Rain All You Want- As Long as You Don't Snow!

After dinner with my coworkers tonight, I was walking the 5 minutes from Meagan/Jon's building back to my apartment, still in heels and carrying a laptop bag, and I noticed a huge tree covered in white blossoms. It was not like that yesterday when I walked by it! Could it be that someone planted it there? A few weeks ago Jamie was out and saw people uprooting the perfectly lovely cherry blossom trees in Jungong and stuffing other green trees in the gaping holes they left behind. Like the gardeners of rich people, they tossed the cherry blossoms in the back of a truck and left, with only a few clumps of dirt here and there to testify to what had happened. Coming home I passed businessmen in black suits, careful to keep my distance. A couple clack clack clacked out of my building (this is the sound of a Korean couple, the girl is always in heels). It was 1 in the morning.

Today marks the end of nine months in Korea. If nothing goes horribly wrong with the tensions between North and South, I have three more months to go. Tonight, Jamie and I playfully discussed whether we'd choose a western island to hide on, or take the bus down South and ferry it to Japan. The only airport is in Seoul, and North Korea has already attempted to build four tunnels under the border and to the capital (don't worry, the last of them- well- of the known four- was found in the 90's).

Some friends and I went to Busan this weekend. It's a well known beach town in Korea, boasting gorgeous white sand, green water, and the biggest department store in the world. It rained all weekend. Needless to say, my "lessons learned" list expanded quite a bit from Friday to Sunday. I will type exactly as written~

Lessons learned when traveling:
1. Bring enough changes of clothes AND UNDERWEAR.
2. Bring obscene amounts of toilet paper.
3. Avoid GROUP TRIPS at all costs.
4. When options are available, wake up early to survey the weather. If it's cloudy, go somewhere other than the beach.
5. No need to be literate- just observant. If in doubt, watch other people.
6. ALWAYS carry some ear plugs with you.
7. DON'T pull an all-nighter the night before a nine-hour bus ride.
8. Bring heels or flats in your bag on an evening out- you very well might need them.

We were determined, however, to not be beaten by the hideous weekend. So, rainbows on my feet and leggings in my bag, we turned away from the rain pelted beach and got on the subway. Our first attempt, seeing a fort, proved to be ridiculous judging by the woman's facial expression at the subway stop. She was in the "tourist office." Imagine a headless Britney Spears walking into the Pentagon. This was the reception we were greeted with. "You try and ask them where to go," I told Meagan. "You speak better English than me." All three 20-ish men in suits stood up, calm panic on their faces, and at the word "Fortress?" (spoken ever so clearly by Meagan), they shrunk back as though she were holding a smoking grenade. All shoulders visibly dropped when a slightly tired, very kind faced woman appeared from the back and walked to the counter. Meagan repeated our question, and she tilted her head. The air was thick with tension. She replied in a flood of Korean, interrupted by an English "take bus". "OOOOH", chorused the surrounding guys, as though Jackie Chan had just kicked a mafia member in the face. Imagine your teacher handing out tests that almost everyone failed, until she obnoxiously announces, test hovering over the class nerd's desk, "A PLUS!" The guys watched their coworker, eyes bright with respect and curiosity.

Needless to say, she was awesome. She walked us outside, told us we were stupid/retarded (pabo in Korean, we know that one) for trying to go to a fortress in disgusting weather like this, and suggested a temple instead. She flagged a taxi for us, held her umbrella over our heads, and reminded the driver we were foreigners. 15 minutes up a winding mountain and 7,000 won later, we were at the Beomosa temple. (7,000 won is roughly six dollars, although that rate may fast be dropping with the unfriendly tensions between the Koreas).

I'm sure I would have appreciated the thick, serene trees and rough stone steps more had I hiked up them for three hours. I'm sure, tired and weary, I would have stumbled upon the vivid canvas of lanterns hanging above my head and felt their joy a bit more fully. Had I been in hiking boots caked with mud, I might have sat in the doorway of the mountain surrounded shrine and felt that real peace that comes with a summit well deserved.

But that's not how we roll in Korea. We take taxis. It was beautiful. Every shade of green bowed under the pouring rain to hold up the gray sky. Gold Buddhas sat ridiculously fat and false, smiling out at the God-made scenery that they can't detract from, alter, or control. Ceramic roofs sloped to cover stone walls, brown sand stretching up to meet the bamboo-mat floor inside. Because Friday was Buddha's birthday, paper lanterns covered every available inch of sky between trees, making an upward view like a giant kaleidoscope. Dragons yawned and warriors stared, buggy-eyed. A giant turtle faced a shrine. Weird.

Meagan and I met some nice girls who told us about the bus that would take us back down the mountain. One of them was from Rockhill, South Carolina. How many years before I start telling people I'm from South Carolina? When I say I'm from Virginia I feel like a highschooler again. Then again, I'm from Virginia. We have good schools there. I guess I should be proud of that. They gave us their umbrella and pointed us to the subway.

We then decided to check out some hot springs because there was a sweet picture of them on the subway map. We arrived in a city that was, again, being dumped upon by black-grey rain and clouds. While looking at a map in the huge mall we found ourselves in, an older man approached us and asked us what we were looking for. After an explanation and some small talk, he quietly led us two blocks in the pouring rain, inside a huge building, up an escalator, and to the desk of the hot springs we were looking for. He mentioned his daughter in America, how he was a professor, but not of English, and that he retired two years ago. He asked if we wanted his phone number in case we ever needed anything in Korea. I didn't want to be rude. We handed him Meagan's notebook and he wrote, haltingly, in black Sharpie, Kim Sunjung. He carefully penned his phone number, the same way I've seen my grandma sign her name on birthday cards. Then we bowed to each other and he walked away.

Wow. I will never forget this man, the hospitality he showed complete strangers, and the way I hope to treat every lost person I ever encounter in the same manner.

I will also never forget Korean jimjilbangs. This one was by far the fanciest I've ever seen (and I've seen two). There were at least 1o pools inside, some inside of caves, some hot, some cold, some bubbling, some green, some brown, some with stone deer heads spitting water out from the wall, some with swan statues intertwining necks and streaming water into the warm pool. There were waterfalls, showers that beat down on you so hard it put a masseuse to shame, an outdoor jacuzzi on the roof with rain coming down over the green fog of its boiling hot water, cedar rooms that were so thick with heat that every breath felt like a drink of water, and of course, not a shred of clothing anywhere to be found.

I will say it's the first time I've ever met a friend in the bathtub. Meagan and I were hanging out in a bubbling green stone pool, an elk gently pouring water from the wall, and we chatted it up with some foreign girls. After a bit of small talk, Erica (my new friend) told us where she worked. SAME ACADEMY AS OURS. (There are a few branches of it, but it's rare that you meet someone who works for the same company). CRAZY!

We came back, met up with Erin at Haeundae beach for dinner (how nice- I experienced every kind of water that weekend except the kind I intended), and were denied entrance to a swanky dance club because we were in flip flops. Excuse me for forgetting my four inch dancing shoes when I'm literally holding my umbrella in front of my face to avoid drowning in the torrential monsoon. We contented ourselves with taking pictures in our princess room (the bed was a circle, covered in a flower pattern I would have loved at five years old, the headboard a winding road of white and pink plastic covered in mirrors, and the vanity looked like that mess with which Snow White talked to the evil queen).

It's so late and I'm tired but my laundry's not done and as it sounds like a departing jet I might as well wait a minute.

I want to talk about my relationship with God and how that's going. This is the area of my life that there's no point dressing up and painting in a certain way. I'm treading water. I look back at how things were last year and I'm so thankful for where I am now, because it's a much healthier place in some ways. It has been a constant process for the past, well, the whole time I've been here, trying to learn and believe what beauty really is. I want it to be on the outside. I want to look like all the tiny Asian girls I'm coveting, I want to be put together like them. Living minutes outside of one of the most fashionable cities in the world is a healthy struggle. A struggle because I am searching for what it means to be a godly, beautiful woman, and to actually listen for the voice of God on that. Healthy because any security I might have from outside appearances is gone. G-o-n-e. How does God see us? Black, white, Asian, Hispanic, fat, skinny, short hair, long hair, tall, pale, fashionable, lazy- how does He see us? I don't know. What should we be focusing our attention, effort, and energy on? Him. How? I don't know. Where should our affirmation and love come from? Him. How? Not sure.

God has blessed me with contentment and good friends, with a supportive family and a talent for what I'm doing. I'm trying to spend time with Him every day. Reading and studying the Bible, praying for the people that pop in my head, writing little notes from verses that seem like good advice. But it's not deep enough. Like I said, I'm treading. It might be best to quit that and just sink. I think we all want to experience that deep, blue-green, cool, quiet, peaceful, bone-chilling love and spirituality. How do I get from moving my arms and legs in the same circle, squinting in the rain, grinning in the sun, being subject to all the elements of circumstance and emotion, to a serenity that no force can tamper with?

I'm dying to find out.

I know that I'm called to ministry and I want to spend my life telling people about the deep, heart-breaking, life changing and eternity giving love Jesus has for them. But I don't yet understand that love. I want to show people the love Jesus has for them. But I don't understand how He shows me. There is this gap between what I want to do and who I am, and maybe someone would tell me God is in that gap of what we want but can't accomplish. I still want to have more faith in His love before I try and explain it to others. I'm frustrated with that. Time is working it out. But I want to know it instantly. The whole invisible growing process is so impossible to explain and so not moving. There are no good stories about growing, growing is only the conflict that connects the exposition and the resolution. Maybe it's like my students, I think they understand me just fine and then we come to a point today, where I'm asking them to write about a "performance", where it's clear not a single one of them understands the word "performance" and we spent 25 minutes, yes, 25 minutes, trying to connect on the word performance. It was looked up in Korean, I showed them a video, gave examples, wrote a sample essay on the board, still, nothing. Is it like that with God? There's something He needs me to know but then it becomes clear that I'm unaware of even the basics of the language in which He needs to communicate it to me? Maybe. And just like these students, where I'm going to have to step back and teach them basic verbs and adjectives, I feel like God is bringing me back to a point of just practice, practice, practice.

Practicing generosity, keeping my mouth shut, fighting selfishness, not complaining, not losing my temper, discipline, praying, waiting, trusting Him, living every day and hoping it will matter. Practice, practice, practice.

1 Corinthians 15: 58~ "Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain."