Happy New Year!

I literally "rang" in the New Year in Seoul. ^^

In Korea, it's a Buddhist tradition that you ring giant bells on the new year to "wake up" the world. I like the sentiment. It makes me think of creation singing praise to God. So for the new year all around Korea people are ringing humongous bells in the temples all at the same time. And we STILL couldn't hear the sound. :( Too much shouting. haha

We were in a very crowded area of Seoul for the event. Kinda like the "Times Square" of Seoul. Before the event the streets were closed off and police buses lined the sides. You could see police everywhere in preparation for crowd-control. (Or so I thought.)

When it event was over, of course everyone tried to leave at once. So the crowd became a mob. And the police did nothing. They stood there on the side watching people get pushed and shoved and carried. They only smiled and laughed about it. Useless! Worse than useless! (Like the "net neutrality" bill...)

BUT despite that (and the frigid temperatures) I had a wonderful time in Seoul~ and the thought that I will be back home soon cheers me even more.

Merry Christmas!

My Christmas in Korea:

My Charlie Brown Christmas tree and dollar-store decorations

Decorating the tree!

The finished product, complete with Christmas candles

Even better at night

Christmas eve get-together with friends at a "game room"

The punishment for losing the game was getting "bopped" by a stranger (hehe)

Merry Christmas from Korea!

Love and miss you all

HAPPY EASTER!

Happy Easter everyone! The weather is starting to warm up a little bit! (A little.) The sun is also starting to shine earlier in the day. ^^

In Korea it seems that Easter is similar to Christmas. Christians celebrate it, but not the culture. There's not really any Easter candy and hardly any Easter decorations. BUT apparently it is Korean Christian tradition to decorate eggs!

At my school for the last two days I showed the Veggie Tales "An Easter Carol" to introduce the idea of Easter and give everyone a day off from work. They enjoyed it, but I was a little surprised at how many children didn't know what Easter was! In America there's hardly a kid who wouldn't know. Such a big culture difference...

Easter one year ago is when I first came to Dong-shin Church... and met Jin! Yay for 1 year anniversaries!

Church Retreat

We had a church retreat for a night. Not a whole weekend... just a night. And it was exhausting! But fun. However, I felt really burned out by it. Us girls (Tharine, Eli and I) volunteered to do the food... so we had to get up extra early. And we had to skip out on part of the service to start lunch.

It felt like it all went too fast and was too hectic. My favorite part was the campfire we had when we first got there. That was the only time we could all relax.

I now feel really sympathetic to the people who are ALWAYS the ones putting things together in the church. You don't get to sit back and enjoy!

Korean Thanksgiving (추석) Pt. 1

Some friends and I went to Jeju Island (Korea's Florida) over the holiday weekend (more on that later)... which isn't exactly what Korean Thanksgiving is about. But most of our Korean friends were busy doing family rituals for the holiday.

A friend from church, Brandon, put together a CLIP about what they do for the family rituals and I thought it was definitely worth sharing. So please, check it out if you want to understand/see a bit more about Korean culture.

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Note: The egg shaped mounds of grass are their graves. They are shaped that way because traditionally they believe in reincarnation, and the egg-shape of the earth symbolizes re-birth.

"I lift up my eyes to the hills..."

Jin took me on a day trip the weekend after my birthday. It was a surprise, so I had no idea where we were going. (I love surprises!) We had to take an early morning bus about an hour outside of the city and then transfer buses and ride for another half hour. It was a little complicated and it was so nice for Jin to take care of it all!

The morning mist was beautiful around the mountains...
Jin and I on our way to the largest women's Buddhist temple and college.

There was this beautiful path on our way up to the temple. It was quiet and peaceful and we were the only ones there that early in the day.


Entrance to the temple. We couldn't take any pictures of monks/nuns, so we had to stick to buildings and scenery.

The view from inside the temple grounds.

The main temple and oldest temple on the grounds. They were having a kids camp, and teaching the kids how to meditate and what to say. (That's what the posters are for)

Mats you kneel on to pray.

Buddha surrounded by individual carvings of all his different disciples. What I don't understand is how they know who is who or how many he even has. Especially since there are so many different Buddhas!

Either way, they're pretty cool looking. It might have taken a VERY long time to get these done...

Guardian angels that used to be outside the temple walls guarding it. Now they're inside the medicine Buddha's hut. Nobody knows why. (Seriously, I asked)

The medicine Buddha.

Another temple where the Buddha is surrounded by his disciples. Not sure why they're bigger though. Maybe they were kings and princes? Kinda hard to say.

The large temple grounds. This area started the college for women to learn the Buddhist ways.

It was actually a pretty amazing temple experience because while we were there a foreigner came up to us and gave us fruit. But she was dressed in the Buddhist monk clothing! A little while later we were able to sit down and talk with her. She explained how she had ended up in Korea studying Buddhism at the women's college. She also explained a lot of Buddhism that I had been wondering about.

Apparently there has always been a disagreement between the monks who think practice is more important, and the monks who think theology (or theory) is more important. To me, it sounded a lot like Christianity in that respect! She explained the tradition of the robes, the shaving their heads, and the different temples.

Religions are surprisingly the same sometimes. However, the biggest difference is that Buddha did not claim to be God. He doesn't save people from themselves or their sin. He only teaches people how to be separated from the world. How to remove yourself enough from it that you can rise above the human conditions of sickness, suffering and death. And there are many Buddhas. There is only one Christ.

However, there are similarities between how the two religions react to each other. Buddhism is split into many different sects... just like Christianity. Some disciples say one things is better, another says some other thing is more important... just like us. It makes me wonder what the difference is there. I wish there was some. Didn't Christ Himself pray for our unity?

We hiked deeper into the mountains to see some "marbles" from the bodies of departed Buddhist monks. When the Buddhists burned their leader after death, they started finding marbles that had formed from their body. Supposedly one body had as many as 300 marbles! (How somebody lives with 300 marbles in their bones, I will never know.) The more marbles you had, the holier you were.

Sadly, we were disappointed. The marbles were hidden inside the mountain and the only thing at the top of the mountain were more temples reserved for the truly devout Buddhist.

Seeing all the temples and alters built to Buddha and mountain gods made me think of David's psalm (121): "I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth."

I remember learning in class that David is talking about being surrounded by the idols and temples that were always at the tops of mountains. He was seeing all these, and thinking about the LORD and the difference between Him and the idols that people worship. I think I am starting to understand more how David felt. These mountains surround the city... and there are temples on every one of them. So where does my help come from when surrounded by all this?

It comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth.

Easter Sunday

I know this is a little late, but I wanted to relate my first church experience since so many have asked about it.

My church experience was interesting. I prayed that God would make it perfectly clear which church I should go to, so I can get involved right away. I didn't want to be left hanging too long in a foreign country, especially only knowing people who aren't Christians and who go out drinking every weekend. And it's not like in Chicago where I could spend time looking around for a good church to be involved in. There are very few English services around these parts!

Through websites and Korean coworkers I found a few churches that had English serivces. Of those few, less were close to me. After calling around and getting no luck in checking out their English service information... I called the number for Dongshin Presbyterian Church's English service contact. The guy who answered the phone was a Kiwi named Karl, and told me a bit about the church and then asked about my church background, etc. When I brought up that I had gone to Moody, Karl excitedly stated that the pastor for the English church had too! I finished the conversation feeling like God was leading me to where I should be.

On Easter Sunday, I got lost on my way to the church. That was to be expected a bit... but I got more lost than I thought I would. The directions weren't that clear to begin with, and then my sense of direction was a bit thrown off. After a few failed attempts, I was finally frustrated enough to pray. Soon after, a Korean that spoke perfect English came up to me and asked "Are you lost?" I was astonished and relieved! I asked him if he knew where the church was, and come to find out he had gone there as a child! Him and his friend kindly directed me to the church, and we talked along the way.

I finally arrived just as the sermon was starting, said "hi" to Karl and took a seat. The service took place on the 5th floor of the Activity center for a very large Korean Presbyterian church. There was a good mix of foriegners and Koreans, but everyone spoke English. Come to find out later, there was also many other new people going to church for Easter Sunday! Another thing that was a pretty awesome surprise was that halfway into the sermon, the guy that helped me and his friend came into the service and sat down in front of me!

After church, I met a whole bunch of people... more than I remember now. I talked to the guys that helped me and the pastor for awhile. The talk with the pastor was at first overwhelming, because I told him I would like to know more about the church and being involved; and since he knew I was from Moody... he really laid it on me!

Even though it was overwhelming, and much different than I expected... I still feel like that's where I should be. I mostly feel this way because of conviction and the fact that their needs match my abilities/what I want to do! They have need of a Theology bible study, starting a Women's group, and help with Children's church. haha. However, I need to actually get to know the church members... and that means opening up. Which I'm not the best at in the beginning.

I need to step outside of my fears and insecurities to open myself up to this church to love and grow with them! Eek! And even though I'm excited to get involved, I still feel so inadequate to help at all. What keeps playing over in my head is when Paul says that God's strength is made perfect in our weakness... I pray this comes true!

Gatbawi Buddha

The hike this past Saturday was amazing! Brutal... but amazing. haha. My coworker was right when he said it was the "stair master from hell."

The trip started off around 10am Saturday morning with an hour long bus ride. Their buses are really nice compared to Chicago's! The cherry blossoms have been coming out for the past month as well... so there were some very beautiful parts of the hike.

The entrance of the hike with some beautiful cherry blossom trees!

Right before you start up the trail (and on through the trail at certain points, as I came to find out later), there are piles of rocks. The rocks are wishes or prayers and you have to balance them on top of the other rocks... and you want to balance them on the highest point so your prayers are closer to Heaven. Or Buddha. Not really sure which one.

My prayer balancing on the highest point I could get.

A ways up the hike we came to a temple area. Before you go up to the temple, there's an alter to Buddha. Incense was burning and water was flowing by the statue. People were there lighting candles for prayers, kneeling on the mats to pray, and worshiping Buddha's statue. It actually reminded me of a strange mix of Catholicism and Islam.

They take off their shoes before they step on the mats to pray

Statue of Buddha and alter area

There were a few different temples. One was to the mountain god - usually depicted as a tiger or an old man, and the other is the main temple where the monks pray. This beautiful bridge connected the two temples.

Temple of the mountain god

Pagoda and bell "tower" for the temple

Bell which they ring once a day for the main prayer

Beautiful hand painted artwork was everywhere; this is from the bell "tower"

Everyone tries to get a sip (or fill their water bottles) of temple mountain spring water that's been blessed by Buddha. It flows out of the mouth of the turtle.

Vats of kimchi soaking on the roof of the temple kitchen

These are the hardcore uneven steps that kicked our butts

As we neared the top we started seeing people selling candles, and gifts for Buddha

The view from one of the resting areas maybe halfway up

When we neared the top, we started seeing these beautiful temple lanters!

The lanterns had Buddhas holding lotus' and standing in Buddha positions

The prayer area at the top of the mountain.

The lanters that covered the ceiling had the prayers of people tied to the ends

Me and the huge Buddha with a stone on its head: it's one of the oldest in all Asia!

Once we had finally reach our goal with making it to the Buddha and the temple at the top of the mountain, we had to make our way back down again. That was definitely the most trecherous part of the trip! (At least for the first half of the way down.) We hadn't realized how steep it had been getting... so we were definitely off balance for the way down. Gravity works, let me tell you. What was the most confusing though was that we kept seeing people with dress clothes/shoes and very old people making their way up the mountain! How they did it I will never know...

Making our way slowly back down the mountain

Me with a monk!

We finally reached the end of our hike with much relief. Our legs were definitely shaking! On our way down we passed by the monk that I have a picture with, and he was so friendly! It was funny cause the only two things he knew how to say were "hi" and "I love you..." haha. Our bus ride home felt long, but we felt both tired and accomplish from the day. I can't wait to do more!