Greetings from Korea! This week has been so absolutely amazing! I wanted to be able to write and update everyone on the daily stuff that is happening here, but we basically have no computer access so it’s been hard. Anyway, I am typing this on one of the leaders’ laptops in hopes that I will be able to upload it onto the site very soon!
On Tuesday, June 26th the whole group met in Florence, KY for an orientation day. We reunited with all of the Ohio University kids and got to meet all of the students from the other universities that will be on the trip too. We did lots of get-to-know-you type things and prepared for all of the things we would be encountering on the trip.
The next day we started our looong journey to South Korea. All together we flew for 2 hours from Cincinnati to Chicago, 12 hours from Chicago to Tokyo, Japan, 2 hours from Tokyo to Seoul, Korea, and finally 6 hours from Seoul to Busan, Korea. We were completely exhausted when we got here, but we had to stay awake in order to beat the jetlag which is inevitable.
For the first few days we were able to just be on our own and see the city. We decided to set out to find some lunch and met some Korean-American students in the lobby of our hotel. They were really nice and took us to an authentic Korean restaurant. They read us the menu and helped us order so we would know what the heck it was we were eating. The second day, we decided to go hiking. We hiked up a few mountains that were close by on our last free day before the conference started.
The conference was absolutely amazing and there is no way that I could express everything that went on there on this site. You will just have to ask me more about it later and see my video. However, I do just want to share a couple of stories to let you know how God has been working here already. Before leaving the United States we heard about an opportunity to participate in a radio drive where we could donate a radio to an international student at the conference who did not understand English or Korean. There were a lot of people there from countries where the economic situation is such that they were unable to afford a radio for translation at the conference. Along with the radio we wrote a letter including our email addresses. The first couple days of the conference were special leadership sessions for the international students. At the beginning of the first session we walked around and met a bunch of the other international students. I happened to run into a person from a region called NAMEstan which is North African Middle Eastern and they recognized my name on my nametag. For security reasons I can’t give much detail about this person or their country because if the person’s government found out that they were at a Christian conference, then they would be put in jail. Anyway, it ended up that the person had received my radio and the person was really excited! They said, “It is so amazing that out of all of these thousands of people, we would meet each other! What a divine encounter!” I was really excited that I was able to help someone else. Through this experience, I really realized how much I take my freedom of religion for granted. My friend came from what is called a "closed country" which means that it is illegal to be a professing Christian there. It's amazing to think of all of the many people who risked their lives to come to the conference. It was great to see that kind of love and confidence in Jesus Christ, especially from the speakers from those countries. They risked going up on the screen where anyone could take a photo (although we were asked not to) and if it got on the internet they could die.
Next story: I was a little bummed at the beginning of the trip because I wanted to go to a Spanish-speaking country to continue to be able to improve my speaking skills. I had decided to trust God when he told me to go to France and I think He really blessed me because of that. He allowed me to meet people from Ecuador, Argentina, Uraguay, and Colombia. I got to talk to them for a little while and also there is a guy named Sam on our trip who knows a lot of Spanish so it's been nice to be able to use it even though I'm going to France. Surely I will encounter a Spanish person there as well considering we are so close to Spain.
Next thought: The Korean people pray a little differently than people in the US. At first we were a little uncomfortable, but after we got over that and realized that there is no wrong way to worship God we really enjoyed it. In Korea, everyone prays out loud at the same time. Whenever we would pray "Korean style" it would be so cool to realize that although no one in the room could understand what was being said around them because there were so many languages spoken at once, God could understand all of them and that He will be faithful to answer each one of us. Also, I really feel like I experienced a little piece of heaven here. I can't wait for the day when we are all reunited there together. It was amazing to see people from over 127 different countries united together in one room for the common purpose of worshiping our savior.
Final thought: The Korean students are amazing! The leadership of KCCC (Korean Campus Cruasade for Christ) has been envisioning this conference for the last 5-6 years. We didn't know this before we got here, but the students have been making monthly pledges of money for the last 2 years to raise money for the conference. We didn't have to pay for our hotel or any of the food because they raised all of that money. All we had to do was buy the plane ticket. Also, everyone here was so amazingly welcoming. They all went above and beyond to help us with anything we could possibly need. They were all so interested in getting to know us and practicing the English that they had been studying for a year so they could talk with us. The students had books that had new English phrases for every week of the year and it was amazing to see their dedication. When we asked them while they would go through all of the trouble to do something like take the time to learn all of that and why they were so happy they would always say something like, "We've been waiting for you..." and it almost broke our hearts. You honestly couldn't walk from one end of the building to the other without being stopped at least twice by a Korean student wanting to meet you and talk to you. That may have seemed annoying after a while to some people, but I was just so greatful that they would go through all of that trouble for us that I gladly talked to each one of them for as long as they wanted to. They always made me so happy too! Their energy and excitement was so contagious and I always felt so happy after talking to them. Anyway, I could go on forever so I'll just stop now.
Alright, that’s all that I have time for right now, but I have lots more stories that I will hopefully be able to share with you very soon! If you are interested, please go to www.cm2007.net to read about everything that happened in this amazing week. I will be putting up pictures as soon as I can, but that probably won't be until I get back to the States because I have no idea when I'll have computer access again! We are headed to France tonight to start the project so please be praying that God would be working there!
