Hello everyone! So the Global Youth Forum has come to a close and we have begun preparation for the English Mission Camp. As some of you know, GVCS treated all of the participants to a three day tour of South Korea! These three days were so amazing! I shall briefly share a few of the highlights with you. One of the coolest things about the tour was the our hot pink party bus! It had a ceiling that looked like a light bright, a sparkly red stirring wheel, a sparkly floor, leather seats, a flat screen TV, and purple curtains. On the first day we went to this old historic town that was over 600 years old. The houses were so quaint and beautiful against the backdrop of the Korean mountains. There was a river at the base of a cliff full of small, smooth stones. We played in that river for a good long time and skipped rocks.

This is just one of the beautiful houses we saw there.

 

This is the river that we had such a good time in. As you can see, Jordan and Josh invested in some traditional Korean hats :)

During our second day of touring, we went to Seoul were we toured a Korean palace.

Here we are at the front of the palace not looking at the camera haha. Sorry about that. As we were walking through, people kept asking to take pictures with us. We would be standing under a door and out would come 10 cameras. :) We enjoyed our 10 seconds of fame. That tall guy in the background is our new friend Talen from California! That night we went shopping in the market in Seoul. There was this jewelry shop that went on forever! There was jewelry as far as the eye could see. Just when we thought that one could not fit one more article of jewelry in that store, Valerie found an escalator! There was a second floor. Poor Josh and Jordan had the hardest time corralling six girls in that store. We shopped there for a while and bought some souvenirs and gifts for family members at home.

Here is a picture of the market in Seoul! There was so much stuff to buy! That evening, everyone wanted burgers at Burger King except for me. Mrs. Baumann, my dad and I went and got some awesome Korean bbq...so much better than burgers in my humble opinion.

The last day of our tour was also spent in Seoul. In the morning we went to the DMZ where we walked down one of the military tunnels of North Korea. It was cold and damp down there and really made me think about the dark history between North and South Korea. On our way there, we drove past the border which was marked with layers of barbed wire. It was very unsettling. We then went to a cemetery where foreign missionaries to Korea are buried. We spend that evening in the Tines Square mall in Seoul with our old middle school teacher Mr. Tillman. It was so cool to see him again!

     I want to give a quick shout out to our friends from Red Lion! We had such a good time with then during the youth forum and the tour! They left for Seoul bright and early this morning at 4am. Some of us stayed up and saw them off. Everybody was a little mopy this morning when we ate breakfast without them for the first time since we have been here. We are praying for safe travels for them as they fly back to America tonight! We miss you guys :( #redoaksforever

 

     Today was a bit of a rough day for me personally. The constant smell of kimchee and the lack of sleep is starting to take its toll. For the first time since I have been here, I am a bit homesick. I miss my dad's cooking. I miss my bed and my bath tub. I miss my mom, my grandmom, and my little brother. And I really want some flat bread pizza. We began preparing for the English camp today and we realized that we really didn't know any details about what will be going on. I found myself really flustered and frustrated. I had to remind myself that this is the meat of our trip! As Mrs. Baumann reminded me, teaching English is only a small part of this. We are here to touch the lives of the little Korean children that we will be interacting with. I have no idea how God will use these two weeks, but I know that He has got something figured out that I can't even comprehend. So I would just ask that you continue to lift us up in your prayers. Please pray that we remain strong and keep our eyes on the ball. I know that I can be easily distracted by my own physical discomforts. As of right now, I'm sleep deprived and I have a really bad knot in my neck that's driving me crazy. These things pale in significance to God's larger plan for us while we are here. So thank you so much for following our blog! It means the world to know that people at home are following our progress. Take care and God bless!

 Sincerely,

  Hannah Crismon

 





God is good, all the time.

Hello from Mungyeong, South Korea!!!

I want this post to be a testimony of God's omnipotence and omniscience. God is a mighty force, and yet gently places influences in our lives. This truth has been made very clear to me during the first ten days of our time in South Korea by his unifying word. God has used our time in South Korea both to beautifully orchestrate friendships between neighbors and grow us as individuals.

When we first hopped off the plane in Seoul, we didn't know any of the people we would be working with. However, after we played "run back and forth to try to meet our bus driver somewhere" we were ushered quickly onto a large bus. Before we had made the 90 minute drive to the campus, I had become friends with three individuals in particular. We have become even closer since then, and have the blessing of continuing our new relationships in person in Delaware!!!! Rachel, Kathleen, and Jordan have been such a blessing to me personally and our team as a whole. when they left for Seoul at 4a.m., it felt as if a part of our team was leaving us. We are all sad to see them leave us, but are glad that this is just the start of a lovely connection.  All to say, God is so good to have crossed our paths during this month in Korea.

As for God's stretching us, today was the first part of English Mission Camp (EMC) orientation. Today was a day of working out details such as what level of English we will be teaching, where, and how. Each of us have spent the past few hours preparing eight days of lesson plans for our individual classes. As we begun this work, we started to realize that we knew NO details. Although WE don't know the details, I know someone who does...GOD!!!!! Even though we like to plan every last detail of our lives, God uses situations like these to grow us in our patience, faith, and wisdom to know that He is good.

I'll try to write back after our orientation is over! Please pray for us whenever you are reminded of us. Thank you for your love and support!

Audra Baumann

 

The things I miss

Although I really love South Korea, there are a few things I would kill to have, and since I can't stop thinking about them, I might as well write it all down. First and foremost, I miss anything and everything deep fried! Cheese burgers have a very special place in my heart,  and rice just isn't filling the void. And oh, what I would do for some Chili's right about now, and it hasn't even been two weeks yet. I also really miss salt and ketchup. If I ever come back to South Korea, I'll definitely pack all the appropriate seasonings. I miss my mother's cooking, and I miss my own bed. Adding to that list, I miss toilets that actually flush toilet paper! One of the first things I had to do after 36 hours of traveling was learn to unclog the toilets that my friends so very promptly clogged (but really, nobody warned us).  I miss my family a lot, especially my mother and my cheerfully obnoxious little brother Luke. I miss a lot of things, but those are just at the top of my list at the moment.
I hope I'm not coming across as ungrateful, because although I miss all these things, there is an infinitely longer list of things that I'm grateful for! I'm so grateful for this opportunity, for the chance I've had to meet new people and learn about and serve God in new ways. Even after all these days spent together, I still love my team and couldn't ask for a better group of friends. There is no one I would rather be halfway around the world with! I'm also grateful for the support and the prayers we are continually receiving from home. They have been such an encouragement to us. This trip has not only given me more to be grateful for, but it's given me a new appreciation for what I already had. That's all for now!
Valerie :)

Identifying Evidences of Grace

This has been a sweet day for our team in Mungyeong-si, South Korea. We have been on the go since we left the U.S. on Sunday, July 14.  Today was our first day to be able to sleep in a bit, allow some of our experiences thus far to sink in, journal, hang out with new friends and play some basketball and soccer.

We started our day together at 10 a.m. for prayer and devotions. The book that we are working through, Humility – True Greatness by CJ Mahaney has been such a good challenge for each of us to dwell closely to the cross of Christ, as that is the place where it is impossible for believers to become proud or puffed-up.  Mahaney writes, “Our salvation from first to last, is truly all of grace – and the effect of this grace understood is humility.”

As I see it, humility will be one of the key ingredients for us as we embark on the mission of teaching at the English Mission Camp over the next couple of weeks. Please pray that we would have hearts that are emptied of self and filled with awe of our Savior’s ultimate act of love for us and for the children here that we will teach. Our training begins tomorrow (Thursday 7/25).

Matthew 5:5 says, “Blessed are the humble, for they shall inherit the earth.”  One of my favorite authors, Ann Voskamp wrote the following in response to this verse, “The word humility itself comes from the Latin root humus – the kind of earth that grows good crops. God gives the earth to the “humus-people”, the humble ones. Humility is that good humus that grows gratitude that yields abundant joy.”  May our team be that “good humus” that grows gratitude and yields abundant joy!

For our family members and friends who are reading CJ Mahaney’s book along with us as we are away, we are studying chapter eight right now: Identifying Evidences of Grace. Paul’s example toward the Corinthian church is powerful for us. He was able to see this motley crew of sinful new believers through a divine perspective.  Remembering that each one has been called by Christ helps us fight our fleshly habit of having a critical eye for those around us and we are beginning to cultivate a divine perspective of others' true identity in Christ's sight. The exercise of identifying fruit of the Spirit in one another’s lives has also been a very good and practical exercise for our team. 

Below is a picture of our tired and happy crew after Monday's shopping excursion at the traditional Korean market. I must say, they got some pretty cool gifts for their mammas! :)

I will post more at a later time. Just thought I would share my heart for now.

Love and thanks to you all!

Janet <><

Adventures in South Korea

Hi blog readers (:

We apologize to those of you who have been anxiously awaiting our posts; on Monday and Tuesday we were away all day seeing different areas of South Korea. Today (Wednesday) we have a day off before our orientation for the English Missions Camp will occupy the rest of the week before we help with the camp for the next 2 weeks.

This post will be very picture-heavy!

After church on Sunday, we drove about 45 minutes to the city of Andong and the traditional village of Hahoe. We ate a really delicious Korean  lunch at low tables, seated on cushions. 

After lunch, we went to the 600 year old village of Hahoe. We walked through the old streets, looked at some souvenir shops, and enjoyed some time down by the river. It was beautiful and refreshing! After our time in Hahoe, we went to a big department store, Home Plus, for dinner. They had sloped escalators for carts to go up and down! There was a food court with lots of options (:

fried squid rings, anyone?

i was so thankful for this fresh meal (:

On Monday, we went to Seoul! We went to Gyeongbukgong Palace. There was a huge courtyard and beautiful gateway with lots of ornate buildings behind it. We walked around the buildings and then walked over to the Korean Folk Art Museum. While walking to the museum, Rachel and I were stopped by a Korean family asking to take pictures with us! The teenage son and daughter both separately took pictures with us, and similar occurrences happened to the rest of our team! We went to a big department store for lunch followed by exploring a really cool street market.

we watched a changing of the guard ceremony at the end of our time at the palace

Are you still with me?

On the way home on Monday night, we had a sing-off with Disney songs, country songs, and pop songs with our friends on the bus. It was so fun!

On Tuesday, it was raining all morning. We drove up to the DMZ. We went down into the 3rd tunnel, which was constructed by North Koreans and later discovered by South Korea. We walked down deep into the earth and went down a small, dark tunnel until we reached an area with barbed wire and a cut out into North Korea. My heart was so fearful walking down the tunnels, and I had to pray and recite songs and Scripture to myself the whole time. When we got back last night, I was reading Psalm 27, which says,

One thing I ask from the Lord,
    this only do I seek:
that I may dwell in the house of the Lord
    all the days of my life,
to gaze on the beauty of the Lord
    and to seek him in his temple.5 For in the day of trouble
    he will keep me safe in his dwelling;
he will hide me in the shelter of his tabernacle
    and set me high upon a rock.

I am so thankful that our heavenly Father keeps us safe in his arms of protection!

After we left the DMZ, we went to a nearby restaurant for Korean barbeque. It was so good! Then, we went to a cemetery where missionaries to Korea are buried. Their dedication to translating and sharing God's Word with Korea was inspiring. God's Word does not go out and return empty! 

Afterwards, we went to a mall in Seoul and met up with our old middle school English/Latin teacher from Tall Oaks, Mr. Tillman. It was really nice to catch up over a meal with him!

 Today, we all slept in and have been hanging around campus.  This afternoon, Kathleen, Hannah, and I walked along one of the rice paths into the village. We were admiring some flowers nearby to someone's house, and a woman walked over and cut off stalks for us while smiling and talking to us in Korean! It was such a sweet moment (:
We are all sad that our friends from Red Lion are leaving tomorrow morning, but we look forward to becoming closer with the others teams we have become friends with.We also hope to befriend more Koreans during the camp next week!

Thanks for sticking with me everyone!

With love,

Jaime

Our expeditions

So the last few days have been so much fun. We explored Seoul, visited a palace with a really long name that I can't remember, shopped, toured a 600 year old village, frolicked in a river, went to the scary no man's land between North and South Korea, saw the graves of the Christian missionaries who brought the Bible to Korea,  and spent countless hours on a party bus. It's honestly the coolest bus I've ever been on! It's hot pink on the outside, with colorful lights all over the ceiling, a sparkly floor, royal blue curtains, and a shimmery red steering wheel. And it has a flat screen tv in it. But anyway, it was a great time. We also got to meet up with one of our favorite middle school teachers, Mr. Tillman, who is currently living in South Korea. He's still pretty awesome, in case anyone was wondering.
Today is a down day. We didn't do much of anything but hang out. Our Red Lion friends leave tomorrow :( I'm pretty bummed about that, but they all live in our area so I'm sure we'll see them again. Tomorrow, the tocs team starts our training for the English camp which I am very excited for. I consider the English outreach camp the most important part of this trip. I'll keep everyone posted on how that goes once I know more about it.
Once again, thank you all for your prayers and support and for taking the time to follow our blog! Now I need to go mentally prepare myself for another delicious round of rice and kimchi.
Bye bye :)
Valerie

Greetings from Korea:

This is my first ever blog and understandably I'm nervous.  My daughter (Hannah) continually reminds me on how "tech distressed" I am but I am so filled with awe at God's provision that I need to share what's happening over here.

Standing back and watching how God uses us to plant and cultivate while at the same time convict and challenge our walk with Him is humbling.  For the past 10 days, I've been blessed to see our team challenge others and be challenged in so many ways.  I'v been inspired as our students have made it a point to reach out to the other teams and the staff here a GVCS to build build bridges and relationships.  While not always reciprocated, they go out of their way to to engage everyone they encounter.  It reminds me of how Jesus made it a point to reach out many times to the unlovely and to engage with those that would mock and scoff Him.  Our team has a joyful spirit that is shared daily with everyone here - Prov. 15:30.

Switching gears, our last day of touring ended yesterday.  We spend the morning touring the DMZ (see photo below).  Our host took us to tunnel 3 (Tunnel of Aggression).  Discovered in 1975, these tunnels are more that 2 miles long under the DMZ connecting North Korea to South Korea. Each tunnel was designed to move a thousands of soldiers into South Korea in advance of a mass invasion.  So far the ROK has found four of these tunnels but there may be as more as 20 more.  Tunnel 4 was discovered in 1990.

We walked down the entrance to a depth of approximately 300 feet below the surface then walked another 300 feet to a steal and concrete reinforced door where we were able to peer into N. Korea.  What a dark and ominous place.

Driving back to the compound you are constantly reminded that the two Korea's are still at war.  Barbed wire fencing and observation posts line the river and bay separating the two countries.  It was rainy and dreary so I couldn't see the other side very clearly.  I can only imagine what life must be like there especially if you're a believer.  Again, I am so humbled by what God has privileged me with when you are reminded what our brothers and sisters in North Korea risk everyday.

After lunch, we were bussed from from the DMZ to the Yanghwajin Foreign Missionary Cemetery outside Seoul.  This a place were many of Korea's first missionaries are buried. We were blessed to view an excellent presentation on how God brought the Gospel to Korea over a 100 years ago.   Korea's Christian heritage is built on the obedience and suffering of these men and women of God.

Thank you for your prayers.  We definitely feel your support...more than you can know.

Matt Crismon

Tunnel of Agression

The Team at the DMZ