Today was incredible!
For over a year now, I have been trying to find a church that suits me. I may have found that today...
A little bit of back-story: A few foreign guys who also attend who created a bible study and go to church together. They do bible study every Tuesday and Thursday. They broke off from the church in Wonju and started going to this church called Life Church in Suwon (about an hour drive away) every other Sunday.
I decided to try out Bible study on Thursday, but I decided that it wasn't for me. I also went to church with a van full of people. In the van, we had Seul-Gi (the Korean 27 year old owner of the coffee shop where Bible study meets), Seul-Gi's mother and father, Tim (a married Korean man who spent half of his life in Malaysia), a Korean boy who ended up being one of my students (semi-awkward, but I got over it), the boy's mother, CJ (a 40-something South African man who used to be a youth pastor), a South African woman who is CJ's friend, Dovedon (a married 27 year old Mongolian man who is here working in a factory to send money back home to his family), Biliom (a 37 year old Bangladeshi man who is here working as a pathologist at a local hospital and putting himself through school while his wife and daughter are back home), and Brandon (a 23 year old Minnesota country boy).
We were a little late to the service because we had to turn around and pick up the boy and his mother when we were already 15 minutes outside of Wonju. We still made it for most of the praise portion which is my favorite part. I especially enjoyed this church's style of praise; we sang one verse in English and the next in Korean. It was a good way to practice my Korean reading. The message was about allowing our "inner-life" to become our "outer-life." In other words, allowing the breaking of our outer shells in order for the life to be shown that God wants for us.
I haven't written about my beliefs on this blog, and I believe it will remain that way. I consider my religious beliefs to be a very personal aspect of who I am. I am very open in speaking about them, but refuse to do so on such a public forum as this where judgment can spawn much faster than a conversation.
I can't tell yet for sure or not, but this church feels like a pretty good fit for me.
There was an amazing Sunday buffet for the congregation. We ate and mingled until it was time to head back to Wonju. On the ride home, something inspiring and eye opening occurred...I realized just how diverse of surroundings I was in. We realized this as we were playing a game in which the person who lost had to sing a song. Biliom sang a song in Bengali, CJ's friend sang a South African children's song, Brandon sang a Norwegian folk song, Dovedon sang a song in Russian, and the young Korean boy sang a WestLife, an Irish pop band from the UK, song. How incredible is that? If they had forced me to sing, I was going to sing a Kenyan praise song I learned back when I was in the village of Naramoru. Luckily they didn't make me sing though. ^_~
That reminds me! I met a woman from Kenya the other day. She was from Nairobi. I asked her if she knew of a small village named Naramoru and told her that I have a host family there. She said she knows of the place. I wanted to pack up and go back to Kenya immediately after that encounter. I miss it more than I could ever possibly describe and the eagerness to return grows exponentially every time I am reminded of its beauty.
Alas, I did not pack up, and I am not now in Kenya. I am, however, in Korea and learning how to deal with this new life of mine. I wouldn't have it any other way... even if I do occasionally curse certain aspects of life when chatting with any one of you.
I fell asleep ridiculously early this night and woke up at 9PM only to remain awake until 5AM.
Lesson for the day: Just because I came to Korea to learn about Korea doesn't mean that I can't learn about a zillion other cultures along the way. ^_~
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