So, I haven't updated this thing for quite some time. A lot has happened this week, so I'll try to tell what's happened as best as I can.
Where to begin?
Sunday
Well, this past Sunday was awesome! I woke up around 7 am to get to Seoul as soon as I could. However, the bus system is a little confusing around YeoungHyunDong, so it took about 15 mins to get it right. I wanted to check out this church called Youngnak Presbyterian Church. Evidently, Presbyterian churches tend to be more biblical based in Korea than most other churches, and they usually have English services that are better too. So, I had it all planned out how I was going to get there: take bus 16 to Dongincheon Station, take the train from Dongincheon Station to Yongsan Station, switch over to the subway to Seoul Station, transfer over to the blue line and get off at Myeongdong, and find this church. The only thing was I ended up waiting longer for things to go than I anticipated. I got to the church at 10:45 am, and the service started at 10 am. At least I found the church I thought. I'll just go to the 1500 service (by the way, after 1200 pm, all the times in Korea become military times. Yeah, everthing here is in Celsius, meters, and military time. It's weird, but cool) So, I decided to walk around Seoul a bit.
While I was walking around Seoul, I had this awful craving for Western food. Now, Korean food is really good, and you can get lots of Korean food for under $5 here, but after eating bulgogi, kimchi, rice, dried fish, and a bunch of other stuff your body really starts craving something familiar. So, I found a Pizza Hut that looked pretty good.
After I left Pizza Hut, I found some bookstores. The only thing is that there aren't many that sell English books. So, I gave up right around 1430 pm. When I got to the church, I found out that it's an actual ministry called International Worship in English, or IWE. It was awesome! It felt so good to worship Jesus! I can't really describe how I felt, but it was an amazing release. After all the stuff I was going through: moving to a foreign country, struggling to find a way to explain my faith to some Church of God cult, and just trying to figure things out in general, it was something.
Well, the preaching was awesome too, because it touched on something I'll need to remember while I'm here in Korea; it was 1 Corinthians 3:10-17. The verse that really hit me was 1 Cor. 3: 17, which states, "[i]f anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him. For God's temple is holy, and you are that temple." That last part was convicting. It just reminded me about all the crap I've been going through the past couple of months, but it was like God was telling me that now I have a choice to make: either I will serve him wholly, or I will live as one in the world.
Coming here is refreshing. I don't know anybody. I can't speak the language or understand it. I'm almost vunerable to anything. But through everything God has been faithful to me. Now, it's my turn to be faithful to him.
After the service, I went to some info class about IWE. Evidently, it's a ministry that exists to plug foreigners into the ministry for different things like student ministry, children's ministry, helping out at orphanages, feeding the homeless, etc. It was pretty cool. Afterwards, I made a bunch of friends there. We went to see Transformers 2 at an IMAX theater. Apparently, you have to reserve tickets here about a week in advance because most movie theaters get packed out pretty quickly. But, God had other plans when I thought and figured that I couldn't go. Cause I did. And, though the movie was OK, it was great to meet other English speaking people.
On Monday, I went to work. It was interesting. I taught about 7 classes on my first day. Needless to say, I was tired. Tuesday thru Thursday weren't too bad, I taught about 3 to 4 classes on those days. Friday was just about as busy as Monday. The only thing that made it difficult was that everything is completely unorganized. You don't know what your schedule is going to look like each day, nor do you know what your going to teach. But, I realized how underdeveloped the field of teaching second language is. The books were awful. It didn't make any sense the way the texts were organized. Some of them were too difficult for the age group, and others were too easy. So I improvised in some cases. Fortunately, my English background helped out a bit. But, most of the theory was useless, as most theory tends to be.
Other than working and going to church, I visited Chinatown today. It's located in the city I live in. It's a pretty cool place. There's tons of lanterns and restaurants to visit. I went to Jayu Park, which is a park dedicated to the Americans and Koreans who died in the Korean war. It's a pretty cool place to sit, relax, and look at the Yellow Sea. On clear days I heard you can see China, but I haven't been there on one.
So, that's the abridged version of what's been going on. I don't always get to write in my blog because it costs money at these PC bongs (Internet cafes). It's cheap, but I only have an hour to do stuff.
So, yeah, that's about it.
Peace.
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