Six Months and Counting

I can hardly believe it! I have finally surpassed the halfway point of my time here in Korea. It’s strange to think I’ve been living here for six months already. Time has been flying lately as I keep quite busy, but as time goes on I feel the absence of loved ones in my life more and more. I miss my family, grandparents, friends, cousins, mentors – goodness so many folks that I owe so many things to. I think my time here far away from everyone is reminding me to not take for granted the people in my life. I have been blessed with a loving church body to be a part of here in SK and some good friends, but my heart is feeling the tug to come back home.

Teaching has been a bit difficult because I work long, tiring hours with little kids. Then I have to really push myself to finish my additional work and lesson planning on the meager amounts of time and energy leftover when my students go home. But I’m getting by just fine and I keep reminding myself what a blessing it is that I have a job and a roof over my head! I am also so thankful for a couple of my students who don’t whine and pitch a fit as much as the others do. One in particular has been making me smile lately. A while back I started calling her “Amanda Panda” and it stuck :)

Here she is in her Disney princess nightgown on “Pajama Day.” She is a darling little girl who helps brighten those darker moments…

A lot has happened since my last update. I finally got a much needed week of vacation from teaching. And best of all, Jonathan came to visit! We had a great time catching up in real time and in a way, just getting to know each other again from the beginning. We also enjoyed hiking and seeing some exciting places together. It was a lot of fun to get to show him around Korea a bit and also show him off to my friends!

The first picture is from the top of a volcanic crater on Jeju Island. The second one is from a delicious Thai restaurant in Seoul.

It was tough to say good-bye to Jonathan, but it helps to look forward to the next time we’ll see each other!

August has been proving to be the longest month of the year but I’ve managed to have some fun, too. I went on an overnight camping/trekking trip with a group called Adventure Korea. Heavy rains ended up changing things a bit for the trip but it was a fun adventure nonetheless. I got to tour part of the DMZ (Demilitarized Zone) and even go inside a North Korean infiltration tunnel which is underneath the DMZ! It was found by South Korea in 1990. Unfortunately I couldn’t take pictures inside the tunnel, but here is a picture of me outside of it.

Here was our campsite before we practically got flooded out. I was so excited to be sleeping in a tent only to get water logged and then evacuated from it by the grounds staff before the night was over! It was a long, cold night – a fine and pleasant misery!

Well that’s all for now folks. It’s nice to be over the “hump” and looking ahead at the home stretch!

Blessings and greetings to you all from here in Asia,

~Heather