BIWA Bazaar

Saturday our school had a booth at a charity event, so we headed over to the Haeundae Grand Hotel to help out and watch as some of our elementary kids sang. This hotel is easily one of the fanciest hotels we have ever stepped foot in. There was a large ballroom that had tables set up for all sorts of different organizations and nationalities to sell food or handcrafts or Christmas things. We walked around, got some food, and hung out with people from school. It was so fun to see students outside of school, and they were so cute performing!

Check out a few pictures from the day!

At the entrance of the hotel with Laura

We unexpectedly ran into our dear friend Nikki!

Saturday 1rd December? 

Meet Austin!

Justin's Birthday

For Justin’s birthday we went to a Brazilian Steakhouse in Nampo-dong that we heard about from some friends. Having been mostly deprived of beef for the majority of our time here (because it is SO ridiculously expensive), we were anxious to have a meal of unlimited beef.  If you have never been to a Brazilian Steakhouse, they bring around huge skewers and carve chunks of meat off for you. They brought us each of the 8 (yes, 8!) types of meat – from steak to pork to chicken and pineapple – and then we got to request any others that we wanted again for no extra charge.  We took pictures of each one, but they don’t look half as good in the pictures as they did in person. We will definitely be going back sometime in the Spring.  It was also exciting that even though we went on a Friday night, they still consider that a weekday so we got the weekday price instead of the more expensive weekend price! Yes, I’m Dutch, so that was exciting. :)

Heading out for Justin's Birthday Dinner!

Steak!

Sausage and Chicken

Bacon Beef and Garlic Beef - the Garlic Beef was our favorite!

After dinner, we walked around Nampo to see their spectacular Christmas lights. Wow. 

Thanksgiving in Korea

Thanksgiving has been my favorite holiday for several years.  The food, family, shopping….I love it all so much. I remember when I studied abroad that Thanksgiving was when I felt the most homesick, so I was expecting it to be the same way here.  While we definitely both missed being at home for this holiday, we were so blessed by our Thanksgiving here. 

Ready for our Thanksgiving Dinner #2 on Saturday

On Thursday we had an awesome Thanksgiving lunch at school. They got four turkeys and the PTO made a bunch of side dishes, including mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, and desserts.  It was such a good way to start off the long weekend.  

BFS Thanksgiving Turkey

We were very thankful to have the day off on Friday, and we spent it going to shopping in Nampo’s market. It was about an hour subway ride from here, but so worth it! We found some great Christmas gifts for family and had a great time exploring a different part of the city.

I was not actually touching this giant crab, nor was I that excited to be so close to it. Don't ask me why I was. I have no idea.

Christmas store in Nampo! We were SO EXCITED when we found this place!

On Saturday we had a big Thanksgiving feast with a group of dear friends from church. We even purchased a turkey from Costco (a $55.00 turkey – which apparently is nearly half of what they cost last year!!) and had great success cooking it.  There was a group of 11 of us from church who got together at our friend Marie’s very spacious apartment for dinner and games. I’m not sure if I have ever felt as thankful as I did that night.  To be surrounded by such a solid group of people only three months into our time in Busan is a HUGE blessing.  Not only did we have fun, but we really got to deepen our relationships with them. When we think about how all of us got to Busan and found ICC and became friends, it is so encouraging and reassuring that we made the right choice to come here. God has blessed us beyond what we ever imagined.

Thanksgiving #2 Turkey. The first turkey I have ever cooked and it turned out pretty darn good!!

Some of the side dishes

On Sunday we packed up our side dishes yet again and headed for Thanksgiving at church.  I know we often mention how thankful we are for our church, but I really don’t think our words can do justice to how amazing it is. We can’t wait for people to visit so that they can experience this wonderful family that we have here.  A group of 5 of us girls were serving food to people as they came through the lunch line and at one point I just turned around and looked at everyone and was overwhelmed by the people I was serving food to and serving food with.

Nikki serving lunch

Serving food at church

Katelyn and Elise serving food at lunch

Our lunch table. I love these people!! 

One of our favorite little girls at church. I have no idea what her name is, but she is adorable. The girl on the right is Caroline - she is a senior at our school.

We often use the phrase “brothers and sisters in Christ,” but this weekend was one of the most sincere pictures of that I have ever witnessed. With my college roommates I would say that was true, but what a beautiful picture this experience and our church have created for me of what that phrase really looks like. I pray that you may all be able to experience what I am talking about some day, or that you can really view fellow believers around you in the same way.

Psalm 107:1  Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good; His love endures forever. 

Blessings in Busan

With the Holiday Season right around the corner, we have recently been thinking a lot about all of the things we are grateful for. There are so many things in our life in Korea that are such a blessing to us. We wanted to share a few of those things with you.

We are thankful for our jobs in Korea. We are blessed to have fulfilling and challenging jobs that are teaching us both so much. We are also thankful that we are able to save money for our future because of these jobs.  We are thankful for the wonderful (and furnished) apartment that has been provided for us.

We are thankful to be living in Busan. This city is amazing - it is beautiful, clean, foreigner-friendly, and fun. It has been so cool to go from living in Upland to living in Busan and see benefits to both.  We miss many things from Upland but love so many of the conveniences and activities that are always awaiting us in Busan.

We are thankful for how easy it is to communicate with all of you lovely people spread across the world. From the the entire US to family and friends throughout the world we are able to text, call, or Skype anyone pretty much whenever we want.  Most of the time it doesn't really feel like we are on the other side of the world.

We are thankful for our church here. Through talking to other people we know in Korea, we are learning that the community we have found at ICC is not as common as one might think.  We are blessed to have such solid friendships already with people we have met here. We know that many of these friendships will last longer than our time in Korea, and for that we are grateful.

We are also very thankful for all of you who are supporting us and lifting us up in prayer. We are blessed to have you in our lives. Thank you for your encouraging words via email and Facebook and for staying connected with us.

Only 5 more weeks of school until Christmas Break! We can't believe how fast this first semester has gone. It doesn't seem like we have been here long enough to come home yet.

Have a blessed week, everyone.

Taylor Gathering

This weekend we had the opportunity to travel to Seoul to meet up with some Taylor friends. Two people who work at Taylor are in Seoul for a few days, so we met up with them as well as a couple I was in school with at TU. We didn't do the whole tourist thing while there, but it was so nice to see familiar faces.  We all dressed up in traditional Korean clothes which is always fun.

Happy Halloween!

Halloween was quite the event at BFS. Everyone dressed up for the entire day, and the elementary kids had events going on for nearly the entire afternoon. The High School Leadership class put on a carnival on the roof where kids got to play games and win candy, decorate cookies, and get their faces painted. We also did a version of Trick-or-treating where we went around to various classrooms and collected candy and clementines from the PTO.  We also had a school-wide costume contest for the students and teachers. It was a crazy day, but nice to break away from our routines for an afternoon. Here are our costumes!

I'm Very Kangaroo

Meet Aziz. One day when going out for recess he somehow managed to put his coat on upside down.  This is the conversation I had with him about what happened to his hood.

Fireworks Festival

Words cannot even begin to describe how insanely awesome the Fireworks Festival was.

We had planned on making a whole day of the event by going to the beach early on Saturday afternoon with a group of friends....play games, talk, eat, etc...but that plan was quickly altered when it poured non-stop ALL day Saturday.  Thankfully they postponed the 1.35 million dollar fireworks show until Sunday night.  On Sunday we opted to all walk down and just find a decent spot to view the show just an hour before it started.  The following pictures do not even begin to do justice to what we saw.  See Facebook for videos! We were having trouble getting them uploaded here!

The Diamond Bridge with the police keeping people off the wall.  

Shabu Shabu

Allow me to introduce you to a fun restaurant called "Shabu Shabu."  Laura had previously been there, so she directed us, along with another co-worker, Amelia, there for dinner Friday night  She had tried to explain it to me before, but it was still nothing like I was expecting.  We sat on the floor for our meal and were brought several bowls with liquid (I have no idea what it was) along with the several side dishes that accompany every Korean meal.  These pictures really are better than me trying to describe what we ate.

Welcome to our FULL table!

Rice paper/wrap/thing

Dipping the rice paper to soften it

Then you pile everything from the soup pot (the one in the middle of the table) onto the rice paper...from meat to veggies to pineapple and sauce

wrap it up...

Then stuff the whole thing in your mouth at once. There really is no other way to eat it.

After you're done eating this part, then they put noodles in the broth and then you eat those. And then they dump a rice mix into the pot and whatever is left gets mixed with it, and you eat that.  SO MUCH FOOD! And SO GOOD!!!

Global Gathering

What a cool day today! We had the Global Gathering and got to spend the day checking out booths from cultures all over the world - all of which are represented in Busan.  We ate food from Iran, Turkey and Nepal.  I even got to have ice cream (maybe twice...). We spent most of the day at the ICC (our church) booth where we had a photo booth with props and a few games with candy prizes. We had a great day spending time with wonderful friends and getting to represent our church! Enjoy a few pictures from the day!

Teeter-Totters...trying to launch each other in the air!

Korean Wedding Clothes

Laura and Nikki's wedding gear.

Turkish ice cream!!!!

Kabobs

ICC Photo Booth

BFS Founder's Day

I apologize for not posting anything in the last few days! There hasn't been anything too terribly exciting, but here are the highlights of our last 10 days or so:

Sunday, October 7: Delicious Japanese lunch after church with friends.  We also became members of our church today!  There are some decisions to be made soon about the future of our church, and we are excited to now be able to officially participate in that process.  We cannot even begin to describe how thankful we are for ICC and how blessed we are to have them!  We also had a delicious Korean BBQ dinner with our friends, Mark and Rachel, from church - complete with Baskin Robbins afterwards.

Thursday, October 11:  Founder's Day!  It was the 15th year anniversary of the school opening,, and we got to celebrate by having a school-wide field day in the afternoon on Thursday.  We even got to wear sweats to school, which, of course, thrilled most of us (especially me!). It was fun to take the afternoon off to "celebrate" with the students.  The High School and Middle School leadership classes planned activities for all ages.  For my kiddos we had face painting, a parachute, some relay games, etc.  The rest of the school was divided into four teams and rotated between various games.  It was an absolutely beautiful day - probably nearly 80 degrees outside.  It is the first time I remember getting sunburned in October.  It was great!

Saturday, October 13:  I had a tournament for basketball and was gone for 18 hours! We left at 5am and got home after 11pm.  Although the day was incredibly long, it was a pretty good time.  Our girls' team went 2-1 and the boys' team went 3-0! We don't have another tournament, or any other official games, until December.  We were proud of our kids, and it was so fun to watch them celebrate their victories.  It is QUITE different than working with TUBB, though, let me tell you.  :)

And now we are into our 6th full week of school! We are getting into the rhythm of the school year and it's nice to say that we're both feeling good about our routines.  We are looking forward to the Global Gathering this coming weekend and then the fireworks festival the following weekend.  We'll have some posts about those for sure!

Pray that we will continue to feel confident in our teaching and that as we get more established in our school routines we will still work to go above and beyond.  We have been thinking a lot about how much of a financial blessing these two years are going to be for us, so pray that we will use our money wisely while still getting to experience life to the fullest here.  Pray for decisions in our church and that we will be able to continue building great, deep relationships with people here.  We thank you again, for your support and encouragement.  We are grateful for the relationships we have with each of you!

Have a great week, everyone!

Geumjeong Mountain

Justin and I have both seen some pretty amazing places in the world, but today we witnessed the immense beauty of this place we now call home.  We met up with a group from Church today and hiked the most popular hiking mountain in Busan - Geumjeong Mountain.  We had no idea what we were in for, but we were so pleasantly surprised!

Our first stop was Beomeosa Temple and a ton of statues.

After climbing pretty much straight up for roughly 2 hours, we came to a flat-ish spot where we stopped for a quick snack before going the rest of the way to the peak as well as to a Spring on the top of a rock.  We got to use ropes to climb up these rocks to see a wonderful view as well as the Spring.  It was pretty cool...something that would NEVER happen in the States.

The peak! So close!

It was a bit hazy, but still incredibly beautiful!

The Spring.

From there we went to the peak, which was absolutely incredible.  We climbed a bunch of stairs and got to climb around the rocks on top and saw a great 360 degree view of the mountains and part of Busan.

With Laura on the peak

We made it!!

View from the top

The peak

The North Gate at the Fortress

 

The Fortress Wall

For lunch we had Duck (unfortunately not photographed) and Korean side dishes and soup.  It was spicy but SO good.

We finally feel like we are taking advantage of where we live.  The next few weekends we have things planned as well, and we are so looking forward to soaking in some good, authentic Korean culture as we continue to explore! I think we both appreciate this beautiful city and country more and more, especially when we get to see it like we did today. We were in such awe of God's creation and how He has brought us to this place.  We still can't believe that we are getting to see and experience all of this! It's pretty incredible.  

Psalm 8:3-5     When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him? You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor.