Annyeonghaseyo!!!

Annyeonghaseyo!!!

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Men's Retreat:

From all the comments and stories, I would say that the Men's retreat Taylor hosted here at our home, was a success! The guys had two mini sermons, via skype, that were a big hit with the guys. There was hiking and meat involved as well! Corin joined in the fun and actually looked a little more grown up when I first saw him last Sunday morning!... I think that might have been the bit of sunburn color on his face though, but I am thrilled that he was able to spend the weekend in that environment. The guys were all kind of dragging come Sunday morning at church, but were still enthusiastic in recapping the weekend's events... so you know it must have been a good time! A real quick thank you to Joe and Ray for your time and effort in preparing and presenting the scriptures! Awesome job! A super big thank you to our Heavenly Father, for the technology to skype in speakers and for blessing the time these men shared! To the guys who were here, thanks for helping out with Corin... and for picking up the house! haha! I'll leave you with a couple pictures of the weekend! For more details, you will have to contact Taylor...

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

What's new 'round these here parts...

This past month, the Lett house has slowly slipped into normalcy. Well... as normal as possible for being in a foreign country and not understanding those around you... but desiring to. Taylor is learning the language much quicker than I am. He is a bit more diligent in making time for podcasts and dialog with the school staff. I have yet to set aside a window of time for studying, but I hope to get more organized within the next month. Taylor and I have begun to listen to some audio sermons together and enjoying time with one another after Corin goes to sleep each night. I ta has been a real blessing to be alone in the country together... the Lord is drawing us closer to Him and to one another! Praise the Living God! On that note, corin has been referring to any picture with a beard as "God." hahaha. It is pretty funny when we have to explain it is just the author of the book, or a man with facial hair (not common here in Korea), or just a picture of some random guy. As funny as it is to have Corin call a visitor at our church "Father Abraham" (who had mid-back dreadlocks no less!), we are encouraged by his interest in things of the Lord and have started kicking it up a notch on the biblical education! Woohoo! So you can be in prayer for understanding and softening of the heart there.

We have been able to go a couple of places this past month. We went to the Jinhae Cherry Blossom Festival twice actually. The first weekend we were unsatisfied by the lack of blooms, so we went and met up with another couple the next weekend! Kyle and Melody were a blast to roam the city with and Corin and Kyle have now become great buddies. My dad asked me the other day if Corin had any friends yet. I replied "yes, but they are all in their mid-twenties!" Haha! Corin loves the men in our church body and he is constantly find a hand to tug in an attempt to play "chasin"! He has captured hearts! The same weekend of our second festival outing, we visited the busan Aquarium. A couple from our Married Couples study group blessed and served our family by taking us there! Corin LOVED it! He still daily asks to look at the pictures and talks about the "sleeping octopus" and "mushroom" jellyfish we saw. There was a really neat tunnel in the shark tank that we walked under too... just plain awesome weekend! We felt very blessed indeed to be surrounded by new friends, sharinf memories as a Family in Christ.

Last week, we were able to have a Nigerian friend over for dinner. Taylor met him at the bus stop in our town and learned that he lived in Yeongsan too! So, the good steward I married, invited him for a dinner with our little family. Solomon seemed to enjoy the evening and we look forward to possibly being able to minister to him again via his stomach... and hopefully his Spirit. (Another area you could be in prayer for!) We are excited about the ministry opportunities our large home lends us to. This coming weekend we are hosting a Men's retreat at our home for the men at ICC and some of the EPIK members we went through orientation will be making the treck from their hometowns to join them as well! I will be evacuating and enjoying a little one on one time with one of my new, dear friends. Taylor and Scott (Corin's adopted older brother!) will be keeping Corin here for the weekend, so it will be a little disorrienting not having CorCor around for a couple days. Then... the second weekend in May, I will be hosting a Grils weekend here as well! I am excited to know the gals a bit more intimately as we share our hearts and testimonies! Yay!

Corin is growing like a weed. He already seems taller than when we left a couple months ago and I have a feeling we will be potty training very soon. He has dribbled in the toilet a couple times, but not yet fully interested! He is beginning to identify letters by their actual name instead of everything being "w"! He can count ot ten and sing his abc's all by himself. We are now working on shapes as well and will be starting mini bible studies soon as I get things organized.Colors are coming along, but I am beginning to think he has a color deficiancy as he constantly mixes up red and green specifically. Regardless, I am excited to see him grow in so many ways. He loves his shower time and I usually end up getting talked into sitting in there with him... so I have busted out the swimsuit and we just play with cars and toys in the bathroom! haha. Corin has begun to be more obedient and remorseful about his actions. He kisses your booboos and asks "You okay mama?" or you okay dada?" and then refers to you as "poor sad." Sweet little guy. Taylor and I are truely blessed!

So that is the latest and the greatest from the Lett household here in South Korea. Feel free to e-mail us with questions or comments! We love and miss our family and friends back home!
LL

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Taking out the Trash

While trash has never been my favorite chore, I have found it to be a bit more burdensome here in Korea. Back home in the States, everything could go in one trash bag unless you CHOSE to recycle. Putting the empty milk bottles and such into the recycling bin was no biggie really, when all you had to do was set the bin out with the trash bin on the scheduled day. Easy... no fun, but easy.
Here in S.K the trash system is a bit more complex. Not only do you have to seperate the recyclables, but you have to seperate them out into all the seperate categories and place them in the appropriate spot within your trash disposal center. Our trash center is in the complex... in fact there are two, but the extent you have to seperate is crazy. ALL food waste must go into a seperate bin. We do not have garbage disposals here, so literally all food left over goes into a bucket with a lid until you dump it. From egg shells to meat trimmings... it gets grossly smelly. I HATE dumping the food waste! Then there is the trash... it has to be in an approved trash bag that is for sale at the local grocery stores. By purchasing the bags, we pay for our trash disposal bill. Then..... you have to separate Glass, Aluminum and metals, Plastic, and cardboard. Anything not in these categories may be placed in the "regular trash bags" but these items must be sorted and placed in the corresponding bin within the waste disposal area provided. Kind of a pain. So basically, you need about four baskets, a trash can and a food bucket for trash! Yeesh! So the next time you take out your trash in the States, just remember that you have got it easy! :)
LL

Jinhae Cherry Blossom Festival

This past weekend we headed out to Jinhae to get a taste of the Famous Cherry Blossom Festival. I was super excited about the pictures this trip would produce as the blossoms in Busan were gorgeous and full! So after church, we hopped in the car and brought along a friend! Erik is a member of ICC whom we just recently have become aquainted with and he thought it might be fun to join in on the festivities... so we gladly brought him along as we headed out for the first "road trip" towards Jinhae. (Without a map of the area of course!) We knew the general direction and so once we got on the right road out of town, we were golden! It was a beautiful ride on a gorgeously sunny day! The sky was blue and littered with puffy white clouds as rode along the mountainous highway. We reached Jinhae limits about an hour after leaving Busan and began "the search" for the festival.
As you enter the town, there are signs that promise a festival via a large red arrow. So we drive in that direction for a while before turning off on a side road to see if we can spot any festival activities. But after being treated to a nice scenic view of the mountain side bay, we decided to stop and ask for directions. Of course none of us knew how to say cherry blossom festival, so we trusted the translation on the cell phone dictionary and our cummulative Hangul skills, and asked some of the locals where to find the festival. Tyalor and Erik had no luck with the phrase provided for festival.. and so Taylor ran to grab a blossom off the nearest tree to show the locals. They immediately knew what we were wanting and pointed us back the way we came from! Along the road back, we stopped at the road side to ask another for directions from there. This time the word for "festival" worked with them and they gave us extensive directions. Apparently we were to drive for about another 30 minutes... which seemed od to us at the time.... so after driving another 5 minutes we stopped and asked another. This time the lady pointed us in the opposite diraction. We were now confused and curious as to who knew what they were talking about. So we drove back into town just a bit (the direction the last lady told us) before we realized that she was just plain wrong. So we turned aroud and decided to try this "driving for 30 minutes" approach. Much to our surprise... the town was split up into several sections that were divided by large mountains around a huge gulf. It seemed like we had been driving for ever and were still in Jinhae. Taylor finally caught glimps of a sign with another arrow and took that exit. Upon exiting we soon agreed that this was not the right place either and asked another bystander. He pointed in the direction we had been driving previously and so we continued on with slight hesitation in thinking we would soon run out of Jinhae city limits. Alas, we came up to an exit that was larger than all the previous exits and it was a huge chunk of Jinhae! Horray, this looked promising! As we exited we saw several signs for the festival and then decided to park along the curb that was littered with tour buses. We got out and walked to where all the loacls were standing where we found a "tourist tent" set up with maps. The woman inside the tent pointed us to the steps behind her when we asked about the festival and so we climbed the step in anticipation. As we reached the top, we were all a little confused by what we saw. There was a set of old railroad tracks running parallel to two rows of Cherry Blossom trees and clusters of people taking pictures. Could this be it? There were a handful of food vendors, but not more than four at the most and the trees were not even in full bloom! We were certain this couldn't be the right spot. Erik looked over the map we were given and suggested we try a couple of other places listed. So after Corin was handed a free corny dog with gobs of messy ketchup, which he later dropped on the ground after a few bites, we hopped in the car and successfully navigated to the "Romance Bridge" where we found many more people as well as more booths and vendors set up. Jackpot! We parked and began to walk up and down the scenic bridge as I captured several shots. It was around 5pm by now and the lighting was perfect... if only the trees had been in full bloom! Bummer. But it was still a treat and we are excited to be going back this weekend, where we will be joined by another couple form church! Until then, I will leave you with a few pics! (By the way, while we enjoyed Korean traditional activities, we dined on American food! McDonalds for lunch and Pizza Hut for dinner!)






(If you are a facebook member there is a full album of the days pictures.)

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