Actually, I just ate fries. My chicken wasn't ready until we were getting ready to leave and literally run into the theater beside McD's. So I hit my food stash. :) I was really excited about sitting in my room and eating "dinner." I had set out a powerbar, cheese crackers, dried fruit and the goodies Karen sent. I was so excited. . . and then I got busted. Isaac wanted to try the things Karen sent. They ate all but 2 of the peanut butter cookies. They want me to give those to the girls tomorrow. (sniff, sniff.) I think they feel like we were holding out on them not offering up our stash sooner. I don't think I'm a selfish person, but this was my stash. (Although, they didn't see it all. :) Karen, Isaac said in 2009 he will pay the extra bag fee if you will fill a suitcase with peanut butter cookies.

More later. . .