Yesterday was my birthday. I didn't have any official plans, but it turned out to be an awesome day regardless.
I don't go to the church I used to go to anymore. Instead I now attend the church I used to cycle to to dance on Tuesday nights. It takes about forty minutes to get there by bicycle, but I really like it a lot.
When I was in Korea before, I attended a Baptist church that was against dancing even as a form of worship. After a while I was starting to go crazy because I needed to worship God with more than just words. But at the time I felt like I should keep attending the Baptist church, and my schedule at work was really packed, so I didn't have a lot of time to go to weekday meetings. So I prayed that there'd be some sort of meeting I could go to during the week to recharge and feel the presence of the Lord, and it just happened to come up in a conversation with one of my Korean co-workers that I was looking for something like this. And she told me about this church I go to now, because her mother had attended there one time. Sure enough, they had a meeting on Tuesdays that went from 9:00 a.m. to 12 midnight, so I could go after work when I felt up to it and still make it.
The first time I went I just showed up. The people there don't speak much English, and my Korean is atrocious. But when I got there I saw there was a section roped off, and it said, in English, "Worship Area," and nobody was using it. So I danced.
And they invited me to keep on coming back. Another time the pastor there gave me a bottle of oil. Sometimes a Korean woman would play the piano and sing Misty Edwards-style, and sometimes they would pipe music in from the International House of Prayer.
So when I came back to Korea this time I began attending this church. This past Sunday was only my third Sunday there, but they celebrated my birthday like all get-out. In Korean churches there's almost always a big meal after the service, and they had spaghetti on Sunday because it was my birthday and I like spaghetti. And a bunch of the girls in the youth group there gave me presents. They led me to a room with the lights out and brought me a chocolate cake with a lit candle and sang happy birthday to me in English - except for the middle part, because they didn't know the words. I can't fault them for that, though - I don't know that part in Korean, either. They gave me pens and notebooks and whiteout and a cookie and the cake. And one girl gave me a bracelet she'd gotten at IHOP in America. And one guy gave me a worship CD in English from IHOP. And one of the girls' fathers gave me a can of juice. And the pastor gave me four books in English (!).
It was really nice. It really made my day.
Afterwards I spent some time with my friend (the one I went to Saemangeum with) and we watched Oz the Great and Powerful. It wasn't as good as I expected, and after working in a movie theater every weekend last year, I have to say I'm much more easily disappointed by movies, screens, and theater sizes than I ever was before. Oh well... It was still a lot of fun, though. Then we went to Popeyes together, which is cool, because when I first came to Korea in 2011 she took me there for my first meal. I became a regular there the last time I was here, and I always got the same thing. I would always take the pickles off, and one day I noticed that they'd made my sandwich without pickles. I never said anything, but the guy who runs the place must have noticed. So I was eager to see if he remembered that about me after all these months that I've been gone, and sure enough, there were no pickles on my sandwich on my birthday. It was excellent.
It's really good being back. Some of the shopkeepers at places I always regularly went have commented to me that it's been a while. And my Korean's better now than it has ever been, so I can say more than just "hello" and "thank you." I'm really enjoying being here and looking forward to staying here a while.
Anyway. This is a long and rambly post. But I had a good birthday and I thought that I should mention that.
I got Internet in my apartment this afternoon but I still don't have phone service, and all my pictures are on my phone. So I apologize for the long, wordy posts without anything exciting to look at. I've also been busy (two kindergartens does that to you), which is why I haven't posted anything in two weeks even though all kinds of post-worthy events have happened. Hopefully once I get my phone service up and running I'll be better at updating you with more exciting posts and pictures!
