Something amusing …at least to me

Well, I've been away from blogging for a while, partly due to a month where I was walking home asleep and partly due to my own laziness. Since this is my first post in well over two months, I thought I'd share something my students did in class the other day that I thought quite humorous. I just hope my words are adequate enough for you to see what I saw. Here goes:

 

We had just finished all the phonics pages in the student book, workbook, and Extension Course book and we still had plenty of time left in class. So, I decided we'd go to the Sponge room (a room where you can be messy, and in this case write on the wall with board markers) to work on spelling phonetically. This is a relatively new class for me (I've been teaching them for a week at this point) and I'm still getting the feel for them and how they behave, so naturally I was nervous about taking them out of the classroom. As we arrived to the Sponge room all the kids rushed to sit down without me saying a word! I thought, "Great! They are eager to hear my instructions. These guys are wonderful!" Then, I looked closer. They weren't interested in hearing MY instructions. NO, they were waiting for enlightenment from Buddha, as they sat in the various stages of enlightenment positions that I'd seen in my Living World Religions class! At this point I thought, "Oh boy, here it comes…the craziness that I'd been warned about!" The next thing I knew, the newest member of the class (he'd only been there a week) got up and corrected everybody's position! At this point I was about to die laughing at the randomness of it all, and wished I had a camera to record it…After I got a hold of myself, I gently reminded them that we came to this room for another purpose and handed each of them a board marker to start writing the words I dictated to them. I was much relieved that things didn't get out of hand, and I have to say… those guys made my day with that!

 

Long overdue...

Well, I have to say I've not lived up to my commitment to posting once a week. I don't have any good excuses either. Please forgive me.

I have been sick for the past month, which has caused some difficulty with my martial arts training and teaching. I've actually put martial arts on hold so that I can make a full recovery, no matter how long it takes, which hopefully won't be long. God has blessed me with health insurance over here where I can go to any doctor in town, which I've been doing just about every week to get a refill on medications. Sometimes they do the job, other times I wonder...Please pray for a speedy recovery so that I may serve Him with all my strength.

Speaking of serving, it looks like I might have the opportunity to serve at the English church that I'm going to now. They are in need of someone to help spearhead an orphanage ministry every 3rd Sunday of the month. They used to have an outreach in place, but it stopped once the person who was in charge left the country. I'm new to the church so we'll see what happens.

These have been some of the most recent events to take place in my life over here. In the past month, month and a half I've also gone to a graduation ceremony for some of the kindergarten students I've taught, and I've gone to Busan.

Here are a couple of photos of the graduation ceremony.





These guys stood up right before things got underway to point at me and say "Robert, teacher!"









I ran into these guys on their way up to graduate.

You can find more photos of the graduation at here.



Here are a couple of shots from my trip to Busan and the aquarium. I have to mention I went there right after taking medication for my acute tonsillitis. I was dazed most of the time, but still managed to have fun. Oh, and we had some amazing Mexican food in this whole in the wall.





This shot was taken right as we got off the train.












My friend Tharine looking out at the see. We all were impressed with how beautiful it was.





Here's that Mexican restaurant I was telling you about. They give you sour cream instead of melted cheese for your nachos and cheese. It took my by surprise!






You can find more pictures of my trip to Busan here and here.

Well, I hope you enjoyed this brief update. I'm going to turn in for the night. Hopefully I'll have another post in the next week or so :)

Where I live...

Hey guys and gals,

I know I'm not the best at posting on this blog and that it's probably frustrating to no end for those of you who want to know what's going on over here. A friend of mine has encouraged me to write at least once a week, which I'm going to do...even if it kills me ;).

I'd thought I'd start out by sharing with you something that I should have shared way back in December...where I live. So here goes...

The gray doors lead up to my apartment. I say goodbye to them every morning around 8:30 and hi around 6:30 give or take a few minutes.

This is the local supermarket that is literally right around the corner from my house, and at which I do a good bit of my shopping.






This is 7 Valley where iSponge, my school, is located. Depending on whether or not I get stuck at the crosswalk it can take about 10-15 minutes to walk to work.



Back in January the river that is right across the street from my apartment was frozen over and on the weekends you could see many families playing out on the ice. At first I thought there were only kids out on the ice, but once I got closer I realized that wasn't the case and I thought I'd try my luck on the ice to get a few pictures :)

The first of several

Well, I guess it's been a while since I've posted on this blog and now it's time to fill ya in on what's been going on in the last month. Let me preface this note with a passage that I read this morning from Hebrews: "Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our 'God is a consuming fire'" (12:28-29)

After moving over here with the economy going down the tank and seeing and hearing about the effects this has had on my friends and family this passage comes as a reminder of the foundation on which my hope is placed...an awesome and unshakable God. Though, at times it seems like my world is never firm.

This past month is a good example of that. It started at the end of December as we prepared for a special two week event after our vacation. The prep work was insane as we copied and bound over 70 books on-top-of doing our regular jobs...needless to say we were all ready for a vacation, even a shortened one.


During the break I went to visit Kristin Singletary up in Seoul for the New Years. That was an adventure where we witnessed a thousands of cops lining the streets and happened to walk into a peaceful protest of the current president. Needless to say, I was impressed. This ended up being the most exciting event of the holidays besides the new teacher arriving. After that, things started to go crazy because our two week special class started.



The first surprise I got coming back was that our supervisor had quit, though later I found out that she was going to be fired for not doing her job. This actually improved moral at school and we started the day running. If you've ever been to Russia with World Wide Youth Camps, or if you've done extensive planning for an event then you know that when it comes time to executing those plans they don't always flow the way you envisioned. This was no less true of our planning and execution. To keep this post from being overly long I'll cut down the story. The curriculum was too much for the students in the short amount of time that we had to teach, so we had to push through it and/or if the Korean teachers finished early in their classes they would go over what we didn't get to. God got us through the two weeks and by the end we were all exhausted.

It was at the end of this period that I discovered saunas here. Apparently, going to the sauna is a favorite thing to do for Koreans, which was surprise number two. I've found it to be quite relaxing myself, and it was during my first time that I made friends with a business man who is now helping me with my Korean. In turn, I'm helping him with his English. God has opened another door, I believe, with this new friendship.



In addition to this new friend, my friends from Wisconsin(in the picture) have introduced me to one of their friends who is working in an orphanage here. I should be finding out more information soon. Please keep this in your prayers.

After seeing how long this post is, I'm going to stop here for now.

Merry Christmas & Happy New Years!

I hope this finds you having had a very Merry Christmas and that your New Years is one filled with joy. This past week has been really exciting with events surrounding Christmas and preparing for an upcoming special holiday classes. After getting back from a weekend of training, which I learned a lot at, my directors asked me if I had any plans for Christmas Eve and if I’d like to join them at their house for dinner with them and their extended family. Naturally I wasn’t going to refuse an offer like that and so I went. That was one decision I’m glad I made.
Words really cannot describe the experience and emotions that I was blessed to go through. Naturally I was nervous about making a good impression and wondering if I would cause offence by breaching some obscure Korean custom, but my nervousness was for naught. Between all three families that were there it was quite the party. We had a 5 course meal and plenty of discussion. The children of my directors speak more English than their parents and so did a lot of interpreting and had many questions of their own. On top of it all we celebrated their youngest son’s birthday. The whole experience was quite overwhelming, yet I felt as if I was part of their family. Please pray that God opens up more opportunities to share His son’s love with them and that they accept Jesus as Lord and Savior.
After a wonderful evening at my directors’ house I returned to my home…well almost directly. I was walking to my house when I ran into an American on the street and was invited to a Christmas party that was going on just down the road. I saw this as an answer to my friend shortage and joined the party. God truly is amazing in answering prayer and I think He might be showing me a bit more of what he has planned for me. Please pray that I stay open to His will.
Concerning the upcoming holiday classes, things are kind of crazy. Things are being put together kind of at the last minute it feels like. I’m in charge of the Sponge Action, which is a hands on approach to learning specific verbs. I’m really excited about this because I think it will help break the ice with kids that I’m teaching and I’ll be a “fun teacher” in their eyes. Please keep our preparation in your prayers cause we are being given very little time to prepare for this event, on top of preparing for regular classes.
Well, I’m going to head out now. I’m planning on visiting some friends in Seoul for New Years.

Address

Hey everyone! I know some of you have been asking me about my address, so here it is:

iSponge Language Institute
Rob Scott
894-1, Dongcheondong, Bukgu,
Daegusi, South Korea 702-250

Hope you guys are having a blessed week!

The First two weeks

Well, it’s been two weeks now and there have already been some ups and downs. One up is that God is amazing in answering prayers. A little over a week ago I was praying hard for a church to go to and some friends to hang out with. That very morning one of the teachers at the kindergarten that I work at invited me to go to church with her and her friends. Seeing God’s hand in this I said yes and went, making several new friends getting their contact information to hang out with during the week. I’ve also made one successful journey to downtown Daegu using the bus system and was able to purchase a transformer to power my laptop so I wouldn’t blow it up. Another good thing that has happened is that God’s already revealing to me why I’m here in Daegu. A teacher that I teach with at the iSponge Hogwan (language school) is a Catholic and apparently in need of encouragement with work and spirituality. I feel God is using me as his eyes, ears and mouth all at the same time as Sarah asks me for advice and/or uses me as she calls it… “a counselor”. God is being glorified in this matter and my prayer is that His name will continue to be glorified by Sarah and the rest of the people I work with.
The downs that I’ve experienced are minor frustrations, like the disorganization of the ISponge School and that it is a brand new school. I wanted it to be one that has already been in existence for several years, but it’s not…oh, well. These things I can’t control and so I’m not dwelling on them very much, if at all. I am praying, though, that my supervisor start taking charge and laying out some things about the curriculum and class management so that we are all on the same page and know how to handle things.
I leave you with these three verses from Psalms 90 that have struck a chord with me:
12 “Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.”
14 “Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days.”
17 “May the favor of the Lord our God rest upon us; establish the work of our hands for us – yes, establish the work of our hands.”
Till next time… God bless