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Letter #10 July
– August, 2006
A warm (perhaps too warm) greeting from Korea!!
Environment Korea reports that it has been
the hottest summer ever. For almost 2 weeks the temperature went up 38 C in
some places (with humid index 45C) during daytime and it does not go down
much at night giving us so-called tropical nights.
Such weather seems particularly hard to take for our
family because this weather hit as soon as we got back from Canada where we had enjoyed
beautiful weather for a month. However, we are thankful for not having
suffered through the July monsoon season this year with down pours that took
many Korean lives and swept homes away, a tragedy we learned by phone from Korea because Canadian news was focusing on
the situation in Lebanon. Gratefully non of our friends or family
were hurt but we did spend time cleaning up some flood damage around the
family cottage and heard tales of horrible destruction and loss that saddened
our hearts
The time in Canada was a true blessing. The mission
trip to Canada with 9 HanShin
University students was
just awesome. These young Korean students thoroughly enjoyed being exposed to
everything that is Canadian (Canadian air, trees, lakes, food, home, church,
music, the people, and their life-faith stories). Likewise, those Canadians
who hosted them, by opening their homes, churches, cabins, and cottages,
thoroughly enjoyed receiving everything that was offered (drama, dances,
songs, gifts, clothing, laughter, not-so-fluent English, and life-faith stories).
Both Canadian and Korean were eager to learn and share with one another. It
was most interesting to observe how well people communicated in spite of
their linguistic and cultural differences.
It was not the humans but rather the technology we needed for our
presentation that seemed to have the most difficulty talking together. So much for the universal language of
computers! With us humans, however,
wherever there was laughter, human feelings of love, care, and generosity,
the difficulties arising from different languages and cultures were overcome.
It was God’s grace and power that we witnessed. We have no doubt that the
partnership between the PROK and the UCC deepened over this wonderful experience.
David, HyeRan, Noah and Hannah would like to express our
gratitude towards all of those who made this mission trip to Canada
possible. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
The time after the mission trip was also great. Although
the trip was meaningful and wonderful in every way, we were beat from being
leadership responsibilities of the voyage. In a way, we desperately needed a
(big time) rest. Of course, Noah and Hannah deserved a (big time) fun time
after being separated from their parents for a whole week. We had a relaxing
three weeks at the cottage and in and out of Toronto spending time with family and
friends. The joys of being in the canoe, listening to the singing of the
loons, watching Noah and Hannah splashing in the lake water, picking up
blueberries, and eating Ontario corn enabled
us to get ready to come back to Korea and to serve here. Thanks be to God.
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