Fun times

I have now been in South Korea for about one month! I can hardly believe it that time has passed so quickly.

I have been teaching now full time for two weeks, and it has really been going great! I love teaching it is so much fun!

While in Korea, I have been many places and done many things. My first week here I went to a big, traditional market in South Korea known as Insadong. That was a really nice place to find traditional items from Korea. I also went to a large mall known as IPark. At IPark they have many shops that you would find in America such as Gap and the Body Shop. They also had a few other shops that are specific to Korea and a large movie theater. The shopping mall was several floors high ... at least five.

My second weekend here I went to a rice festival in Icheon. It is a city outside of Seoul that is in a mountainous region. It was very beautiful, and the leaves were just beginning to change there. It was nice to be in a scenic place since Seoul is such a crowded city with many buildings and very little nature.

My third weekend I went to another shopping mall known as Coex. This is also a very large mall, and it is all underground! I went to go see the "Time Traveler's Wife" with a few other girls here, and it was all in English with Korean subtitles.

My fourth weekend I went to a shopping district known as Myeong-dong with Aimee from my school. This was a very nice place for shopping. I definitely am going to go back there soon! After we went to Myeong-dong, we were going to go to a Folk Museum. When we got there, we realized that there was an amusement park attached to the Folk Museum. We decided to do both. It was a lot of fun, and I would like to post pictures, but I forgot my camera. I will have to get them from Aimee, who took lots of pictures!

Finally, this is my fifth weekend. I started out this weekend with having an inservice day at school. As much as I love the students, it was nice to have a day off. All of the NICS schools gathered at our school in Korea. We started out with a worship time, which was truly a blessing. Next, we had different seminars that we could go to with some that incorporated technology into the classrooms. It was very interesting, and I learned a lot from both of them. Then on Friday night the school had their very first play. They just started a drama program this year, and I have to say that I was very impressed! After the play, the high school students had a worship night in the gym which was very amazing. It is so wonderful to see high school students that love God and wish to serve him!
Then today, Saturday, I decided to go do a little Christmas shopping on my own, so I went to Nandaemun and Dongdaemun. Both of these place have lots of little booths set up where you can buy all kinds of things. I decided to go out on my own, and see if I could master Seoul and the subway system on my own. And I did, and I am still here to tell you about it. I really had a lot of fun out on my own figuring it out.

While I have been in South Korea, I really have seen how God really does provide everything that we need. A few weeks ago in devotions before school one of the teachers shared the verse in Matthew 6: 26, where Jesus says, "Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?" It really is true God values our lives so very much, and He is not going to leave us. He is going to provide all of our needs (Philippians 4:19). Even in Korea, God recognizes my needs, and He is there to meet everyone of them.