Not only the young Christian but also the adult Christian will complain that the Scripture reading is often too long for him, and that much therein he does not understand. To this it must be said that, for the mature Christian, every Scripture reading will be "too long", even the shortest one, [for] the Scripture is a whole, and every word, every sentence, possesses such multiple relationships with the whole that it is impossible always to keep the whole in view when listening to details. It becomes apparent, therefore, that the whole of Scripture, and hence every passage in it as well, far surpasses our understanding. It is good for us to be daily reminded of this fact.

~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together

in my strong moments i say to myself that i will never be the type who rejoices - with every friday's arrival - that the weekend is here... but in my weak moments that is exactly what i do.
so, i must confess i'm having a weak moment.

been reading in the book of malachi lately. wow. some of the old testament prophets' audacity and faith in God blow my mind. stretch me, God, with the power of Your Word.

the woes of teaching

my poor poor step 3 kids. today we started the lion, the witch, and the wardrobe. they have 8 pages of study questions and 6 pages of vocabulary words. it only took me 7+ hours to write up.

guess what i say to them now on a regular basis... as soon as the moans and groans begin? 


"you may hate me now, but you'll thank me later."

is that what all teachers and authority figures say?

and for some reason, these kids can't seem to handle one journal entry a week, due every monday. i give them a day of grace, and they STILL can't seem to handle it. lol. and today i told jason every time i hear korean out of his mouth from now on, i'm lowering his grade a letter.


ok, you can say it. i'm a cruel teacher.

but i also showed them "The Muffin Tree" - discovered freshman year, when we (of course) had no time to waste online - http://www.muffinfilms.com/tree.html. i expect to see phil and sehwan reenacting it in the course of the next few days.

Lord, You have my heart
and i will search for Yours
let me be to You a sacrifice....
- delirious

but one thing i do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, i press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

philippians 3,13-14

BIG SECRETS.... and eyebrow-raising

when i was younger my dad would ask us kids if we wanted to go somewhere fun. always ready for adventure, we'd jump up and down and beg him, "yes, yes! oh, daddy, daddy, where are we going?!?!" dad would laugh his great big laugh and say, "i can't tell you. it's a BIIIIIG SECRET!!" and of course, we would moan and groan in eager anticipation of our destination.


and then we'd go to the gas station.

as you can see, i'm scarred for life. lol. so now, when my kids ask me what we're going to do, guess what i tell them?
"oh, i can't tell you. it's a BIIIIIG SECRET!"

and then, guess what they do? (just like my dad, by the way), they pretend to cry loudly and pat their (bald) heads. LOOOL.

my little ones have also seen the numa numa dance (http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/206373 - click on WATCH THIS MOVIE and then i think it's best to watch it without subtitles).

after watching it today caleb calls out to me, "miss ruth! miss ruth!! look!!"

i look over at him, and then he raises one eyebrow. just like that. cool as a cucumber, my 7 year old caleb.

what will they do next?!

have spent more time during the week with friends brittany and stefanie from church, who also work and live in suji. what an answer to prayer for the loneliness i have experienced the last 8 months. thank You, Lord. brittany is my working-out buddy in the mornings. last night we watched the phantom of the opera at their place, and it reminded me of watching the move in the byrd theater in richmond - complete with the chandelier and old opera feel to it!

tomorrow is myeongdong shopping with emily, thea, and hopefully nahamm. yay for die chance mehr deutsch zu sprechen. :) why the visions of shoes?? doh!


goodnight!

happy birthday lauren!

and i have a few more pictures from this past weekend.

tia smelling the flowers...

koreans do not own big dogs. i have seen maybe one or two larger dogs during my entire stay thus far. instead, the size of the two above is fairly typical. and you should see how they're decked out. we've got stores and shops full of dog clothes, hats, even booties for their cold little paws. Spiderman, Hello Kitty, and every animal design and pattern that you could imagine! lol.

dear dear emily and i

nahamm, me, tia... der ganze tag hat so viel spass gemacht!

we climbed a hill and found this - along with a full gym (weights, machines, etc) OUTSIDE. WHAT?! so anyway....

so beautiful. i love steps.

awww... hello me.

the little girl is SO cute!! and please notice the older woman walking (right side of the picture). she is wearing a viser to protect herself from the sun. apparently it's only an older generation thing, but i still see them a lot here. and friends s. and h. say that in california they see a lot of the koreans wearing them, too.

often, in driving around, i see these burial grounds. and while some still are buried on these hills, because of the increase in city population more and more koreans are choosing cremation.

oh.. and for some laughs...

Happy Easter, dear dear friends.... He is Risen!
this easter weekend was busy for me, full of friends and blessings from the Lord.... all amidst the wonderful words in pastor bob's message yesterday. Jesus is alive, and it is ONLY He who can save us from sin and death. because of Jesus' sacrifice - His death and resurrection - that, should we choose to submit our whole selves to Him, we can have life here and the glorious promise of eternal life with Him in heaven. what a simple - almost childlike - but beautiful reality!




i wanted to get some fotos before the flowers' blooming peak had past, so i went for a 'tourist' walk this past week. above, i was walking alongside a main road in suji.



the beautiful cherry blossoms line the streets everywhere.


a park near the suji library, YMCA, and "downtown" ... lol. and here's a picture of a parking lot right next to the library. as you will notice, there is a car parked in FRONT of several others. you are probably thinking, "why would any thinking individual block others from getting in and out?" well, the reason is that korea is such a small country and there's not enough room for extensive parking lots. parking garages are several stories. AND people park in front of others, leaving their car in neutral to be pushed out if the blocked-in individual needs to leave. also, their cell number will be posted on a window.


suji


an intersection... and in the middle of the picture you can see a truck covered with some sort of a tarp. there an 'ajjuma' - an older, married woman - is selling fruits or vegetables. these little outdoor 'marts' are at nearly every corner.


common korean landscaping alongside the road... lots of small shrubs with rocks. it really is quite lovely in a barren, craggy sort of way.


notice, first, the cute blue car. probably not the safest thing on the road. then, the guy on the moped. these guys are everywhere, delivering food. they're maniacs, some of them, and they seem to have their own traffic rules. lastly, notice the building. there is no room for appreciating the actual structure of the building itself - a comment that the teacher jay (whom i met within my first few weeks here) said as a reason for his wanting to become an architect.


the overhead crosswalk, a bus station, and of course... lots of apartment buildings. :)
after church yesterday daniel drove emily, tia, nahaam and me to a park near the jeongja subway station. we had a wonderful time walking around, climbing a mini "mountain" and people-watching. then we decided to walk back to migeum... only to get lost. not an uncommon experience in korea, where street signs are nonexistent. we ended up finding a bus to take us to the subway and from there back to migeum and an ice cream fondue at baskin robbins. it was wonderful!


the cherry blossoms really were beautiful. and i was able to catch the last of the magnolias, as well.


tia (in the forefront) is the 24 y.o. from germany. she is here for 4 months, teaching english and hopefully spending lots of weekends with me!!! nahamm (in the background) is korean, but has spent half of her life in germany, first during her father's studium and then the last 14 years for her own Ph.D and professorship. i have been in heaven, having this opportunity alles auf Deutsch zu sprechen.
im Moment funktioniert mein Computer nicht. dosh! so i will continue with the rest of the pictures later.
*tonight one of my intermediate students told me he could "cook" .... i asked him what. he said, "ramen" ... and i confessed i laughed. his face was so earnest. so sincere. lol.

If you want to know what's going on in the Korean world, check out these online English newspapers:

The Korea Times: http://times.hankooki.com/

The Chosun Ilbo: http://english.chosun.com/


a personal favorite.... since when did the color pink become acceptable not just for 5-6 year old girls starting kindergarten, but for 22 year old, testosterone-driven males, as well? read below. it's hit korea, too.

http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200604/200604120006.html

A stroll down German memory lane...

Heute habe ich mich an Max und Moritz erinnert. Viele Lachen von deutsche Klasse im 12. Klasse in Hochschule. :)

Max und Moritz

Eine Bubengeschichte in Sieben Streichen (von Wilhelm Busch)
Erster Streich
Mancher gibt sich viele Müh'Mit dem lieben Federvieh; Einesteils der Eier wegen,Welche diese Vögel legen, Zweitens: weil man dann und wann Einen Braten essen kann; Drittens aber nimmt man auch Ihre Federn zum Gebrauch In die Kissen und die Pfühle, Denn man liegt nicht gerne kühle. -
Seht, da ist die Witwe Bolte, Die das auch nicht gerne wollte....

den Rest findest du hier: http://www.fln.vcu.edu/mm/mm1.html

At church on Sunday there were two women from Germany- one a girl named Thea, who is just a few years older than me, and the other a Korean woman who has spent half her life in Germany and is delightfully more European than Korean. I invited them to join Emily, Daniel and me over my favorite Korean meal, which sounds like boo-duh-ji-gae and is translated as "army food." Yum yum! So good! We had a great time together, laughing over language mistakes in English, Korean, and German. Ich wundere mich, was die nächste Monate bringen.

This past weekend was, however, a rather rough time for me. At times I find my patience with Korean culture wearing thin, and then I am frustrated with myself for my bumbling attempts to adapt and immerse myself here. When I look back on the past months, I see that I have done the best I can. iI is nonetheless dissatisfying when somehow those meager attempts seem not to be enough... at least in my own heart.

Prayers for the next 4.5 months would be appreciated. T_T

it is always an adventure finding things outside the apartments in my complex. lol.

with more yellow dust blowing in from the gobi desert in southern mongolia and northern china, the streets of seoul are not as busy. everyone is wearing one of those masks and hiding away.... after all, it's not good for your healss. -.-

an email from one of my older students, who had to quit ERC:

Miss Ruth!
I'm Annie.
how are you doing?
I am so fine !

I miss you T_T
Everybody is okay?

and
please say hello to Jackie.
I sent her massage, but
she didn't answer.
how is she doing?
Is she okay?!


goodbye
and take care.
Annie

Esther just told me I look like a cherry blossom...

I was thinking more along the lines of 'frumpled' and 'happy'.

• It's 60 degrees and sunny. Wouldn't a field trip to Baskin Robbins be nice?

• My room is now being used during the 3:00-4:20 class.

• It's movie night tonight for Step 3. The prospect of a "party" was the only thing keeping them going during last night's class.

• Now that the Dr. Hwang Woo-suk faking stem cell fiasco has died down, other things have been in the news...

• The United States has officially recognized Dokdo Island (long considered to be Korean in their own eyes) as belonging to the Japanese. Ooh, that's gotta hurt.

• Steelers player and Superbowl MVP Hines Ward is currently in Korea. Everybody is celebrating him as a hero. Strange to me, since American football is basically a footnote amongst other Korean sports. Still, his multi-racial background opens up discussion in this most-homogeneous nation. I hear the numbers of inter-racial marriages is rapidly increasing.

• Lee Seung-yeop, the Korean "power slugger" who signed on with the Yomiuri Giants, a Japanese central league team, is looking stateside....

hello, monday...

so, Daylight Savings Time has kicked in back home. i'm now 13 instead of 14 hours ahead of you guys. bear with me when it comes to Skype conversations.

friday night was pride and prejudice with esther. let me digress just for a moment. please. pride and prejudice is a literary masterpiece. and why, you ask? because austen manages to blend optimistic happily-ever-after with a remarkable dose of satire and realism all within the four walls of an 19th century english parlor. it is a perfect novel, and the characters she creates are perfect. i am "lizzy" as every girl is, and perhaps every young man "mr. darcy." but what magic when the right two collide! and who can forget such marvelous creatures as lady catherine de bourgh, mr. collins, and the ever-nerve-stricken mrs. bennet? ahhh. even though i know the story so well, my stomach was full of butterflies, excitement, joy, horror, and delight until the closing scene... and now i'll stop. haha.

saturday night laura and i had a movie marathon at her place. we saw the notebook - me for the first time. for those of you who have seen it already..... i didn't sleep well saturday night. lol. does such a man exist anymore? lol. i hear they're out there..... somewhere.

and now some laughs for you at my expense. sunday morning i did what i have not done in my 7 months here. i went to migeum, laden with my umbrella and several bags of books to give people. (the foreigners in church have developed a sort of library amongst us. the ted dekker books my mom sent me for christmas have been passed around 4 or 5 times, i believe!) so i sat down only to realize i was missing something. surely not my purse?! oh no... definitely not that. it only has my korean ID card, wallet, bank cards - korean and american banks, medical insurance card, keys, etc etc. (basically, everything short of my passport). it took me a whole 2 seconds to realize my purse was indeed on Bus 11. holy mackeral.

i went to one of the deacons, intaek kim (who, by the way, is awesome), and he called the bus company and was able to have them hunt for it and reserve it at the bus office. also, sean, a guy on the praise team, wrote down a little note in korean to give to the bus driver, so he would know that i needed to be dropped off there.

on top of that, i was so flustered about my purse that i left my umbrella at the restaurant where a bunch of us had lunch! so after retrieving my purse, emily and i had to return to the restaurant to retrieve my umbrella, as well. phew.

the prayers continue for the right english teacher who will take my place at ERC when my contract is up. mrs. kim and i are always planning and discussing.

tonight my step 3 boys were..... being 13 year old boys and doing what 13 year old boys do best: being immature and annoying. i was trying to explain the word 'serenade,' and so i told them that for my 18th birthday an accapella group at william & mary serenaded me with the song 'Lady in Red." i googled the song, found a site that played it, and could hardly hear it for the noises they were making. what was i thinking?

Sidney Poitier, i don't have it half as bad as you did (in To Sir, With Love) but i feel for you. sometimes you just want to choke 'em. but enough venting. oh the joys of being a student in the Lord's school.

but what a patient Teacher He is. Lord, may i never leave Your feet.

p.s. nothing was lost from my purse. God is good.