Anyeong Haseyo (안 녕 하 세 요)!

Korean Language
We are now well into our Korean lessons, and it’s only getting harder. One confusing thing about this language is that both “Yeah” and “Nay” mean “Yes”, which Will said is confusing for a low-German speaker like him. Our tutor thinks we’re smarter than we are and he goes SO fast. He keeps saying, “See? It’s easy” and moves on to the next section when one or both of us is not ready. We’ve also noticed that when we greet neighbors with the simple one-word greeting (like at the beginning of this email), they will assume we are fluent and fire many long sentences at us, wondering why they are getting blank stares from us. Someday…someday we might answer back. However, we are very fluent in reading Hangul (Korean language), which has come in very handy, especially when grocery shopping. For example, I wanted to buy coffee flavorers, which is popular here, but we were frustrated to see that all those labels were in Korean. Before giving up, Will said, “Hey, let’s just read the Korean”. Wouldn’t you know it, the Korean was just Konglish (Koreanized English), and one package read ” 모 가” (mo-ka=”Mocha”), another “신 나 몬” (shi-na-mon=”Cinnamon”), and one I was happy to find “프 렌 처 바 닐 라” (pu-ren-ji ba-nil-la= “French Vanilla”). This is often the case with grocery products. It’s amusing to see Konglish reversed, written in English but with Korean pronunciation. For example, in the sea food section at the grocery store we saw a sign for “Crap”.

Chuncheon Driving
Chuncheon driving is much better than Seoul driving, we’ve been told. For example, when our friends working in Seoul heard that we have a car here, they were shocked, they could not believe that we would risk our lives like that. But driving is different. There are less cars..hard to believe, but we haven’t been to Seoul yet. However, driving in Chuncheon still has its quirks. Remember how I said buses and taxis drive by their own rules and honk and they freely drive through reds? Well, we have seen that anyone runs reds freely. It just happens all the time. For some Koreans, the red light is a very mild suggestion; “Stop if you feel like it, but you don’t have to”. Will, as the driver in this relationship, noticed that he and others don’t start driving right away when there is a green light because one has to make sure no one is running a red. Some will even run a red when they’ve already come to a stop, they just get impatient and roll on through.

Holiday Celebrating beginning of Joseon Dynasty (2333 BC)
We were fortunate to have our Korean class on a day that the university was having a festival, celebrating the beginning of the Joseon period (There’s a Wikipedia article about this myth, under “Founding myth of Ancient Joseon” Click here). What a day to be there. There were speakers blasting live and recorded music that was SO loud, we couldn’t hear each other speak when we were about 50 feet away. People were dressed in funny costumes (we saw a cow and batman), Japanese students were in traditional Japanese dresses, and we saw some girls in Samurai outfits, along with swords at their side. There was a petting zoo, kinda, with your typical petting zoo selection (donkey, sheep, goat rabbit) and a touch of exotic animals (monkey, a huge yellow snake that could probably have gobbled up a student if it was let out of the aquarium, a big blue parrot, some big lizards, and tortoises with babies-they looked like moving rocks).

Teaching
We’ve had 2 weeks of teaching now under our belt. One of my after-school classes was brutal. My students did in 30 minutes what I had planned for 2 hours. They just knew way more than I thought. So I scrambled to find more stuff to teach them. Even though I had spent hours preparing, I ended up looking unprepared. Urgh. That was frustrating. Will, on the other hand, needs less time to prepare than me, and seems to be sailing along smoothly. He asks them how to say words in Korean, he then writes it out in Korean, and they just love him. Another night I asked my kids to draw their families, so they could apply the lesson learned (”This is my grandmother”…”This is my father”…etc), and they ended up just drawing cartoon characters and labeling them as family members. One of them drew a little boy with a ball cap on backwards and wrote “This is my grandmother”. I don’t think he quite understood the lesson.

Jesus Village Church
One of the many things I love about our church here is the intentional living out of the message. As mentioned previously, the church has 4 cell groups, and every month when there is a fifth Sunday, each group gets a turn to visit this group home that is an entirely new concept to me. It is a seniors’ home, home for mentally disabled and an orphanage all in one. Wow. When Brother Cha first told me about it, I asked, “But can that work..?” He explained that is certainly does, as the mentally disabled give energy to the seniors, and both groups provide a family for the orphans. I say wow again. Nursing homes are rare here, as it is customary to care for ones parents, but as people are working more and more, the need for seniors’ homes is increasing. Anyway, we went there last Sunday with one of the cell groups, and it was a great experience. The cell group led a worship service to a congregation of orphaned children, very elderly women and middle-aged people with mental illness. The cell group members were spreading lots of hugs around to the orphans so in need of affection, the middle-aged were carrying the elderly on their backs, and they just loved the English songs that I taught, particularly the ones with actions. Every mouth was moving, all arms waving joyfully. I deeply appreciate how the people of JVC believe in spreading Jesus’ love and message through action. The group home is one way. Another way is through sports. Members of the church coach baseball and soccer teams that are open to Christians and non-Christians. People have been drawn to the faith through these medium already. Very inspiring.

Prayer Requests
-We ask for prayers for the members and work of JVC, that they continue to act according to God’s guidance and teachings
-We ask for prayers for our continual adjustment, as we are aware that the early honeymoon excitement might soon wear off, and the realities and challenge of this new culture and language might wear on us; for our health and awareness of God’s will in our lives as we live and work here

We continue to feel extremely privileged to be here.