Did I mention that Jonna had the van and was on base at women’s bible study?  Yah, the van was gone and we had no power.  No power, no Internet; No Internet, no access to phone numbers since they are all on our Google account….  Wait, my cell phone links to my Google account so I can get my numbers.  Whew!.  Now who should I call?  At this time I remembered that we have a little plumbing / hardware store on the first floor of our building.  Let me back up a step or two.  I first removed the main breaker from the panel (with the main power still on since there is no way to turn if off at the meter since it’s locked and I have no way of calling the power company) to examine the damage.

Now that I have the burnt breaker I took it down to that little hardware store and praise God again, they had a replacement breaker.  I’m absolutely amazed at what stuff they have packed into that little store.  Now I need to put this breaker back in but as you can see from the picture the wire was burnt and I need to clip and strip it.  Remember, the power is still live!  BTW, all of Korean power is 240v and the main service is 30A.  So, now what?  I decide to Skype call from my cell phone my brother (Jeff, the electrician) and get some basic instructions.  He told me what to do and what not to do and I managed to get the breaker installed and the power back on.

We have had one electrical engineer and the building owner look at the power situation and also had a lengthy (via Stone, our translator friend) with the power company and learned that here in Korea they have a graduated billing system.  The ministry floor is billed under a commercial rate and the apartment is billed at a residential rate.  The commercial account is allowed 2 and a half times as much power usage at the base rate than the residential plan.  Neither of them allow for “American” usage rates.  Basically we consume twice as much power on the ministry floor as we do in the apartment and pay half as much for it.  The amount of power that we use on the apartment floor places us in the top rate per KW/h scale, basically because we use a transformer to reduce the 240v to 120v to use American electronics and appliances.

Since this is a significant amount of money each year (especially during A/C weather) we are developing a plan to change the way we consume the power and attempting to better balance the usage.  Not sure yet where this will lead but I’m sure it will be an adventure.

Next Jonna let me know that I would have to go look at the retreat center because she needed to stay at the house.  So Stone and I left and what was supposed to be a 2 hour drive turned into a 3.5 hour drive because over half of the drive was not highway or freeway driving.  We got to the retreat center only to find that it also would not work for us.  The facility only have 4 hot plates and 4 rice cookers in the kitchen (if you could call it that) area.  I can’t exactly feed upwards of 40 Americans for 3 days using 4 hot plates and a few rice cookers.  Now we make the long drive back.  I won’t even go into the construction and other traffic slowdowns.  Suffice it to say that we got back well after dinner time.

That was Monday….  Oh, hang on it gets even better.

Tuesday.  About 10am on Tuesday all the power went out in the apartment and we heard the main breaker pop.  It has popped a few days earlier two time in succession but had not had a problem since.  I had shown Sarah how to reset the breaker and so she jumped up to flip the breaker back on.  Immediately it “popped” again this time with an electrical flash.  She screamed (not hurt, just scared) and I went over to check on it.  I flipped the breaker and immediately realized it was fried.

Smoked it.

Did I mention that Jonna had the van and was on base at women’s bible study?  Yah, the van was gone and we had no power.  No power, no Internet; No Internet, no access to phone numbers since they are all on our Google account….  Wait, my cell phone links to my Google account so I can get my numbers.  Whew!.  Now who should I call?  At this time I remembered that we have a little plumbing / hardware store on the first floor of our building.  Let me back up a step or two.  I first removed the main breaker from the panel (with the main power still on since there is no way to turn if off at the meter since it’s locked and I have no way of calling the power company) to examine the damage.

What's left of the burned breaker

Now that I have the burnt breaker I took it down to that little hardware store and praise God again, they had a replacement breaker.  I’m absolutely amazed at what stuff they have packed into that little store.  Now I need to put this breaker back in but as you can see from the picture the wire was burnt and I need to clip and strip it.  Remember, the power is still live!  BTW, all of Korean power is 240v and the main service is 30A.  So, now what?  I decide to Skype call from my cell phone my brother (Jeff, the electrician) and get some basic instructions.  He told me what to do and what not to do and I managed to get the breaker installed and the power back on.   Read related story here.

Wednesday….. Actually, Wednesday was uneventful.

Thursday.  Well early Thursday morning, by early I mean 2am, we awoke to a strange sound coming from the bathroom in our bedroom.  I investigated and it was coming from the toilet.  I jiggled the handle and it stopped so I went back to bed with the intention of looking into it more in the morning when I was actually awake.  But, when I woke up in the morning there was no water at all, in the whole house.  Now what?  So we waited until we felt our Korean friends (Stone or YoungRan) might be awake and called them.  We thought that maybe we forgot to pay the water bill or something.  YoungRan called the water company and they confirmed that we were paid up but did not know why we did not have water.  YoungRan made a couple other calls to people she knows that live close to us and found out that none of them had water.  Apparently the water company was working on the system in our area.  Why the water company could not tell us that when she called is still a mystery for us.  Now Thursday’s we have standing appointments starting at 9am, then at 11:30am and dinner/bible study at 6pm.  No water was going to be a problem.  I had already missed the 9am because of no water and no shower but I really needed to make the 11:30am.  I went to that one without showering and doing my best to control my unruly hair that did not want to lay down.  About 2pm in the afternoon the water came back on and we returned to normal.

Friday.  On Friday the building owner came by to check on the electrical panel and hopefully tell us why it burned up and how to make sure it did not happen again.  He did not know, and the electrician he was supposed to meet him there did not show.   Oh Yah, I almost forgot, this was the day that Jonna got a 40,000 won ticket for illegal parking with the ministry van while getting a pedicure with one of the ladies from the base.

I was very glad this week was over.  The good news in all of this is that our entire family took it in stride and no one got stressed out or upset beyond mild irritation.  God is good.

Believe it our not; this is the "country"

Now to my way of thinking this is most certainly NOT the country.  I guess compared to Seoul it might be considered the country but to this old country boy it is NOT the country.  It was yet another reminder that perspective is important and definitions require context for proper understanding.  I suppose that I will just take some comfort in the fact that I am not in the “city” according to Korean standards because that just might be too much for this old country boy to handle.

However I never thought I’d be the alien E.T. until Michael, Sarah, Nate and I recently found ourselves applying for alien cards at the immigration office. Now don’t ask me why we need alien cards, because I really don’t know. Someone smarter than me told us we needed them so off to immigration we went with our stack of documents. It’s difficult to explain what it is like at immigration in Suwan, South Korea. If you ever been to a Baskin Robbins Ice Cream Shop you will be familiar with the ticket dispenser system for waiting your turn to be served. When we pulled our number of 606 and saw they were helping number 223 it was our first clue that it was going to be a very looonnnggg day at immigration.

We found the forms we needed to fill out and tried to make sense of them. Someone from the information desk walking by saw us struggling to determine what information they wanted on the forms and stopped to help us. She took a liking to Sarah and Nate and then asked what our number was. When we showed her our number of 606 she gestured for us to wait there for her. A few minutes later our new friend returns and slips her closed fist towards my hand very discreetly. I take the slip of paper from her hand and feel like I’m back in elementary school passing a note in class without the teacher seeing. I glance at the mystery paper to find I now possess ticket number 429! The four of us do a happy dance and then continue to fill out the required multiple forms. Once our forms are completed to the best of our ability we make our way to the waiting area. I really wish I took a picture of the sea of people waiting in this room. It was daunting wading through this mass of people trying to find seats to wait for our turn. A T.V. screen showed the current number being served on the left and what appeared to be the Korean food network on the right. Korean television shows deserve their own blog post. All I will say for now is the shows on that day were seemed bizarre and made little sense to us. As time passed it was interesting to watch the people surrounding us. There were mostly Chinese but a potpourri of different nationalities patiently waiting their turn. Then it happened again. Three ladies waiting in chairs in front of us somehow were given a better number so they turned and gave us their number of 304! I felt like Charlie Bucket with the Golden Ticket to enter the Willy Wonka Chocolate Factory. I got a Golden Ticket! We gladly passed our number 429 to someone else and made their day better.

After waiting for a few hours we realized we needed passport style photos to accompany our alien card application. Fortunately there was a photo booth in the next room so we pulled together the exact change of 6000 “won” for each of us. We had to laugh at our shell-shocked expressions and compared them to mug shots.

We had arrived at the immigration office at 11:04am and at 4:35pm our number of 304 was finally called. I’m so glad we didn’t have to wait for our original number of 606 since we probably would have been there for another 3 days waiting our turn. Now that all the paperwork is filed we just have to wait for our alien cards to arrive in the mail. Once we have our alien cards I’m sure I will have the superpower of making bicycles fly. After waiting for 5 ½ hours to file the paperwork it must be able to give you superpowers. Right?

I could not resist this pic.  She was so content to be on a soft bed in a patch of sunlight coming through the window.  What a life of contentment.

Curiously though, the 7-Eleven’s that we have gone into are run by Korean’s!  I expected someone from India!  or maybe China.

Oh well, like we always say here, "same same but different"

Then I moved to Korea.

In Korea, at least here in Songtan, the sidewalks are not flat.  The often use pavers instead of concrete to make the sidewalk and they are most definitely not flat.  I was having a lot of trouble scuffing the ground and sometimes almost falling down.  I thought that I was just not picking up my feet and walking lazy.  Finally out of frustration I walked for awhile watching my feet.  I noticed that the sidewalk was not flat.  It “rolled” with the ground.  Now you have to realize that it gets cold here and the ground freezes and heaves and to prevent having to pour thick concrete and reinforce it they use pavers instead and those move with the ground.  The problem is that the ground does not always return to a flat state after it heaves.

I began looking more closely at other sidewalks and began to realize that they were all that way.  Not only were they not flat but many of them are in various stages of needed repair.  This does not seem to bother Korean’s because they are used to it I guess.  But for us spoiled Americans that assume that all things are going to be flat, straight, smooth and in good repair this is a problem.

So….I have now retrained myself to watch the ground when I walk to make sure that I remain vertical.  Now I have to reteach myself the how to watch the ground and my feet and still try to look up enough to smile at others and get a smile in return.

Anyways…It’s all good and just a part of learning to live in a new place with new surroundings.  God is good even with uneven sidewalks.    So for now you can be praying that I don’t face plant on the sidewalk and really make a mess :-)

According to my calendar we have been here in South Korea for a month. That cannot be right. They say time flies when you’re having fun. It also files when you’re very busy and this has been a busy and blessed month for our family.

Our last few weeks in Oregon were a whirlwind of packing, paperwork, shipping off our pallet, dropping off “treasures” at the Goodwill and saying way too many goodbyes. After arriving in Korea with a mountain of luggage, four tired people and one tired dachshund we spent the next week in a crash course with the outgoing House Directors learning Osan Hospitality House 101.

We were blessed to receive our base passes the day after we arrived. This allows all four of us to enter the base without escorts and have access to unrestricted areas like the food court and community center. We don’t get access to the Commissary (grocery) or BX (store) so we do all our personal shopping out on the local economy. More about our shopping adventures in a moment. Week one passed, the outgoing Directors left and we hit the ground running. This is a fast paced ministry. Once a month we organize an event. For example on President’s Day we took 27 people to a resort for a day of skiing. Weekly we host at the Hospitality House a Friday dinner/game night and Saturday dinner/bible study. Our first week solo we had 57 people on Friday and 46 here on Saturday. What a blast it was!!! Planning and preparing for the Friday and Saturday meals is my assignment and thankfully there are several extra hands that come to help with the cooking. On Saturday Michael teaches after the meal. Sunday’s after evening Chapel we meet up at the food court for some food and fellowship and then at 1930 (aka 7:30pm) we host a movie night at the community center. On Tuesday I have a discipleship session with one of the young women here and lead a women’s bible study. On Wednesday Michael spends several hours at the food court where the guys will meet and have informal bible study and fellowship time with him. Mixed into the week are meetings, meetings and more meetings. But most importantly mixed into the week is time with people. We get to hang out with so many different special people and invest in their lives.

This past month may be flying by but it took no time at all for us to fall in love with the people here. I wish I had the ability to tell you about each one of our new friends and not have them be faceless names on a page. The military folks here work long hours at demanding jobs. Most of the married ones are here without their families and the stress factors are high. Off base has a lot of temptation and pressure to be involved in damaging activities. We have been told time and time again that the Hospitality House and the people in it is a “haven”, their “rock of security” and “family”. Thank you Jesus for letting us participate in this ministry.

Life in Korea

Our first week in Korea was a transition week with the departing directors and they were showing us the ropes and roads.  I drove a few times around and on the base and then they left to return to the states.  I have to admit that I only retained a few of the locations that they took me.  The gas station and the bank are very close to each other and only a handful of blocks away from the house.  The base gate is either 1/2 mile away or 400 yards away depending on which one I chose.  To put this in perspective, the airport, where our stuff would arrive and need to be picked up, was 1.5 hours away, an express way toll gate, a bridge toll gate and 3 highway/freeway transfers.  When we arrived in Korea it was dark and as you know things look different in the dark than they do in the day.

Now the stage is set.  We received a call on Monday morning, in Korean, on my handed over cell phone to which I spoke in English and the person on the other end spoke in Korean.  I ended up hanging up on the caller.  A short time later I got another call, also in Korean, but this time I answered in English and after a few seconds a person that spoke very broken English told me our shipment had arrived at the airport.  I did not get much more than that in that call except a phone number and waybill number to reference.  I put a call into Stone, one of the regular attenders here at the house and an invaluable asset to the ministry in more ways than I can list.  I told him what I new and asked if he would call and get more information.  I sent him the paperwork that I had via email and he called the number that I had been given.  He emailed me later and let me know that indeed the shipment was in and we could pick it up at Incheon airport and I needed to bring my passport with me.  He then offered to go with me to pick up the shipment.  He gave me his available times and days.

Here is where it gets interesting.  After looking at our calendar and Stone’s availability it would be a few days before we could hook up and go to the airport and pick up our stuff.   We decided we would try to get it on our own.  The caller had mentioned that they were open 24 hours a day.  You see were this is going don’t you.  So it’s 6pm at night, the airport is one and a half hours away and we don’t speak Korean.  What could possibly go wrong!

We gathered the paperwork, passports and selected the airport on the GPS and headed out.  Now driving in Korea is not like driving in the states.  Let’s just say that if you are a nervous drivers then you should not drive in Korea.  We get about half way to the airport and Nate is about to explode because he did not use the restroom before we left.  We are on the “Interstate toll way” and there is no place to go.  I pulled over and got as close to the guardrail as possible and …………………….!  Now we are back on the road and making pretty good time.  We arrived at the airport without incident and by God’s good grace we saw a sign for “cargo terminal”.  Jonna and I both decided that we should start our journey here, so we exited the freeway and headed for the cargo terminal.

As it turns out there are three cargo terminals so we started with terminal “A”.  We pulled in and after a little searching we say a sign that read, in English, “Korea Customs”.  We parked and went in.  There was one person at the counter and his English was only slightly better than my Korean.  After 10 or so minutes he managed to make a few phone calls and proceeded to tell us that we need to hire a customs broker and come back on another day.  OK, we just drove an hour and a half and we are not ready to turn around just yet.

So…..we leave the building and call the number that we had been given.  Again, God was most gracious when the person answered on the other end we were able to get a person on the line that spoke English.  After a brief conversation we discovered that we were only one building away from where we needed to be.  Now were talking.  We proceeded to the building that held the person we were speaking with on the phone.  We thought that person was Korean Customs…..wrong, it was Korean Air.  Now our shipment went China Air but here we are in the Korean Air Cargo building.  We presented our paperwork to the person at the counter and he proceeded to get another and another person.  They talked and talked with each other pausing only long enough to ask us another question.  Then the spokesman for the group told us we needed to go across the parking lot to another building and show them the paperwork we had show him along with some additional paperwork that he had now added to ours.

So…..we crossed the parking lot and when  to the only person at the counter.  A young Korean girl that spoke no English.  We gave her the paperwork and she began to pull things up on her computer.  Next she gathered another group of Koreans (all very nice by the way) and about 15 minutes later we were given instructions to cross yet another parking lot (large) and go to yet another building.  Turns out that this building was the actual Korean Customs building.

So….we crossed yet another parking lot and entered yet another building.  This time there was already a small group of officials (about 8) that and we went to the counter.  Again a conference ensued followed by questions, paperwork, more questions, some stamping of papers, some copying of papers and then we were sent back across the parking lot to the building we had just come from.

So….we crossed the parking lot (snowing now), and gave our new signed, stamped paperwork to the person at the counter.  The young girl was gone and had been replaced by a young man that did not speak any English.  He took our paperwork, entered something into the computer, grabbed a calculator and punched in 36,000 (about $35) and indicated that we need to pay that amount.  We paid and he then walked us out the door, around the building to an open warehouse door.

I backed up the van and we loaded our stuff.  Pressed “Home” on the GPS and we were off.  The trip back was smooth and easy thanks to our GPS (English speaking).  We arrived back the Hospitality House at close to midnight with our pallet of stuff.

What an adventure we had.  God was most gracious to us.  We are sure that we did it all wrong and by His mercy he saw us through it.  We got a lot of strange looks, gather several crowds around as they tried to figure out what these crazy Americans were trying to do late at night without a translator.  All the Korean’s that we encountered that night were friendly and helpful and we were continually pleased by their generally good natured manner and their willingness to not only tolerate us but in fact I’m pretty sure they went above and beyond to get us what we were after.  I just wonder how many of them went home and told their spouses about these crazy Americans they helped.

I wonder what the next adventure will be?

com·mis·sion (k-mshn)

a. The act of granting certain powers or the authority to carry out a particular task or duty.

b. The authority so granted.

c. The matter or task so authorized:

Those definitions have some “umpfth” to them.  There are some powerful words used like, “duty”, “authority” and “task”.  In the process of preparing to leave for South Korea there have been many milestones that have had significance to our family.  Starting by getting our assignment to Osan, receiving our work visas from the Korean government, and booking the tickets.  However the one milestone I had been anticipating the most was being commissioned by the church body.  It felt like the finale stamp of approval on our journey.  It also made the reality of it sink in.  We really are getting on a plane on January 23rd and flying to Korea to live for the next two years!  I anticipate they will be the hardest and the best two years our family has ever had before.

Looking back this was not our first commissioning.  Michael and I were commissioned by Cadence International on January 30th, 2009 when they accepted us on staff with the ministry.  In Matthew chapter 28 Jesus gives all believers the Great Commission.  Each of these have been significant to us.  We appreciate having the backing of Cadence International, our church body and especially our Savior.  We take the charges within each commissioning very seriously and will give our best to preform our “task”.

Thank you for praying for our family as we being our service in Osan.

Pastor Jay Messenger introducing our family. (It warms my heart to see how Sarah and I have the same smile and head tilt.  That’s my girl!)

Paul Metko, our Cadence Mentor, prays for the ministry and our family. Thank you for being there with us Paul.