11 months in Korea

As we reach this holiday season, we are getting a little homesick. Pamela and I both have had some depression lately thinking about not being home for the holidays to see our friends, family, and church. Some things that you take for granted about the holidays in the states, we don't get to have here in Korea. We can't just go and buy a turkey for Thanksgiving to cook and eat. They don't eat turkey here. Even if we could find turkey, we couldn't cook it because we don't have an oven to speak of. We can't bake any pies for the same reason. So, we will have to make some new traditions here. Korea celebrated their thanksgiving in September. It is called Chuseok. I am already singing Christmas songs and have been for almost 2 weeks. Korea hasn't bought into the commercial ideas of Christmas yet, but they also don't celebrate it as a big holiday. I only get one day off for Christmas break. Most people just buy a cake at the bakery and eat them on Christmas. Other than that it is treated almost like any other day. Luckily, our church here is ordering in Turkeys from a hotel to have next Sunday for a Thanksgiving potluck. So, we will at least get some turkey to eat. We miss everyone there and wish that we could see you all again. We know that this is where God wants us to be at the present time, but we still get homesick at times.

I had to teach 4 open classes this last week for our 5 year old program. I only had a small part in the class actually. This is a class where we invite the parents to come in and see their children in the classroom interacting with the teachers. The school videotaped these classes and I have asked for a copy of them so I can post them up on the net for you to see what I have been doing. I used to love teaching teenagers, but now my favorite class is the 5 year olds, at least in my school. My absolute favorite is teaching the North Korean women refugee's class. Another teacher from America and I came up with 4 lesson plans to teach at this facility. The women are there for 8 weeks before being integrated into South Korean society. We teach there every 2 weeks, so that makes only 4 lessons per group. They have new groups coming in each week and old groups leaving. Teaching at the North Korean refugee centers is a ministry of our church. Our pastor asked me to be the lead teacher at the women's facility and we have a great team. One of our team is a music teacher and she has been a great benefit. We also have a Korean that is driving us there that is fluent in English. She is our interpretor for our lessons.

I have another blog up that I have titled, "Memoirs of a missionary" that just tells about things that happen here and has some of my musings about life in general. If you would like to read it, you can click here, or follow the link at the bottom of the page.

I pray the Lord is blessing you during this holiday season. If you have anything we can pray for you about, please reply to this email and let me know.

http://memoirsofamissionary.blogspot.com/