A Week Gone By

So I've been in the country a week and a day now.  It feels like so much longer, somehow.  I guess we packed in a lot of stuff those first few days.  This week, we've been doing work stuff during the day, which isn't all that exciting, but definitely essential.  In all my interactions with the staff, and becoming familiar with the vision of YISS, I can say that I am excited to work with people who have a genuine passion for God and for ministering to kids.  I'm looking forward to seeing what the Lord can do with this group of people, and I haven't even met most of the staff yet :)

On Monday, we visited the hospital to get medical tests, I guess to ascertain whether we are fit enough to be permitted to live in Korea.  And then we got donuts.  A few of us guys finished before others, and stood loudly enjoying our donuts so the others could see how delicious they were.  We were just trying to show them the glory that was to come, but they seemed annoyed for some reason.  Oh...and Sunday night is when it started raining.

We did some more stuff at the school - it was beneficial, but nothing anyone wants to read about.  We had dinner at a really good Thai place located above the English bookstore (What the Book?), so I also ordered and paid for the recently released Dresden Files book :)  Excitement.  Dinner entertainment was provided by the Carlson children (Cade, boy, age 2 and Kennedy, girl, age 4), who are quite possibly the cutest beings in existence.

Tuesday morning was a new experience for me.  We started the day with a devotion and prayer time, which I've never done in a school setting before.  It was pretty good, and it was great to be able to share that with my coworkers.  The afternoon was a lot of fun.  We got to play with some of the school's toys - they have these handheld cameras that can also take video, and we wandered about the school.  Eric, JJ, and I walked together, mostly taking video, and narrating where we were.  When we finished, we came back and loaded our media onto our macbooks and started playing with iMovie.  The idea is that we'll splice this together so we can send a video tour to people back home.  It was a fun way to learn about some of the tech stuff available to us.  We'll see if I get around to finishing the editing.  Oh, and it was raining all day.  It really started pouring in the afternoon.  We went to a place called Dillinger's for dinner - they have half price burgers on Tuesday nights and you can play darts for free :)  My pride suffered as Miranda kicked my butt twice in a row, but it was fun.

After dinner I had quite an adventure.  It was pouring at this point, and I was riding with my new friend Craig to go play volleyball, usually a drive of a half hour.  The weather made traffic terrible, but it was also highly amusing because Craig talks to the other drivers.  I think my favorite was when someone was inching into his path - "Oh, you are not going to do that, sunshine."  Non-stop entertainment.  Volleyball was a lot of fun.  There were a couple of guys who could really pound the ball.  I blocked one of them once, and it snapped my wrist back; it's still sore.  A lot of fun, but we didn't get back until around midnight, so I don't think I can keep that up during the school year.  I'll need to find another sporting outlet...

Yesterday morning was kind of cool because we got to meet the support staff and pray for them (hey!  We really are a Christian school!).  These people do all sorts of things for the school and for us in terms of getting our paperwork through and helping us move in and such, so it was good to be able to give some prayer support to them.  We also got to spend some time in our classrooms, and I actually started thinking about teaching stuff :)  And it was still raining.

I think it was yesterday (Wednesday) when the rain started getting dangerous.  There is a lot of flooding in some of the lower parts of the city.  We drove over the Han river today, and the water has totally flooded all the park areas next to it, and has climbed about 2/3 of the way up to the bridges.  Young nim, our immigration expert who has been here 20 years, said she has never seen the water so high.  A few dozen people have died in landslides caused by the rain.  Please pray for the flooding, that the rain will stop, and that people will be safe.

Today we went to the immigration office and got fingerprinted.  It took about five seconds - they have digital fingerprinting devices.  No rolling your fingers in ink.  We had a bit of confusion there because of Charissa.  They pulled up her last name and found a teacher with the same last name and same birthdate who looked like her.  They asked her "have you taught here?".  She said no.  There were some confused expressions exchanged and then Young nim figured it out - she said "She's a twin!" And everyone had a good laugh.  All in all, the immigration office was exceptionally efficient.  We got our passports back, and should get our alien cards in two weeks.

We got Korean food for lunch, had time in our classrooms, and took a trip to CostCo.  That's about it.

Tomorrow is a big day, because it's the first day that all the teachers are required to attend.  Up till now, it's just been us newbies.  I'm excited to meet everyone else, especially the people I'm actually going to be working with (only one of the other noobs is even in the high school, and none are in my departments).

We get to go on the staff retreat this weekend, although I don't know how much the rain will limit what we can actually do.  I'm excited to get out into the mountains a little bit.  I hear it's a good place for hiking :)

I bought lots of cereal at CostCo, so I'm ready for anything!

peace,
Bennett