안녕하세요? (an-nyeong-ha-se-yo: hello, are you well?) We've been here for over two weeks now. The food doesn't seem quite so foreign and even a handful of the Korean phrases flow more easily off the tounge. Our first week we only had classes on Monday and Wednesday as Tuesday was a holiday and Thursday and Friday was the major Korean holiday Chuseok (pronounced somewhat like "Choo-sawk"). So last week was actually our first full week of classes. The students have all been great...although sometimes it can be challenging to teach students at such a variety of different levels. Our present language learning (we're trying to learn Korean) has made being patient very easy.

Korean is, as you might guess, very different from English. The sentence structure and pronunciation can be very difficult to grasp. However, slowly but surely we are making headway. We've been learning from a book we brought along and our computer, but Saturday we had our first korean class. Actually, it was a staff member from Global who volunteered to teach us Korean for two hours every Saturday so it was just her, Emily and myself. It was great! We learned how to count to 99,999,999, to say the days of the weeks, the months, the year, today's date is..., have a nice weekend, and a few other things. The grammar is finally starting to make some sense (kind of).

The people here have been nothing but wonderful. After class Ms. Song (our Korean teacher) took us out to eat. Also, our church (the one we've attended now three times) only continues to amaze us. Its a small church and only 3 years old, but God's presence is powerful. The people have been so welcoming and hospitable. Last week one woman gave us one of her Korean/English (NIV) Bibles...just gave it to us. Another woman gave us like 12 HUGE juicy pears...they're delicious! But God has been blessing our socks off. He's also been expanding our borders.

So often the topic of faith comes up (or one of the students brings it up). I can't count the opportunities I've had to speak of my faith (sometimes even share my whole testimony) right there in the classroom...and its not even of my doing. Please pray for reliance on the Spirit in these times. Also, Emily and I have realized the huge opportunity being a native English speaker in Korea presents for ministry! Seriously. People want to learn/improve/speak English and they don't care the context. From what we can gather English Bible Studies are a tool God has been using to draw people unto Him.

Please pray about our roles regarding this as we've shared with our church the desire to lead a Bible Study in English (something for which they've been praying). Please join with us this week in praying for guidance as we begin to sort out the details and what God desires the English Bible study (and more) to look like. On Saturday we meet with the Pastor and a Mr. Kim to talk about the study, but this week will be spent in prayer as we prepare and plan. We're excited to see what God has in store!

Classes this week have been going well... its been so nice to get to know the students a bit. They're always very interested in our lives and its been great to learn about theirs as well.

All in all, only praise from the Korean prodigals. Hope all is well on the flip side of the Earth! Have a blessed week and sincerely thanks for all the prayers. They are indeed felt.