I wanted to show you guys my phone charm from my friend JiYeon. It's a real plant! We all admired hers earlier this year, then she bought them for us for Christmas. Phone charms are very popular here in Korea. Even some guys attach stuffed animals or other things to their cell phones. 

I was feeling dramatic when I went to eat "snowflake bing su" with my friend Julie from school (shaved ice with fruit, syrup, and ice cream.) It was so good! (The restaurant has swinging bench seats, too!) 

SO funny

Okay, so I've taken a little time off what I should be doing right now to view this for the second time this week. It makes me smile, so it's way worth it.

a foreigner benefit

This afternoon, I was buying some bread while waiting to meet a friend at a bakery. I got a loaf of bread and a doughnut. There's a sign that says you have to pay extra for a bag to put the bread in (other than the ones the things come in individually), so I expected them to just give me the stuff and I'd put it in my backpack. Instead, I heard the lady mutter something to her co-worker like "We're supposed to charge for this bag, but I don't know how to tell her." She just assumed I didn't understand, which made me laugh. I could have told her something like "It's okay, I can pay for it," but I decided to not mess with it. The bags only cost like 50 won (five cents) anyway. There are small benefits since Koreans think that you can't understand. They don't bother you with stuff, but also it makes it hard to practice Korean, because many times when I try to respond or ask something in Korean, people respond in English.

I am learning a lot of stuff in my Korean language classes, but the more I learn, the more I realize I don't know. I haven't had much time to study this week, because I've had commitments every night and I've been either traveling to or getting ready for those commitments in the afternoons. That's all OK; I've enjoyed everything I've done this week, but it's just hard to fit in everything I need to do. (I know probably all of you who read this know exactly what I'm talking about!) We found out today that we have a midterm test next Friday, and after that we get the whole week off for lunar new year. Yay! Too bad the test isn't after lunar new year, then I might actually have time to study for it. :)

my apartment

I took some pictures this morning of my apartment, just to let you see where I live. I didn't do any cleaning beforehand, except I did make my bed so you could see my lovely bedspread from IKEA in Hong Kong.

My living room. You recognize my famous orange "trash" couch. To the left, there are some built in cabinets for storage. The window overlooks a small creek and then some apartments across that. 

My tiny hallway, which is also my kitchen and laundry room, if you can tell that's the washer underneath the stove. The bathroom is on the left hand side. 

My bedroom. There's a small wardrobe that you can't see just on your right hand side, but other than that, it's pretty much just big enough for a bed. 

My front door. You can see the entrance to my little bedroom on the right, and my fridge (with the world map on the top) on the left. 

community

I went to dinner tonight with a woman who's new to our church, her eight year old daughter, and Yumi, one of our faithful members. We had juk (Korean style porridge) and then we had "snow flower" ice cream dessert at a restaurant with swinging chairs for seats. Afterwards, we were saying our goodbyes and we saw Treavor, Alina, Jim, and Ron (our worship leaders and two of our winter short term team members) walking down the street, all with ice cream. (It's too cold to eat ice cream outside. I tried to tell them.) They said they had seen Sue, Jim Bob and Jiyeon at McDonald's. Then, I saw Donnie and Mr. Park walking across the street. He said he'd seen Laura and Val just before! It's fun to see our team and our church filling up the streets of Suji at night! He's building authentic community here!

bible in a year

I decided that I wanted to try to read the Bible in a year after reading a few blogs whose authors are doing that. I downloaded a schedule and am a little behind, but will hopefully catch up within the week. The schedule I'm on had me in Genesis 1-11 first, then to Job, then I'll go back to Genesis once I finish Job. I haven't had enough time to get caught up yet because of spending more time than expected studying Korean lately, so I've just been doing morning reading mostly.

A few of the most striking thoughts to me so far: (please comment if you have any thoughts!)

• Genesis 1:26 "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness"- I know this is a well-known, well-quoted verse, but what do you think it really means? I've used it several times in talking about seeing ourselves as God sees us, but it's still so striking. How are we like God? Whatever it means, it's an awesome thought.
• Job 1:21 "The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord."-Wow. That's completely incredible. He's just had everything taken away from him and he can still bless God's name.
• Job 2:12-13 - His friends came to show him sympathy and comfort him. They didn't recognize him from a distance, they raised their voices and wept. They sat with him for seven days and nights without speaking, because they saw that his suffering was so great. I don't know anyone under any circumstances who would actually spend a whole week without talking. There's definitely something to be said for friends like that, even though they later rip into him with their long-winded advice sermons.
• Job 9:23 "When disaster brings sudden death, he mocks at the calamity of the innocent." - I'm having a hard time with this one. I can't imagine God really mocking at the calamity of the innocent, or even the guilty. Can our perfect God mock? Isn't He love? Even when He brings wrath, surely He's not mocking?
• Job 12:2 "No doubt you are the people and wisdom will die with you." - Job's sarcasm just makes me laugh there.

One thing I'm wondering as I read Job is how do his friends comments fit in the scripture? Are their words inspired? I believe that scripture is inerrant and inspired. Does that mean that Job's friends were inspired to say these things to Job so that they could be recorded? They keep pointing the finger at Job, but the book only tells us that Job was blameless and upright, that he feared God and ran from evil (1:8). Of course, no one is innocent, so even if he's blameless, he's not perfect. So, what are we meant to learn from Job's friends? Why is so much space given to their rants?

did i mention it's freezing here?

Actually, it's well below freezing most of the time. The highs for the past week or so have been around 32 and the lows have been around 15. Brr. I've been living in long johns under my jeans, at least two shirts, a scarf, hat, and gloves, and my long down coat, sometimes even wearing the fur lined hood over my hat. I don't remember it being this cold here last year for this many days in a row, but maybe I just wasn't out in it as much. Maybe I just have a bad memory. I only remember wearing leggings (I didn't have my silk thermals or cuddleduds last year) under my pants on two days last year, and I didn't have the nice long coat I have now. Maybe I'm not as "strong" as I used to be. :)

Since Friday, I've been getting up at 7 and leaving at 8:15 to catch the bus to Ajou University, where my Korean language classes are. Today, I had to wait a while for the bus and it was cold. When I get to school, I have almost a 10 minute walk to the building where my class is. In the classroom, the heater is on, but it doesn't feel warm unless you get right up next to it. (There's no floor heat there.) So, we all leave our scarves and coats on all four hours. Maybe all of this contributes to me feeling so cold.

Today, I went to lunch with the Korean-American girl who is in my class. It was fun to start a friendship with her. In my class, there are three people who say they have no religion and one guy who is Buddhist. As my friend Adrielle said yesterday, the harvest is ripe! Pray that I am a witness to these new friends.

After we had lunch and coffee, I came back to Suji and spent two hours in the library near my house studying Korean. Since I didn't take level one, I have a little catching up to do, so I'm studying the review section of the practice book. It's not too hard, but it definitely takes some work. Two hours sitting in that library was about all I could take. I went there because I don't have a desk at my apartment, so I study on the floor. That's ok, but I figured I might concentrate more if I were sitting down in the library. I think my mind and body need a little more conditioning to be able to sit still and study longer. Koreans seem to have it down, though. Very few of the people around me moved from their study spots in the two hours I was there. Granted, some of them were fishing (a word I learned in Hong Kong that means nodding off), but most of them were really concentrated on their studies!

a great weekend

We left Saturday morning for our leadership retreat in Yangpyung (or something like that), about two hours away. There were 25 of us, which included our short term visitors Chris, Ron, and Jim. We met in a small room on Saturday, just learning about our spiritual gifts, worshipping together, and talking about how to use our small groups for the kingdom. God met us there! He imparted vision, He softened our hearts to Him, and He unified us more. He's raising up leaders in our body! Hallelujah!

On Sunday morning, in the middle of teaching on worship, a few people gave spontaneous testimonies of how worship changes us and is so important in our life. The Spirit moved on our hearts and some of us cried tears of longing and tears of joy that He would work in us. We were able to pray over people who hadn't been open before, and God began a new work in a few hearts. It was amazing and encouraging.

Sunday afternoon, at worship, we had a full worship team leading us and fresh hearts that God had opened up at the retreat. The worship was great. I was so happy to be there, in the church that God is building in Suji, South Korea. It was filled with life and love for our Maker. What a wonderful thing that worship in the church we're planting is life giving and enjoyable. Thanks, God!

Sunday night, we had our second baptism group. A nearby baptist church let us use their baptismal. We had two Americans, one Nigerian, and two Koreans (an older man and a young boy!) baptized. Awesome. Praise Him!

a student again

I started Korean language school today. I really enjoyed it. My class is only four people, and one of them might move up a level, so they are thinking about shortening the hours (for the same fee) so that they can afford to have such a small class. I guess that's fair. Anyhow, in my class there's a Japanese guy, a Russian lady, and another American from Wisconsin. The American's parents are Korean and she's married to a Korean. I also met another girl, who's in the level below me, who is from Estonia. She's dating a Korean guy, but she also wants to learn Korean for her job back in Estonia. I almost didn't talk to her, but we ended up walking side by side on the way to the classroom. I'm glad I did. She was really nervous about being there, but loosened up a lot in our conversation on the walk over. I told her I had been to St. Petersburg. She goes there almost every week, and she commented that it's a really small world.

I finally got internet in my apartment. I'm SO glad because I needed to do some cutting and pasting of Korean scripture from biblegateway.com into a handout for our retreat tomorrow. It's so cold outside that it would have been almost impossible to do on my computer in the courtyard. I turned up the heat a little in my apartment, so it's nice and toasty sitting here on the floor. (Korea has heat that comes up from the floor. It's so great.)

So, tomorrow, we have our first leadership retreat. Pray with us that we are able to impart the heart of leadership and that God would fill the future leaders of this church up with passion for His name and renown.

Piper's take on the tsunami

I get emails from desiringgod.org. This is taken from one I got today. Find the complete article here.

From pulpits to news programs, from the New York Times to the Wall Street Journal, the message of the tsunami was missed. It is a double grief when lives are lost and lessons are not learned. Every deadly calamity is a merciful call from God for the living to repent. Weep with those who weep,the Bible says. Yes, but let us also weep for our own rebellion against the living God. Lesson one: weep for the dead. Lesson two: weep for yourselves.

The point of every deadly calamity is this: Repent. Let our hearts be broken that God means so little to us. Grieve that he is a whipping boy to be blamed for pain, but not praised for pleasure. Lament that he makes headlines only when man mocks his power, but no headlines for ten thousand days of wrath withheld. Let us rend our hearts that we love life more than we love Jesus Christ. Let us cast ourselves on the mercy of our Maker. He offers it through the death and resurrection of his Son.

Jesus himself stood on the sea and stopped the waves with a single word (Mark 4:39). Even if Nature or Satan unleashed the deadly tidal wave, one word from Jesus would have stopped it. He did not speak it. This means there is design in this suffering. And all his designs are wise and just and good.

One of his designs is my repentance. Therefore I will not put God on trial. That is my place. And only because of Christ will the waves that one day carry me away bring me safely to his side. Come. Repentance is good place to be.

back in black

I’m back in the swing here in Suji. (Back in black meaning I'm wearing my long heavy black hooded coat because it's COLD here!) I got back to my apartment (after 46 hours of travel since I left Laura and John Mark’s house Saturday morning) at 4:00 on Monday afternoon. I unpacked and got a few things put away, took a hot shower, and had the intention of staying up until a decent hour to go to bed. I busied myself until about 5:30, but realized I wasn’t going to make it. I couldn’t even see straight. So, I went to bed and slept, with only a few interruptions, until 6 the next morning! I didn’t feel guilty in the least, because I knew I needed it after being awake for basically three days.

So, with an early start on the day yesterday, I finished putting stuff away in my apartment, went grocery shopping, and started getting back in touch with friends here. I went over to a friend’s apartment. I saw the Bible I gave her last year sitting on her shelf, and we started talking about reading the Bible. She asked if I really read it everyday, and doesn’t that get boring? I told her that there was so much to read and that it’s so rich with meaning that it doesn’t get boring. She said she read it for a while, but I guess doesn’t read it anymore. She went straight from that topic to how the tsunami tragedy doesn’t make any sense. She didn’t say this, but I think she was thinking about how God could allow such a thing to happen. She talked about her visits to Sri Lanka and how she knows many people who are now missing or whose friends and family are missing. I related to her confusion and hurts. I can’t explain why God would allow such a thing, but I know He is still in control, that He never lost control for a second, and that I still trust Him. How can I explain that? Until I can put that into words, I pray that my life will be a demonstration of my faith.

i'm a cheapo

The cheapest hotel option was about 70 bucks for the night, plus it would have taken more to get there, because it was 15 minutes away by car and I don't think they had a shuttle. So, cheapo Lela decided to stay in the airport. It was OK. I've had worse experiences. When Sarah and I traveled Europe by train one summer, we were told we didn't need to reserve seats on the overnight train to Paris. So, we ended up not getting a seat and sitting on the floor next to the bathroom at the end of the train. It was so awful. The bathroom stunk, people were smoking (not just cigarrettes) around us, and it was dirty.

In comparison to that, last night was a dream. I got enough room on a sort of soft bench to stretch out, with my legs resting on my big backpack. (I paid to keep my two big bags in a baggage storage room.) The airport security men took all the people who were spending the night to one section of the arrival lobby so they could keep an eye on us. They woke us up to write down our passport numbers and flight information, then a few minutes later, another guard came around to double check it. It was pretty quiet, even though I was next to the vending machine. They turned most of the lights out. I got a few rounds of good sleep, but by about 4am, I couldn't sleep much more. I've read almost all of my book, written about ten pages in my journal, taken a few walks around the terminal, and now, to liven up my waiting time, writing to you guys. Soon, I'll go get my bags, check in, and find something to eat with my remaining yen. I'm so ready to get back to my little apartment and see my Korea buddies again!

in tokyo

I'm at an internet kiosk in the Tokyo airport, disappointed I couldn't make the earlier flight home to Seoul. I thought, by some miracle, that I could make the connection to a flight that left less than an hour after my plane landed. I could have, if my bags had been checked through, but they wouldn't schedule me for that flight because the connection was too short. So, I am spending the night here and flying out tomorrow morning at 10. I am hoping now that I can get some sleep and do some end of the year reflecting while I'm stuck.

I had a lovely time in Texas. I ended it with a few days at home in Abilene with my parents, one night with my brother-in-law's parents (so I could drive to Kentucky with my sister and her husband the next day), and three nights with them in Kentucky. My cousin Sarah even came to spend a few days at their house, too. It was fun to see their house, walk around their neighborhood, and spend new year's eve with them. We made sour cream chicken enchiladas, beans, and rice for our new year's eve dinner. It was really good. We thought about staying up the whole night, since we had to leave at 4:30am to go to the airport for my flight, but we decided in the end to take a nap before we headed out. I slept pretty well on the plane as a result of not getting much sleep beforehand, so it worked out.

Happy new year! I'll write from Seoul soon.