kindergarten

this past sunday was my first week helping out with children's church at life church. i was a helper in the kindergarten class. there were about 10 children in the class and probably the most energetic kids. it was so much fun! i got to PLAY with kids instead of be a teacher. and it was kinda nice because almost all of these kids are native english speakers. one of the little korean boys, leo, played soccer with me for about a half hour. he was pretty amazing for a 5 yr old. actually he was pretty amazing. besides the fact that at 5 yrs old i doubt i was able to focus on one thing for that long unless i was being forced to. and im pretty sure that forcing me to do anything was very hard work. :D the pastor's son in was in my class as well. his name is hudson. and he is the self-declared leader because he's the biggest. it's fairly good logic at that age. haha...he actually was pretty good at getting the little ones to help out and whatnot :) i hope i get to help with that class again soon. we have a meeting this coming sunday about changing the schedule and whatnot. i feel like i'm actually part of a ministry team again... which to me is the defining moment of being part of a church family.

in 5 days i'll be celebrating my 8 months here. which means only 4 more months. wow. it's going to go by so fast, especially with how busy i'm getting. i'm already really sad. ..well most days. haha. i'm going to miss my kids SO MUCH! today i was giving a test to my favorite class (jenny, john, jo, a-young, and coral). before i could sit down and pass out the test they were all over me...hugs and playing with my hair. and i just started laughing. i called them out on being lil rascals and wanting to butter me up so i wouldnt give them the test. theyre 8 so they dont understand that they'll get it at some point anyways... but it still made me laugh. and they sheepishly giggled when i called them out on it. gosh. i wish i could bring them back with me...

i'm going to beijing! children's day is may 5th. yes. children get a holiday for...themselves. whatever, a day off is a day off. but our boss decided to give us the 4th off as well. so with a 4 day weekend most of the SLP foreign staff decided to vaca in beijing. christina and i have decided on a hostel while the others are staying in a high class hotel... bah! haha. but i'm so excited!! if you have ideas of what we should visit, please share. so far our list is: the great wall, the forbidden city, tiananmen square, bell/drum towers, night market.

thinking about my thinking

i can't believe it's mid-april already. life has continued to pick up pace here is suji-gu, yongin city, south korea. i hardly come home anymore, which makes it that much harder to decide to sit down and write on here. but alas...

well jon has gone and christina is here. the change has been a fairly easy one, for me anyways. christina is from greenwood, indiana--she's an iu graduate. i love spending time with her, and when i'm not running around with life church stuff, i'm usually with her. the night she got here, before i'd even met her, i prayed and asked God if it was at all possible that the 'new girl' be a christian. and man, is He awesome. i don't know why He keeps giving me positive answers to my prayers, but i'm liking it. anyways, it's been awesome to have someone to talk things through with and who is a part of my day to day at SLP and with the coworkers.

speaking of. those 'opportunities' i keep mentioning and praying about...yeah, they keep coming. it's a steady stream, so too many to go into detail about on here (feel free to ask though). but i did want to let you all know that teddy came to church. he came 2 weeks ago (christina's first sunday as well). it'd been a late night for him... ... but he made it. and he said it was good to come and be away from life for a bit.
bobby and i had a really interesting conversation about God. he's grown up catholic and still holds to many of their beliefs, but isn't attending mass and says that he has some things to figure out on his own first. we ended up talking about a lot of his questions about christianity... it was some deep and difficult stuff. the conversation never really ended, and he has every intention of picking it back up again. which is a God-thing because i've been able to talk to several people and get my thoughts more together. but you can definitely be praying for him as well.

so i've decided to stay in my apartment. about a week ago they "tore down" the old wallpaper and "cleaned" the mold and put new stuff up. i'm just accepting what i have and am going to make the most of it. :)

i've been thinking a lot. but i feel like its rushed thinking. i'm not sure how to explain it. but i've been trying to transfer it all into prayers. so instead of reliving my conversations with morg or bobby, i try to pray for them--and pray for my frienships with them. or when i think about family and friends at home...instead of worrying (not being able to be there), i try to pray about it. but yeah. trying is probably the key word in all that...

well, i've gotten terribly behind on my grading. i have no motivation to do it when i finally get home. so i'm going to try going to bed early and waking up early... haha, i know: good luck!