The Menno Melange

Another month gone by, Ruby is another month older, another month of V-School finished, and one more month closer to when we leave! (Yup, we’re already thinking about that…)

Ruby Funnies and Updates
Last month we were given a walker for Ruby, and she absolutely loves it. She now can go frontwards and backwards and sideways, under the table, slamming into our heels, etc.We were disappointed when we realized it would be too big to bring home until we learned that they are in fact illegal in Canada. Alllrighty then. It will have to be a luxury only one of our children can enjoy.

Some funnies: Will saw Ruby sliding her soother back and forth on the bars of her crib once, like a prisoner would slide their cup in their cell. During bath time, I was pouring a stream of water from a cup, and Ruby actually tried to grab the stream, to no avail. She insists on feeding herself with the spoon at meal times, and then ends up with a big gob of food almost in her eye.

I know I’ve mentioned Ruby’s popularity among locals here, but never have I felt more like I have a celebrity for a daughter than when we were in Seoul. We were walking back to our car, and I stepped into a store briefly, and when I stepped back out, Will and Ruby were surrounded by at least 10 people, most of whom were taking pictures of Ruby, with BIG cameras. The paparazzi, indeed. Her popularity also gets us some free stuff, for some reason. At one of the local department stores, the manager of the glasses store came over to see Ruby, and after repeating over and over how cute she is, he offered to clean my glasses (and did a thorough 2 minute job). In our 1.5 years here, that has never happened before. Also, the owners of a restaurant that we used to go to actually invited us to their restaurant for a free meal, because they “wanted to see Ruby”. And…I didn’t have a V-School assistant for my class of beginners, which I think is essential, and someone’s teenage daughter from church offered to help out my class so that she could “spend time with Ruby”.

From L to R: Ruby and the paparazzi; With her feet out of her crib!; Playing with her food

Family Outings
Now that the weather has warmed up, we are starting to show Ruby more of her hometown. One day we took her out in the swan boats on Chuncheon lake, but she spent most of that outing looking like she wasn’t in the mood to be in a huge swan. Maybe it was too close to nap time.

Fish statue from up close; This was built around the old bridge made by the Japanese

(See Ruby’s Scrapbook 2 for more pictures)

We spent another afternoon on Nami Island, which is a nearby island that playfully considers itself it’s own nation; They have their own flag, national anthem, passport, the ferry ticket booth is called “Immigration” and the ferry ticket is called a “Visa”. Likewise, we playfully contemplated buying Ruby a Nami Island passport, so she could still claim some form of Korean citizenship (as she otherwise is denied that, despite being born here). The island has an interesting array of stone cottages, traditional straw huts, outdoor libraries, tree lined paths and open fields, statue parks, concert stages, tandem and family bikes, etc.

From L to R: The ferry to Nami Island; A quaint little boardwalk along the river; Statues on the island; The famous tree-line path; Another tree-lined path

(See Ruby’s Scrapbook 2 for more pictures)

We also brought her to one of our favorite places, Kugok Falls, although she was asleep by the time we actually got to the falls. We stopped at a restaurant along the path for drinks, and when we got there, the owner switched the music from Korean folk to the soundtrack of “Mamma Mia”. We think that might have been because of us…

Trip to Seoul
Ruby had her first overnight away from home a few weekends back, when we went to Seoul for a friends’ wedding. We started our trip with a jaunt to the COEX Mall aquarium, which is a fairly large mall, comparable to West Edmonton Mall. The first part was this cool children’s section, where there were fish tanks in all sorts of unlikely places: home appliances, a street lamp, a toilet, a phone booth, etc. Then just as we got to the crazy big stuff like sharks, sea turtles, seals and scuba divers swimming in with them, our camera batteries died.

From L to R: A cow fish in front of another funny looking fish; Some other big guys; A beautiful little fish pond; Fish in a mailbox; Fish in a vending machine; Fish in a sculpture; Fish in a lamppost; Fish in a phone booth; Fish in a sink; Fish in a fridge; Fish in a washing machine; Fish in stacked wine glasses; Fish with a computer (and that’s a real computer in there, by the way!); Will and Ruby looking at the pirahnas; More pirahnas; An actual two-headed turtle!; Electric eels

We then gave ourselves 1.5 hours to drive across a bridge, check in to a hotel and get to our friend’s wedding. That apparently wasn’t enough time, given Seoul traffic. We ended up being a half an hour late for the wedding! Part of the problem was that when we tried to check in to a hotel, we were told there were no available rooms, and yet looking down the different hallways we saw that a lot of doors were wide open….so we were confused.

The next morning we attended Grace and Peace church, which is the other Anabaptist church in Korea, started up after JVC. Interestingly, the church meets on the second floor of a Greek restaurant! We sat at the tables customers use for eating gyros during the week facing a backdrop of a Grecian landscape. Kinda made me feel like one of the original Anabaptists, meeting in a “secret” location for Bible study, or something. We sang familiar hymns from the Mennonite hymnal, which was nice, and the people were so warm and friendly. Part of our assignment is to become as involved at that church as much as possible, which isn’t much. given our responsibilities at JVC, so we will try to preach there and visit a few more times before we leave.

Easter Weekend
On Good Friday we attended the evening foot washing service, and Ruby was surprisingly quiet, so that was a relief. After washing each others’ feet, we said a prayer over lit candles then made a cross in the center of the circle with the candles. It was quite a powerful image.

From L to R: Sitting around the cross of candles; Standing around it in prayer (I’m sad this is blurry)

That Sunday there were a few different musical numbers, including a few songs by the choir (which I re-joined…not that I ever left, but people stopped telling me when rehearsals and performances were, cause of Ruby), a cute number by the kids, an instrumental song and I did a song on guitar, which I had translated to Korean. Umm, I don’t recommend trying to fit Korean words into an English song, especially when there are WAY more Korean syllables than English. Needless to say, I quite botched up the whole first verse. I sang the rest with enough confidence to maybe make up for it, and maybe my fellow church members didn’t notice over the clapping, but it was a bit disappointing for me.

And, in the spirit of introducing family traditions to Ruby, we did a sorta of Easter Egg hunt on Easter Monday…except it wasn’t Easter eggs, but rather regular candy, and it wasn’t Ruby hunting so much, but mostly me (Will hid everything). But it’s the thought that counts, and Ruby seemed to have fun, and we have enjoyed eating her candy.

Next week is our big 3-day seminar on Anabaptist history, for which we will be showing the musical in 3 parts, as well as hymn singing, snack eating and discussion. I feel this will be one of the peaks/highlights of our time here, and it has taken a lot of preparation, so an update on that will certainly follow.

Blessings!