The Roberts in Korea

Sarah is Home from the Jesus Abbey

On Saturday afternoon Sarah's bus pulled into the TCIS circle drive.  She was returning from a three day, three night mission trip to the Jesus Abbey in the Northeast corner of South Korea.  At the Abbey, Sarah and 20 other middle school students spent their time learning about God and learning to serve others. 

During the days at the Abbey the students did work that included:  picking rock, pulling weeds, doing garden preparation and washing dishes.  In the early morning hours and in the evenings the students were involved  in times of silent Bible study and prayer and in times of corporate worship.

A good portion of each of the worship services included discussion about the ministry preparations that were being made if and when the wall that divides North and South Korea comes down and each service included a time of prayer for the people residing in North Korea.  

Sarah had a great time on the middle school LASA (Love All Serve All) trip.  She saw lots of cool sights and deepened her relationship with God and with some of her friends.  We are proud of her and we are glad that she is home.

Sarah on a LASA Trip

Sarah went to school all day Wednesday and then at 3:30 pm boarded a bus headed for the Northeast corner of South Korea.  She is going on a three day and three night LASA (Love All Serve All) ministry trip to the Jesus Abbey.

The TCIS Middle School is having its first ever "minstry/service trip."  Sarah, along with many other middle school students applied for the opportunity to participate in the trip and she was one of the twenty students that were chosen to participate in the trip.

The ministry trip destination is the Jesus Abbey.  The Jesus Abbey is a retreat center that is located high in the mountains of Northeast South Korea.  Please click on this Jesus Abbey link to read more about the facility and its mission.

Sarah and the other middle school students will spend three days doing service projects at the abbey.  Along with this they will all live and work in community--cooking, cleaning, spending time on homework, Bible study, prayer, extended times of silence and listening to God and worship.

Sarah packed up her workclothes, gloves, pillow, Bible and journal and headed off to the Jesus Abbey.  We are proud of her and are praying for her and the entire middle school team.  Stay tuned for an update upon Sarah's return.

Ouch

On Monday afternoon Becca was playing some playground basketball after school against the boys and hurt her finger.  Actually, she did more than just hurt her finger, she broke it.  She broke the bone right above the top knuckle on the ring finger of her right hand.  Ouch.

She was a real trouper.  We took her to the school nurse who then forwarded us on to an orthopedic physician here in Daejeon.  We taxied to the doctor's office and after two sets of x-rays and a diagnosis of a few words Becca walked out of the doctor's office with a splint on her finger.  She has to wear the splint for three weeks and then have physical therapy (in other words, move her finger around a lot).

Becca is bummed because along with the broken finger comes the end of the basketball season for her.  Her band teacher wasn't too happy to see her today with a splint on her finger.  Today was a good one in a way--the boy that she was playing basketball against when she broke her finger bought her some flowers.  He feels bad. 

He should.  (Sorry, that is the father in me talking)

Korean Wedding Singer

Last Saturday Ryan attended and sang at his first Korean wedding.  It was an interesting experience.  The wedding hall was a five story building that had a wedding chapel and restaurant on each floor.  The building was filled with people.  On each floor there were weddings scheduled every hour on the half hour. 

At a contemporary Korean wedding all of the guests come an hour early to the ceremony and pay for and eat a meal (buffet) that is available at the wedding hall.  Following the dinner all of the wedding guests pack into the rather small wedding chapel for the wedding ceremony. As the attendees and guests of one wedding are filing out of the chapel the attendees and guests of the next wedding are pushing and shoving their way into the chapel to get good seats.

There are no back doors to the wedding chapel so the rear of the chapel is open to the large waiting area/hallway outside the chapel.  The noise of the people in the hallway/waiting area is deafening and you would think somewhat intrusive to the wedding taking place in the chapel, but this is not the case.  The noise outside the wedding chapel is matched by the noise inside the wedding chapel.  While the wedding ceremony is taking place the people in attendance are involved in lively conversation.  The ceremony goes on quietly at the front of the church while the wedding attendees have a rich time of visiting.

Singing at the wedding was a real privilege and quite an adventure.  There was no time to practice in the chapel prior to the wedding (because there was a previous wedding going on) so when the minister announced my name over the din of the crowd I went up the front of the chapel with my piano player and began singing.  I was shocked to find that the microphone that I was using was set up to sound like I was singing in a karaoke bar--complete with lots of reverb and a very loud volume. 

As I was finishing the first verse of the song I was surprised to see bubbles begin blowing out of a bubble machine at the front of the chapel.  As I stood there singing with bubbles swirling all around me the camera man that was video taping the wedding stepped directly in front of me and turned on his video camera floodlight and shone it directly in my face.  I could barely read my music.  For a minute there I started looking around for “Da Lovely Lennon Sisters” as I thought I was on the Lawrence Welk Show.  All in all the song went well, the bride was beautiful and the wedding ceremony was a success.  I will never forget my first Korean wedding.

(I must say that in the midst of the loud microphone, the swirling bubbles and the bright camera lights I was tempted to stick my finger in my mouth and make a loud popping noise at the end of my song.)

Middle School Basketball

Saturday morning Dina and the girls were on a bus at 5:30 a.m. headed for a Middle School Basketball tournament in Seoul.  Our middle school has three girls' teams and Becca and Sarah are not on the same team, but they did end up playing each other in the tournament--Sarah's team won.  TCIS was short a coach for the day so Dina jumped in and coached a team.  She gets pretty intense and only got ejected from one of the four games that her team played (not really). 

Becca and Sarah are having fun playing basketball this year.  Becca has been playing for a few years now and has her eyes set on the goal of playing on the high school girls' basketball team next year.  This is Sarah's first year in a real competitive basketball situation.  She is learning lots and is enjoying the game.  We are working on her being more "aggressive" on the court.  At one point in one of the games of the day Sarah took the basketball from her opponent's hands and felt so bad about it that she gave it back to her!  She has a soft heart but we want her to get "mean" on the basketball court.  We'll see.

Look Around

Did you look around at your world today?  I hope so because there is lots to see.  Ever since I started this blogging thing I have been diligently carrying a camera around with me everywhere I go.  The reason is because there is so much in this world to see and take pictures of.  It is amazing how carrying a small digital camera around in my pocket has caused me to open my eyes up to the astonishing sights of the world around me.

The three pictures below are of some unique things that I have come across in my life here in South Korea.  Below is a picture of a man on a three wheeled motorcycle carrying a pickup load of stuff, the next picture is of some cute kids that were on a field trip and the final picture is from the inside of the men's restroom in the Seoul Tower in Seoul, South Korea.  (I know it is a bit weird that I had my camera out in the restroom but I made sure that the facilty was empty)

Open your eyes!!

TCIS Letterman Jacket

In high school I earned a varsity letter in band...but I never got a letterman's jacket.  Now I have one.  I bought a TCIS letterman jacket complete with the "D" for Dragons on the front and the Chinese symbol for the dragon on the back.  

I had a couple of the student leaders that were selling the jackets help me out with my order and purchase.  The students said that I needed to choose the numbers that would go on the two arms of the jacket--they suggested that I choose the year of my high school graduation for one arm and the number on my sports jersey for the other arm.  The problem is, that I was a "band geek" in high school and didn't have a jersy number.  So, I got a bit creative.  For one arm I chose the number 84 (the year I graduated from high school) and for the other arm I chose the number 87 (the year I got married to Dina).

I have some connections here in the high school (since I am the assistant principal) so I scored a few cool patches for my jacket.  If you look closely you will see that one of the patches is from the 2007 TCIS Middle School Spelling Bee.

That's right--I am now one cool band geek with a letterman's jackit who is reel good at speleeng.

Quilting

Dina is quilting in South Korea!!

Dina has been very busy the past week or so doing lots of sewing with her wonderful sewing machine (thanks to some precious friends).  The other evening Dina used her sewing skills to help Heidi with some curtains for the set of the upcoming TCIS Drama Production of "Arsenic and Old Lace" and with every other spare minute that she has had, she has been working on making a quilt. 

A few weeks ago she went on a shopping trip to find some "South Korean" looking material and now she is busy transforming the colorful material into a quilt.  Stay tuned....some day I will post a picture of the finished product.  (the picture at the right is just an art shot by Ryan)

Alien Encounter

This past week was a full one for all of the Roberts clan here in South Korea.  Becca and Sarah have been busy with lots of school projects and homework and they have been having fun going to the middle school basketball team practices--games start this coming Saturday in Seoul.

This past Thursday and Friday, Dina and Ryan were busy with the spring parent/teacher conferences and Dina was busy with the Elementary School Spiritual Emphasis Week on Monday through Wednesday of the week.

Ryan has started the big process of scheduling classes for next year in the high school and in his "spare time" has been busy working on an on-line theology class.  Last Saturday, Ryan was one of the speakers at the Dorm Spritual Retreat that was held here on the TCIS campus.  The retreat had a "Space" theme and Ryan's assigned topic to share on was "Alien Encounter," or in other words--"Loving Your Neighbor."

This past week has been a full one and a good one here in South Korea. 

Blustery Day

Today was a blustery day in South Korea.  The wind blew hard and the rains poured from the sky.  As we were walking back to our apartment after this blustery day we came upon this discarded umbrella.  At some point in this day the winds blew, the umbrella buckled and someone got wet.

Speaking of getting wet.  Our TCIS boys' and girls' soccer teams had home games this afternoon.  After today's wind and rain our soccer field was one giant mud hole.  Before the boys' game started our soccer coach had all of the boys on the TCIS team lay down on the field  and roll in the mud and water.  He wanted them to focus on playing soccer rather than staying clean and dry.  It worked, we won 3-2!

There must be a life lesson in each of these vignettes.  Can you find one?