There and Back Again

The last several weeks have been a whirlwind as we finished up school before Christmas, travelled home for break, and have now begun school again. I'll do my best to quickly recap these weeks.

The last week of school before break was a good one - well, as good as any week of school before Christmas can be. We each wrapped up projects in our classes, watched some wintery movies, and pretty much just survived the week. I only had one student the last few days, as everyone was sick, including me. I had to miss the Thursday before break due to a 103 degree fever (ick). All in all, it was still a good week.

We headed back to the US on December 15th with our good friend Laura. Our travel began with extremely thick fog - some flights were cancelled, but thankfully not ours. We arrived in Los Angeles on December 15th (yes, the same day...it's crazy what a 17 hour time difference and 15 hours of travel time can do) and spent a few days with my brother and sister-in-law. It was a great few days with them of relaxing, eating homemade pizza, steak, s'mores, and pancakes. A perfect way to start our vacation.

On December 19th we left for Indiana. It was so wonderful to be with our families again and to celebrate our nephew Caleb's first birthday with everyone! Although we stayed pretty busy while home, it was very relaxing to be in the comfort of our "homes" in Indiana with family. We ate our favorite foods, spent time playing games, catching up with friends and family, and talking about life in Korea. We got to see extended family for a few days and made a trip to Illinois for a day to visit Justin's Grandparents.

While we were able to pack light going home - only 1 suitcase and 2 carry-on bags - that of course was not the case coming back to Korea. We filled our bags with food we had been craving, an air mattress for guests to sleep on, and and wonderful mattress topper that has made our bed here infinitely more comfortable (Thanks, Andrew!!).

We are now on our second day back to school. It was definitely tough to start again, but it is also nice to be back in a routine and to see our kids and friends again.  It was so fun to walk into church on Sunday and be reunited with our wonderful friends. We really feel as though this is our home now. We had a fantastic time in the States and already miss our friends and family, but we also love our life here and are so blessed to be here.  Thank you all for letting us share our life here with you - whether we saw you over Christmas break or not. You are all a blessing to us.

More to come soon as our adventures in Korea begin again!
Happy New Year!

Psalm 121:8     The Lord will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore.

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!