Follow Jesus. Lead the church. Change the world.
One of the greatest challenges in ministry is connecting the gospel to the surrounding culture. I wonder if there was a time in US history when this was an easier task, back when the nation was young. In such a time, a one-size-fits-all approach worked fairly well. IOW, a Methodist church in one place could … Read more
Surprise! Before we left the office with Ethan’s social worker, we learned that we will get Ethan tomorrow at 4:00pm (2:00am EST)! Based on what we were told, we expected to get him at the end of our stay, on the way to the airport. The only thing we can figure is that we have … Read more
Yesterday was a long day. Our host/driver from Holy Flames picked us up at the guest house at 7:30 am and we spent much of the day at his church. Around 3:30 pm, he handed us off to our guides/hosts at Kwanglim, who gave us a church tour, took us to dinner, then dropped us … Read more
The time to meet Ethan is getting close, and may be closer than you think! As Sunday closes for us in Seoul, our friends and family in the Eastern Time Zone are just beginning their Sunday. That means that as we get up in the morning and go to meet Ethan, Sunday will be coming … Read more
Saturday and Sunday were jammed packed days, as we spent time with pastors and church staff of two different Methodist churches in and around Seoul. On Saturday, one pastor and his family took us to Insa-dong, one of the main shopping districts in Seoul, where we had our first Korean food. Afterward, we toured Gyeongbokgung … Read more
We took a number of photos today — at Insadong, at Gyeongbokgung Palace, and various other shots. We’re posting several here. You should be able to click on any one of them, then click on “next” and/or “previous” underneath the photo to cycle through all nine, which appear in random order. Let us know if … Read more
Finally, we got to eat some Korean food today. While we had planned to try out Korean food in the last several months at Kimchi Korean Restaurant in State College, PA, we never made it. Today was our first real experience with Korean food. Because we tasted some bad Kimchi at a Chinese restaurant in … Read more
In an environment where so much is new, there’s a lot of stuff to process. Each morning, I’ve been waking up very early (Korea Time), thinking about our experience here. After a while, I finally get up and write. We’ve been sharing some observations and impressions about the culture here, including our challenges with the … Read more
Earlier, I wrote about some of our first impressions of the culture here in Seoul. Here are a couple more … Seoul is a safe city. Seoul, with its population of 10.3 million people, is the 5th largest city in the world. Even so, it has a very low crime rate. AsainInfo.com says, “Seoul is … Read more