On specific days during the summer, Koreans eat watermelon and drink chicken broth because they believe it will give them good luck and health for the year. A few teachers at school told me this as they gave me watermelon and a bowl of broth, encouraging me to eat in order to gain good luck for the coming year. Now while I do not put much stock in the magical abilities of watermelon or the healing powers of chicken broth, I clearly saw over the summer the many blessings in my life. Blessings not from anything I had done or anything I had eaten for that matter, but abundant blessings from my Heavenly Father.
The summer months I have spent in Korea are a testament to God’s faithfulness and provision. In reviewing my prayer requests in the last update letter I see ways that God answered each and every one of those in many different ways. The summer camp that I organized during the first three weeks of vacation was extremely successful. The children were very interested in the camp topics and were eager to interact with other students as well as myself. Discipline problems were immediately stifled and there were little to no issues through the duration of the camp. I was able to get to know a number of my students better as the camp size was much smaller than a regular class during the school year.
I had the opportunity of going on a teacher's trip at the end of classes in July. We spent two days together visiting historical sites and various scenic locations and enjoyed having meals together. We spent the night at one of the teacher's homes up in the mountains. This was a great opportunity to get to know other teachers outside of school. I spent the night on the floor in a tiny room with 7 other female teachers, it is next to impossible not to get to know people under those circumstances. This was probably one of the more memorable and hilarious moments of my time here in Korea. Let's just say that by the end of the trip I knew the other teachers a lot better. It was amazing though to see how this teachers trip, though full of awkward and strange moments, was an answer to prayer.
Being home during the summer was such a wonderful blessing. I had the opportunity to spend time with my entire family, something which doesn’t happen too often. I spent a week up in the mountains of Karuizawa, enjoying the cool weather, family time and fellowship with other missionary families. What a blessing it was to return to such a familiar place and talk to other missionaries as they discussed their vision for churches and outreach opportunities in Japan. I was also able to enjoy a lot of activities such as hiking with my family and enjoyed God’s beautiful creation while being in the mountains. The latter portion of my vacation was spent in Nagoya, the weather being much different to that of Karuizawa, and much more similar to Seoul, very hot. However I was able to go and visit my home church in Toyoake and see many old friends who attend church there. I was so thankful being able to go home for those two weeks and returned to Korea refreshed and ready for the school year to continue!
A funny story I would like to share was my taxi ride from Incheon airport to Hwajeong after returning from Japan. Because of the long lines for buses and pouring rain I decided to take a taxi only to realize halfway through the trip that I would not have enough money to pay for the entire ride (somehow I had misplaced some of my money in my bags). Meanwhile the taxi driver is prattling on in his limited English about his "baby" and mixing Korean and English so much I really had no idea what he was saying (I found out later his "baby" was actually his 20 year old daughter, and he was very proud of her). I realized I didn't have enough money, so decided to be direct with him and just slowly told him I only had so much Won and asked if he could either stop by a bank/atm or just drop me off at a corner. The situation was so ridiculous that the taxi driver ended up laughing and as I profusely started to apologize, he just told me not to worry and said he would pay for the rest of the ride. Actually he kept repeating "Okay... my cash, my cash." This really is unheard of and I was shocked when he said it, but very grateful that he didn't seem to mind. He probably felt bad for the crazy foreigner who jumps into taxi cabs without enough money to pay for them. But in any case we enjoyed the rest of the ride as he spoke in broken English and I spoke in my very broken Korean. God was so good and provided me with an understanding taxi driver, it's a story I'm not likely to forget.
School has started again, and unlike the American school system, September is not the start of a new school year. In fact, it is the second semester which will go through December, break for winter vacation and the new school year will officially start in March. Which means I have all the same classes and students as before. It was much easier starting school this time because I already knew many of the students, my schedule and some of the other teachers. It has been very busy already as my co-teacher and I have started to prepare for an English play which will be put on by the students in October. I have also taken on teaching a kindergarten class once a week at the request of the kindergarten teachers, the kids are lively and excited to learn English, so that should be a fun experience.
Prayer Requests
· Although a textbook is provided for many of my classes, I see that students can become bored easily with the material, and so I try to use fun ways to teach the students English. They respond really well to games and activities that support textbook material but aren’t taken directly from the curriculum. Pray that I will continually find new ways to teach the kids, this can be difficult at times but I have seen the benefit of going that extra mile to find fun activities for the students.
· Please pray for my relationship with my co-teacher, as I mentioned in my last letter Moon has been such a blessing to me and we work very well together. I ask that you pray that this continues and that I can find ways to help really help with her workload, seeing as she has an exorbitant amount of work beyond helping me in the classroom. She is easily stressed and feels the need to do everything on her own, despite my continual requests to help her. Pray that I can find ways to lighten her work load and be a help to her in the coming months
· I am still in the process of learning the Korean language, I’ve started to pick up a lot more words and phrases and am now attempting to read and write the alphabet. I was blessed early in life to learn Japanese and it is entirely different picking up a language as an adult. Pray for my studies and that I will continue to strive to learn this language despite its difficulty.
· Please pray for the students at my school: many of them come from difficult family situations, most people who live in the Naeu area where my school is located are low income families with both parents working. In addition to that, many of the kids have to attend more school after the school day is finished, this is very common in Korea as well as Japan. The students are usually exhausted when they get to school in the morning and many of them struggle to keep up with their studies. Pray for them and pray that I will be understanding and will know how to reach them and teach them in my classes.
Thank you all for your continual prayers!
Amy
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