Korea Update- 4months

It's hard to believe that we will have been in Korea for four months this coming Friday. We are still adjusting to the culture here. We have days where we feel like we are beginning to understand and others where we just are lost.

As we told you in our last newsletter, we have not been paid. The principal of the school wants to pay us, but there just aren't the funds with the amount of students. He is paying for the rent on the school, the food program, the school utilities, and our apartment rent. With the number of students we currently have, he isn't even breaking even with the amount of money he has coming in. I asked him how many students he would need to break even and he said around 30 total students. Right now we have 10 students. So, just to break even we need another 20 students. Even if we had 20 more students, we probably wouldn't have enough teachers, because of the different grade levels that we would have coming in. So, the pastor is living month to month on credit cards and loans. We told the pastor that we would forgive our salaries for January. We haven't been paid for February or March either. We are now halfway through April and there doesn't seem to be any way for him to be able to pay us. We are alright with that since we felt like we were coming as missionaries. The question we have is, "How long can he continue operating in the red?"

The awesome thing is how God has provided for our families needs. When we came, our church gave us some money to help us set up our apartment when we got here. We also had a little money of our own. We lived on it for a while and when we were down to our last $100, our car in the states sold. We lived on it a while longer. When it was almost gone, we received the money from our tax returns. We have been living on it for the last couple of months. Since our last update, the Lord has laid it on several people's hearts to help us. We have received money from our church, an elderly woman in my parent's church, and my father's uncle's church. The amazing thing to us is that we don't even know the lady from my parent's church. We also don't know anyone but my dad's uncle at that church. It just goes to show that God owns the cattle on a thousand hills. He can direct people that don't even know you to send you money to continue His work in a particular area. All I can say is God is good.

Please pray for us as we try to follow God from here. We don't know how long the principal can continue with the present situation. Since I have a family of seven people, I must look at what God would have us to do. God has provided for us so far, but we need to have a contingency plan. We don't want to leave the school just yet, but if God opens a door, we will need to step through it. We haven't actively pursued another position here yet, but we have told some friends our situation and they know of some opportunities in their area. They are going to email us the info and I will start contacting them. It will be easier to find a position from here than in the states and we have the advantage of already being here. I have been praying for the last few weeks about what we should do. God has confirmed that Pamela is not to continue teaching when things change. This time has truly confirmed our calling to homeschool our children. Even if we continue teaching where we are at, we will eventually have Pamela stay home with the kids and just have me teach. I believe that we can live on just one salary here without any problems, but God will provide. Please pray for us as we seek the Lord's direction from here. We also feel that an English institute will be a better place to teach in that I will only have to teach English. The school would provide all teaching materials and I wouldn't have to do very much preparing. This would free me up to help with the homeschooling of the kids also. I also would have more influence with unbelievers than I do now. Once again, please pray for us as we seek God's will.

In His service till the nets are full or He calls us home,

Derek (for the Woods)