Sunday

After teaching Sunday School at KBU, I headed off quickly to near Bundang (about an hour away) to meet one of my students. He was performing in a festival for his church young adults program, and invited me to come as a "VIP". It was so fun! I met him and his pastor at the subway station, and they drove me to the church building. I was pleasantly surprised to meet so many people who spoke really good English. The singing was so uplifting, and their performance was easy to understnad even though I didn't understand any of the words.

The message was about how we are sometimes lost sheep. We stray away from God. Yet even when one of us comes to repentance for our sins, the angels in heaven rejoice! What a good reminder to return to the grace and loving arms of our good God.

After the message and skits, they brought me and the other invited guests to the front and had us say a little something. Then they gave us a gift bag. Mine had a towel and a Korean plate/bowl made of china.

It was kind of funny because I was the only international person there. Everyone else was Korean. But they would translate little things for me during the day. It was so considerate. They said that they hold this kind of event 3 times a year, and this was their first time to have a foreigner. Everyone was so warm and kind. Plus, they were all about my age, so it was really great to be around young adults--especially who speak such good English.

On the way home I was craving pizza for some strange reason (I usually don't really care for pizza), so I headed to the pizza store named "I Love Pizza" after getting back from church. I ordered it to go, and while sitting down waiting for it, an older man sat down at the table with me. I was a little surprised, but the rest of the small room was packed already and my table was the only one unoccupied. I said hello in Korean and didn't expect the conversation to go much further, but turns out that he spoke perfect English!! He told me about how when he was 22 (my age), he defected to South Korea from the North, and joined the American Army. He knew Russian and was a translator for the Americans. He told me about how he knew many languages: Russian, English, Korean, Japanese, Chinese, and one or two others that I can't remember. What an amazing ability! We talked about Suraksan Mountain around where we live and how beautiful they are. He hikes them every morning he said! I was a little surprised since he looked in his upper 70's/low 80's, but that seems to be pretty common here: people in their retirement age hiking every day.

I left Sunday feeling blessed and encouraged from the beautiful service with my student and the conversation with the older gentleman in the pizza store.