Time Away and Time to Play

Time Away

Every year on Labor Day weekend, our staff takes a teacher retreat to a vacationy spot to relax and recuperate from the first weeks of school. Last year we went to Daechon Beach on the Eastern coast, but this year we went to the Sorak Mountains. It was both relaxing and breathtaking. We didn't know Korea could be this beautiful.. and the weather was absolutely gorgeous. Perfect for hiking!

Jess in front of "the world's largest Buddah." At the base of Ulsan Bowi, the peak we later climbed. Unfortunately idols like this are all around this area. Too bad these people don't know the love of Christ.. wish we were around more to share it.

Jess posing in the woods during one of our routine stops up the mountain.

Almost to the top here. These red metal steps cut through the rock to allow people to get up. This is about 3 of 3.3 kilometers up the mountain. Jess's smile is half fake.. she's exhausted!

Russ goin off the beaten path, trying to be a Superman.

Seconds later, God reminded him that he's not invincible. He almost fell a long ways, but luckily has the balance of a mountain goat and caught himself before a serious injury could happen!

Finally reached the top. This picture can't possibly do justice to the beauty of God's creation at this place! We wish you were there to enjoy it in person with us. There's a picture of us in all our glory at the top of our blog page.On the way back down, us fast teachers had time to stop at a buddhist monastery and take a look around. Here's Jess and our high school math teacher, Meredith showing them what we really think of their dragons. Tame!

One of the buildings in the buddhist monastery.

And last, but not least, the buddhists we met inside.

Time to Play

As you may know, I (Russell) am a half decent guitarist/singer. At the very least, I enjoy it and had a lot of fun with it in college. I lead our staff in music worship every Friday morning, and have been taking a more active role in leading worship at our local church as well. Last year I had the chance to sing a song I wrote at a youth worship night at one of the local churches. The speaker was one of our student's parents, a college professor from the area. Recently, I was contacted by this parent to be a part of a project (a band) that would perform at a Christian concert of sorts on Osan Air Force Base. I was glad to accept and began to practice with them. At first, I was only planning on playing guitar with them, but was promoted to lead singer as well. It was a time consuming, yet fun and rewarding experience. Here are some photos. I may add a video of one or two of the songs we performed later.

Gettin started.. a view of most of the band.

Finally.. we have a fan!

It was a great time of worship..

We played into the night..

A group photo. From left to right: Ray, Steve, Dawn, Russ, Miss Kim, Will, and Kurt.

Our best post yet. Seriously ;)

Not much explanation needed. Watch the video, then pray pray pray for us!

Sorry if the video loads slowly, we wanted to get it up in high quality.

This is our little apple seed (or at least that's how big he/she is). Only 2.5 millimeters from crown to rump.

This is what it shows when the doctor targets a spot to find a heartbeat. Unfortunately, it was too early to hear one. Next time though!! (September 26th)

They measured the size of the sac (amniotic I'm guessing) to make sure its normal. It is, thank God!

Apartment Update!

We're Back: Kal Guk Su, Insadong, and Bungee Jumping!

Well, we're back in Korea for another year of awesomeness. In case you're wondering, the flight went surprisingly well. The first leg to Atlanta was a bit over and hour and the second leg to Seoul was 14.5 hours, but went smoothly and we actually got some sleep.

We're adjusting well (must easier than last year!), and we're getting excited about the upcoming year. We decided to start off our Korean experience with a bang this year, so this post will be a bit of a smorgasbord of things we've experienced in the week we've been here. Enjoy!

Kal Guk Su

Kal Guk Su is probably our favorite Korean meal. I don't know why, but we don't eat it very often (probably because we don't know how to order on our own), but look forward to it every time we know we're going.

First we start off with some appetizing side dishes (video below):

Then, the waitress fills our kettle with mushrooms, greens, onions, a few potatoes, and some super yummy broth. We cover it and wait a few minutes for the veggies to cook down.

Then, we take some of this sliced beef and do this (video below picture):

Once we eat all of the Shabu Shabu, we dump in these wonderfully thick noodles and eat the rest like a soup. Oh wow, I wish you guys could taste this.

Toward the end of our soup experience, the waitress dumps the rest of our soup into another bowl and begins to do make this (video below):

And this bokkumbap (bo-koom-bop, or fried rice) is the last thing we enjoy in the meal. Then we go home and sit on the couch and just about explode as we watch an episode of Heroes.

Insadong

Insadong is an area (a street, really) in Seoul that has many knickknack shops and just generally cool places to look around. This trip wasn't to the heart of Insadong, but to a huge musical instrument market. We should have taken pictures of the inside of the building, Nakwon Arcade, but I was too awe-struck by all the nice guitars that I forgot. Too bad the nice guitars were almost double the price that you'd pay in America:( We took some time to enjoy a neat historic, traditional park nearby.

Here's a little intro video for the park:

This big temple-y looking monument was built in 1467. The glass building was built around it to (I presume) keep it out of the elements and away from vandals.

Nearby, I found one of the culprits responsible for all the noise in the park (and all over Korea this time of year): a cicada. He was dead of course.

I think Jess could make it as a superhero. Or at least as a statue.

I'm not quite as good of a poser as she is though.

This monument thingamabob was built in 1471. If you look at the picture below it shows what is below foot level, down in the pavilion. It's a turtle shaped stone cut.

We saw a not uncommon scene right outside the park gates: a man asleep in a cart. He looks comfortable.

White Waters and Bungee Jumping

We had two chances to go white water rafting in the states this summer and didn't capitalize on either. We were asked to go today and decided that the third time's the charm. Unfortunately we didn't get any pictures because we were afraid to bring our camera, and for good reason. It was a lot of fun, we got really wet, and almost tipped the boat a couple of times. I don't know much about the classes of rapids, but I'd guess that we went down a 1.5. Sort of disappointing, but I don't know if our group could have handled much bigger than some of the spots we went through.

We went with a group from one of the local churches who hopped onboard a service provided by Osan Air Force base. Unfortunately for us, the bus was full so we had to drive a church van there. Fortunately for us, we got to go home at our own pace and stumbled upon a bungee jumping place just upriver from where we went rafting. Here are the results:

Wave to the camera!

How they get you down.

We only parked to check out the price in case we were ever in the area again, but decided to go ahead and do it once we were there. Three of us jumped in all: Russ, Tad Romsa(the director of our school), and Dakota- Tad's son. It was a lot of fun, I'd do it again in a heartbeat. Jess wasn't feeling too well, so she didn't go, but we are coming back to this area for Labor Day Weekend and she's promised to go then. We'll keep you updated ;)

Scooter and Me

Ok, so maybe you've seen that movie Marley and Me. Pretty good movie, a tear jerker really. In the end, Marley turns out to have been a great pet and everyone loves him. But what about those moments in-between when the dog does something really stupid and destructive.. does everyone love him then? Tell us how you'd feel... here's our version of the story (slightly dramatized.. but only slightly). Cue sleuth-style music:

We came into the house to find the culprit amidst the aftermath of his carnage. After having been convicted of major crimes involving rice bags and glass countertops, the suspect was skating on thin ice.

Upon investigating, the guilty doggie cowered and showed false remorse. He was found later attempting to destroy the incriminating evidence. No amount of puppy dog eyes could get him out of his conviction.

His sentence: a spanking and an early bedtime without supper. Case closed.

Our New Mode of Transportation

Well, we just invested in a new mode of transportation: a scooter. Picked this bad boy up off of craigslist for pretty cheap. In the past, we have had to walk half a mile (or pay a taxi) to take us to a bus stop, take a bus to the E-mart (Walmart equivalent), get our stuff and take another bus home, then take another taxi home. Now we just hop on our new chopper and away we go. A lot of people in Korea use these to get around, and when in Rome...

The Philippines

At the beginning of April, we had the opportunity to take a trip to the Philippines. As we mentioned in the prayer update at the top of the page, we met a man involved in a ministry called Kids International Ministries (KIM) who has been living and working in the Philippines for 18 years. KIM takes kids from extreme poverty or orphan situations and places them in a safe home where they are given the opportunity to grow and mature in a Christian environment. It's also been working with a specific impoverished community near Manila doing things like making clean water accessible and providing ways for sewage removal, as well as working in the southern island of Mindanao building a youth camp/Children's home. Without going into great detail, we'll just say for now that we feel we may be being led into this kind of ministry. We have begun to see our time in Korea as possibly a preparation of sorts for what is to come. We are super excited about this prospect, and covet your prayers for discernment and blessing in our lives. We'll post some pictures below of our trip, but none of them really give an accurate picture of the poverty around the neighborhood. The houses (shacks, really) were built from whatever scraps could be mustered and were often housing 5-10 people. There is no running water in the houses. Nonetheless, the people are smiley and joyful. If you want to visit KIM's website its http://www.kidsinternationalministries.org.

The Manila Children's Home that KIM runs.

Jess and Jaypee, one of the boys from the Manila Children's Home.

We did some hard physical labor a couple days of our trip. On this day, we hauled bags of cement and cinderblock up three flights of stairs to where workers were adding a fourth floor to the church next to KIM. We worked with this bunch of kids from a school in Taiwan.

This was taken after getting off that plane behind us. We flew to Mindanao, the big southern island of the Philippines. The man with the blue shirt is Jeff Long, the founder of KIM, and the other family is the Taylors from Seoul. We accompanied each other for most of our visit to the Philippines.

This is just a small glimpse of the beauty that covers the island of Mindanao. It was truly wonderful to be up in those mountains!

Here is a picture of the Children's Home that has been built by KIM in Mindanao. In the foreground is a newly cleared area that will become a full size soccer field. Behind the camera is an area for a covered basketball court, and to the left are buildings that will house campers every summer. I caught Dana Taylor unaware and was given a loving reprimand. Haha..

Ok, back to Manila for these photos. This is little Jessica, one of the girls at the Manila Children's Home. She was such a rambunctious little cutie with lots of spunk.

Regie is one of the older boys at the Children's Home. He has 3 other siblings that live at the home with him. All four kids are soon to be adopted back into a Filipino home that can support them.

Jeric is another boy from the Home. He and his sister are soon to move in with their aunt and uncle who will give them a loving home to live in.

One girl that really clung to Jess is Alexandria. She is a sweet little girl.

Benjie is one of the older boys at the Home. Fewer men come to the home than women, so Benjie capitalized on our stay by hanging on Russ as much as possible.

Gerald is a quiet little guy from the Home. Couldn't resist this great shot.

Chris John is a smiley little baby from the nursery at the Children's Home. He had a rough start to life, but through many hospital visits got back to full health and loves showing off those pearly whites.

Here is a shot of the Manila skyline from the top of Cuatro Community Center, a building that functions as a church, school, and dental clinic for the impoverished community surrounding KIM. KIM runs the school and the clinic.

An example of a two story squatter house built from scraps in Antipolo, near KIM.

This is one of the main streets in the neighboring community. On the right about halfway up the street is the outer wall of the Children's Home property. There is not a moment in the day when people aren't out and about on this street.

This girl's name was Jessica as well. She was not a child from the Home, but from the surrounding community. Her and her friends were out playing in the streets just about every time we went outside. We would often hear "Tita Jessica! Tito Russell!" when we came out the door. Tita and Tito mean "aunt" and "uncle" respectively. Most kids once they learned our names called us that. It's a cultural sign of respect from a child to an adult they know and trust.

Another day on our trip, we helped with the building of a home (made from cinderblock) in the impoverished neighborhood. A single man and his 5 children (one of whom has cerebral palsy) help out at KIM, so Jeff wanted to help him back- he built him a home nearby so we could help. These kids are from the squatter village where the house was built.

More kids from the neighborhood. Filipino kids love getting their picture taken.

This is a Jeepney, a popular bus-like transportation system widely used in the Philippines (or at least in Manila). All Jeepneys are decorated brightly and colorfully and are sometimes jampacked with people. It's not uncommon to see people hanging out the back going down the highway.