feels so good

We had our first gathering at our new (rented) church building in Suji, just a few minutes walk from the apartments where most of the team lives. It was so nice, first of all, to be back to just one service (for obvious time and energy reasons), but it felt right for so many other reasons, too. I was able to invite people on the walk down to church, including some people who work at the store on the way down the hill. I gave them a flyer with our pictures on it and the guy said to his daughter, "look, there's your aunt!" He was pointing at me. In Korea, it's all one big family, but I hadn't experienced being called an aunt before.

It felt so right to walk to church in a neighborhood where we have so many natural relationships. I invited a friend I haven't seen in a long time and she came! I was surprised, because I have invited her many times before and she wasn't ever interested. She lives in the same apartments as the team, and having church here gave her an opportunity to come without much hassle and sort of on her own turf. I think she really enjoyed herself. She was nervous beforehand, and called me to see if I could meet her. She said "but I don't have a Bible!" I told her that was OK!

Our new church gathering place is near a creek - from the bus stop, you have to cross the creek to get there. You can cross on the car bridge, or you can even cross on a stone pathway over the creek. How fun is that? It's so green and beautiful right now, too.

Okay, all of that to set the stage for an excellent first celebration at our new spot. We almost filled the church with people, mostly regulars, but a good group of new people, too. Worship, led by Sandra, Jessica, and Clint (all from our summer team- what a blessing!) rocked. It was the first time when I felt we really broke through something, we got past ourselves for a minute. Worship so far has been such a struggle for us, feeling sometimes that nothing really significant is happening during that time. Well, today was different. It was great! We spent 24 hours in prayer (from noon Saturday to noon Sunday), covered by people at home in the hill country and people on our team here, so I give God all the credit. He heard our prayers and he met us there today. He brought us a new level of freedom today. That's one of the things God impressed on me to proclaim over our body- freedom to be real before God, freedom in Christ. He's bringing it!

After church, we went to dinner and Jason's and my boss (we invited them to join us because they, as Christians, are interested in what we are doing)paid for everyone - it was like 30 people. Wow. A friend that they brought told me "thank you for coming to Korea and serving our people."