Merry late Christmas to all of our friends and family who have been faithful in keeping up with our blog! We understand that the more we slack off with this thing, the less likely you are to keep checking back, so we are very thankful for you. We can officially check off Christmas as a married couple and in Korea from our list of firsts. We still have our Charlie Brown Christmas tree up in the living room, garnished with a few expensive plastic ornaments (all ornaments around here are expensive!) and one special "Our first Christmas" ornament that Jess's parents got us (thanks!). I have to admit though, that this just didn't feel much like Christmas. It's just not the same without being surrounded with the family and friends that we have grown up with. The season is just different. Good, but different. One good thing about Christmas in Korea is that it is definitely not as commercial as Christmas in America. Not yet- Korea is ever trying to keep up with western civilization so I give it a few years.
Another thing we've been meaning to blog about is the latest addition to our family. We have wanted a boston terrier puppy for the longest time and living in a new country didn't change that. However, boston terriers are hard to find here and just as expensive as they are in the states. We found a little pet store that sells them, and thought about buying one, but finally settled our minds on not getting one because we couldn't rationalize spending so much on a dog at this point in our lives. Well, weirder things have happened, but not a week after we made the decision not to get a dog, one fell into our laps. We visited the pet store again one time just to see the puppies for fun and the lady there showed us a year old pup whose American owners moved back to the states and didn't take him with them. The pet store lady offered him up to us for free. We had to think about it for about .. oh.. say, 10 minutes before we decided to keep him. Scooter brings us much joy and fun in our household. He's so funny and lovable and very smart too. We have taught him a small variety of tricks and he learns quickly. I'll post some photos of the little guy below.
One last order of business is basketball. If you haven't heard already, Jess and I are coaching boys' high school basketball this year. I (Russell) am the head coach and Jess is my assistant (but equal) coach. So far it's been a bit challenging, but we are seeing much growth on our team. We came into this venture knowing a bit about how high school basketball operates in America. Too bad it's totally different in Korea. The kids don't take it seriously like we did in high school and we have challenges such as not having a gym to practice in but twice a week. Also, that gym only has two hoops and we have to share time with the girls' basketball team. We didn't know what to expect coming into the games, but once we got into the groove we have started to see some promising progress. We lost our first game by 20, lost our second by 10 and lost our third by 3 (I hate making excuses, but the refereeing was terrible in this game - plus we didn't do our best). Finally we won our fourth game by 20 points after the very disappointing 3 point buzzer beating loss the game before. We as coaches were very proud of our guys. They came so far from their first game until that point and they worked very hard to get there. Unfortunately they got a little too big for their britches before the next game and we lost by 30. That last team was pretty good, I'll admit, but we played horribly too.
Oh well.
One thing Jess and I wanted from this basketball season was to see spiritual growth on our team. One thing I've found since starting is that coaching can easily become an idol if you let it. It is so easy to focus on winning and wanting to be held in high esteem that the true goals are left behind. I had that revelation after losing our first three games and I rededicated the season to God. Now, I'm not saying that God gave us a game or anything - maybe He did - but I finally found joy in the game again and we won! Now Jess and I are trying to find that mid line between trying to push a bunch of kids to be winners and trying to keep perspective of the whole thing and what our ultimate goal is: to be examples of godly leaders who live a godly lifestyle. Please pray for us in this basketball season that God will convict our hearts during our practices and games that we will make the right decisions and lead by example. Pray that He will give us the courage and strength to stand up to our convictions and be open to the Spirit's leading. Pray also for the boys on the team (there are two especially that we want to focus on in prayer) that they will be impacted by the things they hear and see from us.
Thanks for reading and God bless!
