Church... oh and New Years (the chinese one... :-)

Most weeks here we have to leave for church at 9:30 and one of our friends picks us up and drives us the hour to our church. Then our other friend Issac and His wife Ruth pick us up, and bring us home, sometimes directly and sometimes we stop by a large store called 이 마 트 (E- Mart, enable your language controls on Firefox to include Korean and you can see the things we type that have Korean). However, this week was a little different.... (it's always a little different here :-).
We went to a different church with Issac and Ruth. Everyone had left town to visit their families for the Chinese New Year. So, we visited this church. We slid into the back of the church a little late. No one really seemed to notice. But they did! After the church pastors came up to us and were introducing themselves and asked to have lunch with us, then coffee and tea. They hadn't had many foreign visitors come before. We meet the pastor (whom were told that His daughter was a friend of Ruth). Then we sat and ate, and drank and talked to the church people (this church was about 5,000-6,000 people we were told).
A side note for everyone. This church's name translated means church on a hill. They were a larger church than the one we normally go to. This church was all in Korean, so we didn't understand much. They sang hymns (they all have hymn books, usually attached to their Bibles). They also had a big heart for sending people where they were called, if you know what I mean?
While talking to the pastors of the church we were asked to come back the next week and perform a song during the offering. We agreed and we are on our way to playing in front of this large church next Sunday. Without us knowing they invited us to breakfast the next morning, to celebrate the Chinese New Year. This was a great honor because only family celebrate these things together (it's like Christmas only they have that holiday too).
This morning we went to the breakfast which was a huge dinner in actuality. The food was mondu and rice cake soup, crab meat, rice wraps, beef, octopus, and many other things, for just breakfast. The meal was good, except the octopus which has an awkward texture being that we ate the tenticals! Then we were served coffee (they love their instant coffee) and tea. After this they brought out huge platters of giant fruits, I have never seen this many giant strawberries before, they dwarf ours in the states for sure. They also taste much better than fruits in the states (most fruits in the states are so processed they probably should not be called fruits anymore (unless thier from your backyard)... Then we were served chocolates and icecream.
After this we had a ceremony where you bow before the eldest relative and they bless you for the coming year. This was pretty fun for Sarah and I as we got to join in with everyone else. we now have offically been blessed for the Chinese New Year.

We find ourselves quite happy here with all of these changing events. We honestly never had a clue what might happen on a given day. Our Korean is improving, we can read most signs, and we are picking up some phrases. The weather here is still freezing. We have been blessed with some snow, that blankets the ground and is gone.

That is all from me today,
be blessed
-mike n sarah