Korea: A short introduction

I made it to Korea! I have been here for a little of two months and I'm adapting quite well. Here is a short recap of the last two months of my life.

June 27th- I touched down in Korea. I flew into a city called Busan. It is one of the main cities in Korea, and it is the biggest port city. Shortly after I got of the plane I was on my way to my friends house to stay for the night. The first food I ate in Korea was triangle kimbop. "Kim" means seaweed, and "bop" means rices, so I will let you try to guess what it is.

June 28th- I awoke to a huge breakfast my friend's mother had prepared. I think this breakfast could have rivaled a kings meal. The food was soooooooo good; Sweet beef, tofu, eggs, salad.... the list went on. After eating breakfast we were on our way to church. We wanted to attend the church on campus at Handong(the school here), so we had to drive an hour. I attended my first HIC church service and met some of the people I would spend the next month and a half with. After church my friend treated me to a meal in town. (I thought I was going to lose weight here in Korea...but the food is soooo good) EHDS began that day.

EHDS-every weekday we had two lectures sessions, quite times, outreach preperation, and Flock meetings. The program consisted of one month of training and two weeks of outreach

June 29th - July 3rd : Gary Parrett
--Pastor Parrett spoke about the basic doctrines in Christianity; that is the Gospel and Discipleship. This was a huge blessing to me. Having a cohesive presentation on the basic doctrines in the bible done in a week really helped me tie everything together. If you grow up in the church more often than not I think you are left with this wire frame Christianity. You know the general shape of what it is suppose to look like, but you haven't added the skin to fill in all the gaps. This week was the most helpful for me in that context.

July 6th - July 10th : David Ross
--Pastor Ross spoke about meditation on the scriptures. Meditation can be a scary word for Christians, this is partly due to things like Transcendental Meditation and similar cult like meditation techniques, so I will call it "pondering". Most of what Pastor Ross taught about pondering the scriptures are things that I have already applied in my life. Nevertheless I was happy to see that the things God taught me were things that other people do as well. This is "scripture pondering" as I call it in a nut shell: read the bible, wait for God to speak, respond to God anyway you feel is necessary. The response can be anything; drawing, writing, praying, singing, actions....ect. This is how we are changed by the bible.

July 13th - July 17th : Chris Harrison
--Pastor Chris spoke about inner healing; that is dealing with your past hurts. Sometime these things can hinder our relationship with God if we don't address them in a correct way. This week was very interesting, I have never really had any hardship in my life, but I was learning what people go through when they have been hurt. So, most of what he taught was not directed at me but I feel like I could apply it to my life by helping others.

July 19th - July 24th : David Beckett, Pastor YoungHo
--The speaker for this week was not able to show up, so the two pastors of the International church filled in. We learned about Evangelism, Bible Study techniques, and Christian Living. This week was the last week and it was the perfect end to bring the other three weeks into one package.

July 24th - August 7th : Outreach to Cambodia
--This section will get it's own post-maybe a few post. We will just leave it at God is very good for right now.

August 8th : Graduation from English Handong Discipleship School (EHDS)

August 12th - August 24th : Travel in Korea
--I visited my friends in Korea. I went to Busan, Seoul, Suon, and Daegu. I saw so many things the trip is a blur, but I took a lot of pictures.

August 24th - 29th : International Orientation !

August 31st - First day of classes... Today