It's a Wonderful Life

Long, full day spent at the school - but like Micah said, we're living in God's dream. We're all living in His dream!
I've been working non-stop on my classroom trying to get it ready for my 28 darling First graders. I won't actually start teaching until the 4th of March, and I'm getting so excited! You know, life is funny sometimes. Sometimes you don't realize you're born to do something until you're right in the middle of doing it, and then it hits you - you were born to do this! That's how I feel about teaching. I always kind of knew that it's what I would end up doing. I knew that I carried a burden for the children of this world. It was not until I was in my student-teaching semester, however, that I realized I was born to teach children. It's like something miraculous happens to me when I am in a classroom surrounded by students - I become alive! I become me - the me that God meant me to be! It's there that the creativity comes, that the crazy good ideas that work come. Does this make sense? I hope I am conveying my thoughts clearly. It just makes me get all teary-eyed to realize just how good God has been to us - that He would really allow us to come to this place, and for me, that He would allow me to do what I love to do the most. It's a wonderful life! ~Sarah

Strong Connections

We have been making strong connections with many of the people here. Speaking of smooth segues, we now have a strong internet connection as well. We just found out yesterday that we have a wire internet hook-up. The phone system on campus is internet based, so we don't have to rely on the weak wireless signal of nearby computers. Thank you for your prayers!
Some of you may think that it is unfair for me to go on all these wonderful field trips while Sarah has to stay behind and work. Don't worry 'bout a thing, every little thing is gonna be alright. She will have her own field trips, plus, we will be taking our own personal trips to some of the same places. Kevin and Kate want to take us to Everland amusement park. It's Kate's favorite place. We can't wait to go with them. It's going to be worlds of fun!
I have Thursday and Friday off this week. The cleaning crews are waxing the floors to prepare for the new school year. Sarah is working half a day today(Friday). We both had Thursday off. We went with the K. Lotterer's to the bookstore. It's a relatively small store and most of it is educational and geared toward teaching English. They do have a great room upstairs that is full of awesome books. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Nicholas Sparks, plus a lot of award winning books for young adult readers. I hope to find some books that some of my more advanced students will be able to read. I can tell them in class to go to Little John and buy this book or that book. It is a power that I will make sure not to abuse.

We love you! ~Micah
ps- new pictures have been uploaded

Korean Lotterer's

Thank you so much to everyone that is reading and especially commenting on our posts. We have decided to look for people that we feel God has given us temporarily that remind us of people back home. One of the first people we met after getting off the plane was Sarah's boss Joshua, (or J for this story). A couple of days later, J brought his family by to pick us up and take us to the store. They are a beautiful family with three wonderful children. (girl, boy, girl). J's wife's name is Esther, she's basically from Toronto and has lived here for a few years. She's as nice as the day is long. J and Esther are in their mid-30's and their children's names are Jennifer, Justin, and Bethany. He used to be a banker and she works at a place that produces telephone directories. All but the last sentence of this story is true.
Lotterer's- Please, don't think of this as a replacement. I'm sure you know that could never happen. It's just an exercise designed for our comfort and to ease the pain of parting.

I just received my calendar of events for the school year. It sounds like there will be plenty of field trips to look forward to. My classes will be going to Everland, (one of the biggest and most popular amusement parks in Korea). We will also go to Jeju Island which is almost like Hawaii for Koreans. It's a beautiful place off the southern tip of the country. It seems like a pretty elaborate field trip for 5th and 6th graders. As English teachers, we also have the opportunity to go to a seminar in Hong Kong, China for three days in November. (by opportunity I mean that there will be a seminar, but it will cost us $800 each if we choose to attend). We have almost a year to budget and plan, who knows? If you add the fact that we will be going to Japan soon to get our visas, we will actually be even more well traveled than we ever thought possible!

Thank you for "listening" to me ramble. If we can't actually talk to every one of you, this will have to hold us for now. God is and will always be amazing! We love everyone, ~Micah

To All of Our Fans

Sorry it has been so long since our last post, it's nice to know people have noticed:) The internet at our house has not been working, so we've been unable to write - I finally have a computer set up at the school, so that is where I am writing from now. We love you all and miss you more than ever. We are really starting to enjoy the food, and we were able to go grocery shopping last night and actually buy a decent amount of food - the first couple of times that we tried to grocery shop we had no idea what to buy and walked away a little depressed, so things have vastly improved. We (especially me:) are going to be extremely busy this week planning and getting our classrooms ready for school. I will be teaching a first grade immersion class. This means, basically, that I will be teaching all subject areas to first grade students who have a very firm grasp on the English language and are ready to be instructed full-time in English. I am really getting excited to learn all of their names. I have to go for now, but will try to write again soon. Your comments are invaluable to us. Much love, Sarah

It's Snowing!

Sunday was interesting. We are still praying and trying to decide where to attend. It's our Tuesday morning now and it has been snowing since Monday afternoon. I have some great shots of the snow, but the wireless connection has been giving me trouble, so this is a pictureless post from my office. It's 8:35 am and I think I'm supposed to be here at 9:00, so I have some free time. As soon as our personal connection is back up, I'll put the pictures on flickr. The snow is much lighter now, but there is quite a bit on the trees and the ground. It's beautiful.
Last night, Sarah and I walked to the store in the snow. I had a hood, but Sarah didn't. We found a really cute hat for her to wear on the way home. It was about $10 but the lady said it was on sale for $5. Sweet hat, sweet deal! The hat and Sarah will also be in the snow pictures.
We ended up taking a taxi back to the school since we had too much to carry.(it's about 2 big city blocks). The cab driver couldn't quite understand us, even when I said the name of the church in Korean! He just didn't know where that was. We almost hit a guy on a scooter and we got honked at a couple of times, but we made it home.
We are still making preparations to start the new school year and we are both very excited. Tomorrow I meet my special students. I think there may be two, but I'm not positive.
I know this may not sound very spiritual, but you could pray that our internet connection is taken care of. We rely heavily on our communications back and forth. God is still at work on that bridge, making it stronger and wider everyday. We love you, each and every one! ~Micah

Church Shopping

It's Sunday in Suwon. Last week we went to the church at our school. It was a great experience, but we couldn't understand much of what was being said. The pastor (and headmaster of the school), told us about an English speaking church that is nearby. We will take a short bus ride and then walk for about ten minutes. It's called Life Church. The service starts at 11:00. After the service, we will meet up with Kevin and Kate and their homegroup. It's going to be a great day!
I've received numerous questions about the smells here. There are many different smells. Our apartment smells fresh, clean and inviting. The air on the campus smells like Spring will make an appearance soon. Some people and places carry the scent of the strong ingredients that make up much of the cuisine. If you put all these scents together, it smells like we're living in God's dream.
Love to all ~ Micah

Two Day Seminar

Today was the first day of a two day seminar for teachers. The Biblical Worldview Institute has sent Christian Overman to speak about having a biblical worldview as teachers and how to implement that worldview in the classroom as well as in our everyday lives. Tomorrow we will learn how to create lesson plans with a biblical worldview in mind. It is also designed to help us teach children how to live with a B.W. We feel like we're at some sort of Bible College or something. I've thought of trying to share some of the information with C.H.S. Maybe you guys could look him up and see what you think.
Here is a picture of the tv they bought us to replace our old one. (it's 32 inches). :0

Retreat

Our retreat was quite relaxing. It was a beautiful place. We walked around the countryside for about an hour. I took plenty of pictures. We saw a ginseng field that looked really cool. We also saw a few tombs. They are small mounds, most of them didn't have any kind of marking at all. After our leisure time all the new teachers introduced themselves to everyone. Pastor Joseph told us to share something unique about ourselves. I sang a song about the three bears in Korean and had the whole place in an uproar. Later, I realized that I was doing just what was spoken over us before we left, using my personality. I also played drums for the worship portion of the evening. They seem very grateful for my willingness to serve. God has been so faithful in giving us chances to serve.We had a wonderful dinner with almost any food you can imagine. My favorite were the ribs cooked on natural wood charcoal.
After a long but important speech by the new Chancellor of the school, we laid hands on a gentleman that is headed to the Philippines for missions work. God was really moving. It reminded me of when Soo prayed for us in Korean. We are finding out more and more each day how closely related our churches are in our beliefs.

Another Fun Trip

Today, (our Thursday), we will be leaving right after lunch to go on a retreat. We both get to go this time. It's being held at a corporate retreat place that is made specifically for this sort of thing. The goal is to build stronger bonds within the teams of teachers. We will leave at 1:00 this afternoon and get back at around 9:00 tonight. There will be soccer and plenty of other fun stuff. Most importantly, Sarah is coming this time. It's going to be a great time. God has been providing a lot of time to get to know our coworkers. We believe that much of what He wants us to do will involve our fellow teachers. God is amazing!
I found a place to get my hair cut. I think it's called Lee Cull Hairkerker or something like that. It's housed within Homever. It looks like a really trendy, expensive salon, but it still only costs 10 or 12 thousand won. ($10)
Last night we walked to Homever to get a pizza at one of the restaurants. It was called Pizza Margerita, but it was just a very simple cheese pizza. We liked everything about it. It was $6.50 and was very delicious and comforting.
I'm taking my camera on the retreat, so check for more pictures in the next couple of days.
~Micah p.s. we do have a phone number to our house; it is 0707-018-1395 - our schedule is kind of crazy right now, but should settle down once school starts; we'll normally work 8-5, and we're about 15 hrs ahead of you all. Love, Sarah

More Pics at Flickr

If you go to http://www.flickr.com/photos/parsonskorea/ you should be able to find the pictures that I have uploaded. I hope you can find them. Let me know somehow, one way or another. I hope you guys don't get tired of commenting on our blog, because we check it eagerly all the time. It is a great source of warmth and comfort. Love, Micah & Sarah p.s. sorry the pictures show such a messy house - we'd just barely dropped our luggage!

You Shall Receive

These are the first pictures that I have uploaded. I think I'll put one on here now, and the rest on flickr with a link. There may be a better way, but I don't know what it is. Love everyone,
Micah

School lunches

I thought I'd take a few seconds to write...and you would all be so proud of me to know the kinds of foods I've been eating - stuff that not even Rana was able to get me to try:) Today for lunch I had some kind of fish soup (I could only bring myself to eat the broth...but I'm workin' on it!), fried squid (I ate all of this! Pretty tasty!), and this stuff that I'd never heard of before but sounded like it had the word duck in the title - but there was no duck in it, it actually had fish in it too. I ate the cabbagey looking stuff and the spongy-rice noodle-looking stuff:) The sauce on it was delicious, but spicy. And then, of course, rice - sticky rice, very good and neutral:) Love you all, I have so much to say - so be looking forward to future posts - and from Micah too, as he will be getting back from his overnight ski trip today (check comments section of his last post for more info regarding this, I posted a comment to reply to comments received so far:) TTFN, Sarah

Sweet Home Forever

This is the slogan of the store that Sarah mentioned in her last post. The store is called Homever. The name makes me think of getting Whatever you want for your home. They even have a little jingle that plays in the store: Sweet Home Forever, Sweet Home Forever! It's kinda catchy, now I don't have Boogie Woogie Oogie Oogie in my head anymore.
Our apartment and school is just as great as Sarah implied, and even better. We had our Sunday yesterday. Since there are about seven different services, we attended one at 12:00. Kate met us at the Pie/Coffee shop at 11:00 am. We ate apple cake and drank juice which was imported from America. A cup of ruby red grapefruit juice was $3.00, but it was really good. The lady that started the cafe is the wife of one of the founders of the school and church. His name is Billy Kim. He was a translator for Billy Graham in the mid-seventies. His son is now one of the main pastors at the church and translated for Rick Warren when he came to Korea. The proceeds from the cafe go to some sort of charity in Africa, I believe. After the service, we were able to meet Kate's homegroup. (they call them vineyards). They were a very nice group of young married couples. God has shown His great care and faithfulness at every turn.
I know you may be wondering where all the pictures are. The first pictures I've taken show our apartment in a pretty messy state. I may just post them, then take more once everything is put in order.
Each day we are met with challenges. Not necessarily new challenges, either. The food can be somewhat ominous, as well as trying to shop for food. We are taking things one day at a time. Our first real Korean food, (they've been taking us to American style restaurants to make us feel more at home) was like barbeque chicken on a stick. Very tasty! Please pray that we can get used to the food quickly. God has been so faithful in everything else and I know He cares about this, too. We love you all. We miss you fiercely. I promise to give you pictures soonly. ~Micah

Annyong Haseyo!

We're here! I am now writing to you all from our adorable and cozy little apartment in Suwon, South Korea - Micah will post pictures soon (he's going to post a little later:) The flight here went very well - very long but as great as a flight can go when it is 14 hours long! We went through customs with no trouble at all. When we went to pick up our luggage though, we waited and waited but it never showed. Finally, a man walked up and asked us if we'd found our luggage and then directed us to go to the lost and found, so we did. It was just sitting there waiting for us too:) Other than that, we didn't have any trouble at all.
The people from the school that we have met so far have been very kind and welcoming. It was such a joy after we got through customs and out the final set of doors - where the general public is waiting to pick up friends and loved ones - to see a man standing there holding a sign with our names on it; we both just grinned ear to ear and nearly ran to him! His name is David Lin. He helped us tote all of our luggage to a bus (a really nice bus!) and brought us here to Suwon - it was about 1 1/2 hours from the Incheon airport. When we arrived in Suwon, two other men from the school joined us and took us to a really nice steak restaurant called VIPS. Micah and I felt really bad that they took us to such a nice restaurant when we mostly just wanted to go to our new home and sleep; we even tried to just share a plate, but they insisted that we get our own, so we did. It was some of the best steak I've ever had, and we'll probably go there periodically if we ever get a hankerin' for some good ol' steak:)
I can't wait for everyone to see pictures of the school facility! Everything is awesome! There are two main buildings - an old one and a new one - both are much bigger than they appeared on the website. I will get to teach in the new one (built last year). I'll be in a first grade classroom and co-teaching with one of the men that took us to dinner - his name is Joshua Hong; he is married and has 2 (or 3) children, whom I can't wait to meet:) Micah will be teaching 5th and 6th grade in the old building (built in 1994). We didn't get to meet his co-teacher yet. So far, we've both felt an instant connection to everyone that we've met.
This morning we met 2 of the pastors and Jerry Kim - Jerry Kim is one of the men that we ate with last night and is also the one whom we communicated with through email while in the States; I can't remember his exact title but it is something like Director of School Advancement. They took us to brunch at an American restaurant that is in this awesome, better than Walmart shopping complex - they compared it to a Walmart, but it reminded us of IKEA. It is within walking distance of our apartment and has everything we could ever want or need in it. Speaking of our apartment, it is the perfect size for us. There is a small complex of apartments set back behind the old building. There is a living room/kitchen area, a bedroom (with a huge closet I might add:), a bathroom (Western style), a front porch/balcony, as well as a glassed-in backporch area off of the bedroom - this has the possibility of becoming one of my favorite areas. The glass windows slide to the side so it is screened in, but it could easily become a little breakfast nook/reading area - as could the front balcony actually. The apartment complex has a shared laundry room area (washer and dryer), as well as a place for trash, which must be well-sorted into plastics, glass, paper, general trash, and food scraps. We'll probably buy some kind of special trash can so we can pre-sort everything and not have to dig through our trash every time we want to take it out:) Oh, and can I just say, the heated floors are wonderful! The whole house just has a cozy, warm (but not too warm:) feel to it. Oh, and while we were gone to brunch this morning, the school sent someone by our house to replace the television from an old clunker to a flat-screen plasma that is mounted on our wall! We couldn't believe it when they told us! It is nice! And we'll be able to connect our laptop to it so when we do webcam stuff, we'll be able to see everyone really well! We also have wireless internet that we can use for free from our apartment, which is why I can sit here from my cozy chair and write to you all so soon!
One last thing before we have to leave for dinner - as we were walking up to our apartment after brunch, I heard someone shout my name. When I turned and looked it was Kate! We ran to each other and hugged and cried and laughed hysterically! She was able to stay with us most of the afternoon and we will be meeting with her and Kevin tomorrow morning for breakfast at the little coffee shop/restaurant that is in the new building. Can I just say that God is so good! We have already been so blessed by being here. I have to go now but will write again as soon as possible, as will Micah - and we'll post pictures asap! Love you all sooo much and miss you! Love, Sarah

We'll Be Right Back

Tomorrow we fly to Chicago, spend the night, then fly on to our new temporary home in South Korea. It really is hard to believe that it is finally time to go. On one hand, it is very difficult to leave everyone behind, but on the other hand, it is very difficult to leave everyone behind! I need an extra hand, or maybe an extra heart. In all honesty, as sad as it may feel to leave our loved ones stateside, we are filled with an excitement from God that exceeds all sorrow. He continues to be so faithful to us during this entire process. God has blessed us with such great people in our lives that we cannot help the pain that we feel in parting. Only He can ease that pain and we pray that He eases yours also. We love you all.