Street Racing--A Clean Sweep

I thought I'd share just another city experience.
I was out doing some running...heading back home, I heard some lovely flute music from across the river. I thought I'd go check it out, only that as I got closer to the bridge to cross, the music seemed to also be moving. When I got to the place where the bridge and the street I was running on joined, I met with the vehicle producing the music--a street sweeper! Moving slower than other vehicles, it was possible to actually keep up with this music making, street cleaning orange beast! So I did. So here I was, running along the street, six feet away from this machine, blasting its "Happy-Street-Clean-Sweep" flute remix, as I'm almost sprinting to keep up with it. Though it was near the end of my run, I was strangely energized by the challenge! Yes, I kept up with it 'till I got to my crosswalk to turn. Take that! A whole lot of fun. Too bad I don't go running with a camera. No pics. Another experience of a small city guy in Daejeon, Metropolitan City.
It's interesting, though, because the street sweeper was going a lot slower than it could, and I was going almost my fastest, and it was, for a time, a good match (although I don't think I would've lasted much longer!) It made me consider that part of 1 Corinthians, where Paul the apostle says that the "foolishness" of God (if there could be) is still greater than the wisdom of man, and the weakness of God is stronger than man. Man at his best is still nothing compared to God at His "worst", if there was such a thing. I think it might be talking about the crucifixion of Christ, as God incarnate humbled Himself even unto death--which seems to be weakness and thought of as foolishness to the natural man. But look closer--it's the power and wisdom of God, for by the cross of Christ are our sins forgiven and cleansed, our guilt removed, and both justice and mercy satisfied.

Samgyupsal!

Last week after Thursday Night Bible Study, this girl from our church, Hye-Yun, and her mom wanted to treat us all to dinner!
We went across town to a small but lively resturaunt to have a delicious Korean meal: it's called Samgyupsal! Who likes bacon? Well with this meal, they give you uncooked pork, that you put on a hot plate on your table to cook it (it's tilted so lots of fat runs off), along with other vegetables and kimchi. Then you take the cooked meat, dip it in some sauce, and with whatever vegetables you like, wrap it in some lettuce, and eat it! It's so good! They kept bringing on the meat! We were so blessed!



Click the picture to get a bit better of a view of the food..(the pic isn't too high quality).


What they do with the leftover meat and veggies is that they add rice and spice and mix it all up to make something called (I think) Bibimbap. Somehow, after feeling so full, you find that you're somehow able to eat this awesome mix of food! I think it's a mental thing--a different way of looking at it. The bacon-lettuce rolls perhaps seem much more filling then they are or something!




And here's Mike and Mangyu (aka Mario)! Mario is a cool guy. He loves to hang out with us, and it's a blessing to have him. It's sweet to spend time with people from church (and even with those who aren't)! There's such an opportunity to share with them in spiritual things, and we get to disciple guys and see them grow in Christ. Many Koreans here know English in different degrees, some very well, some not so well, or some not at all. Many desire to learn. Pray that the language barrier would be overcome as we seek to teach the Bible to the people here.



After we ate, we walked down to a certain open-air market called Shijang...late at night, when everything was closing/closed down. But it was cool to see. We bought a few things. Open-air markets are where you can bust out your bargaining skills, get fresh meals and cheap deals! just...not so much at night, for not so many people are there.

English Time At The Orphanage!

Every Saturday we visit an orphanage here in Daejeon. It's got quite a few kids there. We go and hang out with the kids, playing with them--it's a lot of fun! (Though I don't always know what they're saying. A good opportunity to learn some Korean!) It's a blessing to be able to hang with these kids every week.

After some time playing with the kids, we teach some of the older ones some English. We teach some pronunciation, grammar, and some fun idioms! (Remember MELT? Yeah!) We also read through a paraphrased Bible story as we teach 'em. Awesome!

So from left to right, our students are Susan, (Iza's not a student) Kaka, and Bandy. (These are their English names. Well...sort of.)

Kaka is surprised and excited about something! Is it the exceptional English lesson that I gave? Was it that there was Mountain Dew present on this occassion? Or was it that the camera I used accidentally took 6 pictures in quick succession?

What? I need more pictures of the kids at the orphanage? Well, let me take some...

By the way, Mountain Dew in Korea (in other parts of Asia, too!) is not quite as sweet as it is in America. It's still way sweet! But there's a subtle difference...it's probably a good thing--not as much sugar loaded in there...still delicious, though!

Teaching English At Minsoo's

Right now, the main way God is providing for me to stay here in Daejeon is doing English tutoring.

As of right now, I do some tutoring sessions a few times a week, to groups of people of different ages. So a couple times a week I head on over to Minsoo's house to teach some kids English! Their mom makes us delicious snacks whenever we go over there!

Here's Minsoo, the eldest son of his parents. He's about...7 years old or something?

And when I go over there, I also teach his little sister Minji, their cousins, Jenny and Elizabeth (those are their English names), and their friend Pogum (also called Isabella).

They're very cute kids, but they're difficult to control (especially Minsoo)! There's a difficulty in keeping them focused on the English. I'm trying to make it fun and easy, but this is definately a challenge. I have some experience working with kids from times I helped in children's ministry, but then I had lots of help. I'm really thankful for the opportunity to teach them, but my, it's challenging! I definately want to be faithful to God in all I do, including teaching English to these kids. Your prayers for these kids and I would be greatly appreciated! ...and good ideas for engaging English activies!

Aaaaghhh, who's he going to crash into this time?!!!

MELT*! (My English Lunch Time *at night)

Every Tuesday the church has a free English lesson and discussion time, called MELT, for My English Lunch Time. The first MELT began as a lunchtime thing, but this one is in the late afternoon...we still eat, though! Mmmm, ramen and snacks!

We try not to teach the same textbook English as all the schools around here teach. The students get enough of that. We teach the Korean English learners idioms! Those common terms and phrases we use that don't mean literally what we say..."He was knocked out cold". "The car I bought looked good, but it turned out to be a lemon." "Don't be such a backseat driver!" "Do you have a beef with me?!" Fun stuff like that. They like it.
We do a dialogue with them, teach them the vocabulary, and then have discussion and food.

English conversation is enjoyable. It's great to meet new faces at MELT*! We often see them at the church services, too! What a blessing.

But what about us foreigners learning Korean? Maybe we could have OKEYDOKEY! "Our Korean Eating: Why Dine On Kuaja?--Extra Yummy!" (Kuaja is the Korean word for snack, cookie, sweets, crackers, you know.)

But this MELT in particular was a special one, for it was Dean and Amanda's last MELT, and last time at the church to say goodbye to everybody! So a lot of us stayed extra late, and ate more cake, more ramen, more snacks, ice cream, toast, oh yeah! Bless you guys, Dean and Amanda, as you study at the Bible College once more! See you guys soon, and if not, then a bit later!

Daejeon, Metropolitan City

This is Daejeon, the city in which I live right now. Daejeon is one of Korea's six Metropolitan Cities, with Seoul, the capital, as the largest. Daejeon ranks as Korea's fifth largest city with a population of around 1.5 million people. This is a huge difference from my hometown of Lompoc, which hits maybe over 60,000 in population!


It's got this sweet big river running right through it, the Gapcheon river. I'm not used to being around rivers larger than a creek, actually!...





The city, like most cities in Korea, have huge apartment buildings just lined up row by row. Korea has a large population compacted into a small area of land, so they gotta use land wisely, I suppose.






Stores and Markets get packed on top of each other, too! One building oftentimes contains multiple businesses. And then there are apartments over those! In fact, I live right above a restaurant!

And here's the city flag. This is all it says.


It's crazy, getting used to taking buses and trains, and not being able to walk across town, err, the city, in an hour.

So many people live here, and oh how many of them need the grace of Christ! May we have wisdom as we try to reach out to and build up the Koreans here in the city!

Fellowshipping at the Holy Cross

After church on Sunday nights we all head to a nearby coffee shop called Holy Cross to fellowship. We chill, having coffee, conversation, cakes, coupons (yes, they have great discount coupons, to be sure!), etc. It's a really nice atmosphere, and it's always great to spend this time with everyone from church! Over here in Korea, people at church just love to stick around after service! Yes, we all totally go and crash the place every week, wrecking havoc and moving a bunch tables and chairs around to fit the huge group! But we do buy drinks. This week, it's Dean and Amanda's last week, so some people got them cakes that we all shared! It was very nice, though sad to see them say goodbye to so many people. Parting is such sweet sorrow...and so is cake! That was delicious. Thanks for the cakes, guys!