A Day in the Life of a Waygook

Many of you wonder what our life is like in Busan. Our life here is GOOD. But keep reading below to hear how that’s been challenging me recently. Here’s your chance to see a typical day for us!

At 6:30am the alarm goes off and we are up and getting ready for the day.

7:30ish is when we head to school. If we hit all of the stoplights right, it takes about five minutes for us to walk there.

8:20 the bell rings and the school day begins. I have lunch at 11 and Justin comes in with his class at 11:30. The end of the school day is 3:30, and we stay at school working until at least 4:00 (usually later for Justin).

We visit our small grocery stores almost daily to pick up items for dinner. They are all very close and quite convenient, and each offer some different foods. We have figured out which store is the cheapest for certain things. Lotte Super is where we find tortillas, cheese, and chicken. Home Plus Express is our stop for rice, pork, and lactose-free milk. Nuri Mart is my personal favorite, with the cheapest store-bought produce, bread, and the best snack selection, including mint oreo-like cookies that almost resemble thin mints, but for only 80cents. We also have a few fruit/veggie places we can go to get fresh produce – the fruit truck and a shop right above Nuri Mart.

In the evenings we are often just relaxing by ourselves or with Laura and Nikki. We often share meals with them. Wednesdays are Staff Meeting days, so we work until at least 5:00 on those days. On Thursday nights we host a Church Community Group at our apartment that we lead. Friday is pizza night for us!  On Saturday we often spend time with Laura and Nikki or with our good friends Erik and Breckan. We spend hours together eating food, chatting, and playing games. Sometimes we get a hike in on Saturdays as well.

As much as we love our days here, I can’t wait to see what a day in Eternity is like. Life seems so comfortable right now. So easy most of the time (yes, even in Korea!). Yet we are told in Psalm 84:10 Better is one day in Your courts than a thousand elsewhere.

A thousand days. That’s less than 3 years. One day in the Father’s presence is better than three years of life on Earth. If that’s not a strong reminder of what we’re living for, then I’m not sure what is. We’re living for Christ. For eternity in His presence. Not for fleeting joys of this world that will be here one day, week, month, or year, and pass the next. We’re living for the joy set before us – Christ, who endured the Cross for our sake.

As we have been studying Hebrews in church (you can find sermons online at www.redeemerbusan.org), something that stuck out to us recently, and has stuck with us ever since, is that what sin so desperately desires is to convince us that it can offer something better than Jesus Christ. And in the words of one three-year-old PK, Asher Collins, “You can say that again!” What sins in our lives are keeping us from experiencing Christ on a daily basis?

So what are you living for? Eternity or today? Who are you living for? Christ or yourself? Where will you be when this life passes away – dancing with our Savior or in the depths of despair? I will be with my Father. I pray you will be too.