Korea Days 2 and 3
First of all let me apologize for taking so long to get these up. A fourteen hour time difference takes a while to get used to, and when you have gone for nine days and then come back you get just enough adjustment to the Korean time before you leave to come back to EST.
On Monday morning I tried to sleep in, attempting to get on Korean time. I was picked up for lunch by my van driver and my translator, the most wonderful Professor Kim, who is finishing his dissertation at the University of Chicago. Kim was not only our guide, translator, friend, but also our protector for the week, making sure that we were not forced to engage in any Korean meals or customs that we were not comfortable with.
I was taken for lunch, along with Charity and Josiah, to a special “buffet” in downtown Seoul. My host was my former student and friend Sung Cho (called “little Cho” to differentiate him from his father “Old Cho”). This was a truly cosmopolitan experience. Walking around the restaurant, I saw squid, eel, duck, seeweed, cookies, ice cream (without the beans, thankfully), and many many types of raw seafood.
I braved the squid, eel, seeweed (not good) but mostly ate the duck with Korean bread and sauce and filled up on cookies and ice cream. The squid area had not only tenticles, but also the entire squid body that one could take if you were a real squid lover.
After lunch we moved hotels because I thought that the AC in the first hotel was not working. The second hotel was in the middle of the city. At this hotel we could walk down the street to the McDonalds as well as many street vendors (all illegal I later found out). The McDonalds was a saving grace. I can’t remember the last time that I ate a Big Mac and enjoyed it so much.
I began my class in the afternoon, meeting my students and trying to find out what level they were at and what I could teach that would be helpful to them. I began with teaching a 12 step process to use when preparing a message. I find teaching through an interpreter (I think this is a better word than translator) very draining. It is difficult to stop every sentence or so and wait for the translation. It makes it very difficult to get any rhythm going, and almost impossible to use any humor.
I taught for three or four hours and went home exhausted to the second hotel. It was just as hot in there as when I left. It was then that I came to realize that the Korean law calls for no thermostat to be set below 80 degrees in a public building. It was a very hot week!
Tuesday morning I was back for more teaching and made an attempt to download a Korean Bible from Logos so that the students could see the Korean translation as I spoke about the text. Unfortunately I was unable to make the download work so they were forced to look at the English, which was as helpful as me looking at the Korean. Tuesday afternoon I went home and slept because of a headache, caused I was told, by the time difference.
Wednesday was a very busy day. I taught all day and then we picked up Charity and Josiah for a trip to a church outside of Seoul. After about an hour and a half van ride, we arrived at the church and were taken to a traditional Korean dinner. We took our shoes off at the door, sat on the floor, and immediately the food started coming. As you can see by the pictures, the food just kept coming and coming and coming. I have never seen so much food in my life. Just when we thought that the mean was over, there would be another set of dishes brought out. At the end there were over 40 dishes on the table. Here are a couple of pictures from this restaurant.
Here I am sitting on the floor with the other pastors: Old Cho, myself, Dr. Sohn, and the host pastor
Here are the 40 dishes from the meal
Here is a particularly tasty dish.
I must commend both Charity and Josiah (who were the best traveling companions ever) because they ate whatever we had, no matter what it looked like or tasted like. We did our best to fit in and eat like locals.
After the meal (I didn’t each much because it was a lot of raw fish), we went to the church. I preached (very hot in the church but only Charity, Josiah and I seemed to notice it). I never know how much good I am doing or how the message is coming across so preaching in a different language is quite a challenge.
After the service, we go back to the pastor’s office where there is more food for us. We were then given a book by the pastor (in Korean, I reciprocated with a couple of DVDs from Coral Ridge Ministries that feature me on the Historical Jesus) and an envelope with cash. The churches are very gracious and generous to visiting speakers.
That was about it for Wednesday. I’ll leave Thursday for tomorrow, since that was the day we went to the dog restaurant.
For the Lamb,
DSL