Time for Fun/Time for Work

There is a time for fun definitely.. but there is also a time to work. I'm definitely being treated SOO well and God is definitely blessing me and knows that staring at korean articles anxious to be translated would drive me absolutely insane.. or even worse.. make me turn into Kang-Ta or Tony An, God gives me breaks to play or do other work without Korean. haha

Work comes first: my message prep on Matt 7: 24-27 (Wish & Foolish Builders)

Visited a traditional Christian house warming party.. which lasted 2-3 hours (my new goal.. to have my own 2-3hr house warming party haha)

the house they completely built from the ground up by hand. I'm still waiting for my chance to build/design here

a cute delicious looking Indian child. HAH! jk jk but she was pretty cute

praying for the household and for the house.. somewhere at 1.5hrs or so.. I could have built a house in the time I spent sitting there. haha

but there was extremely good catered Indian food.. so the wait was worth it

couple days after the M's wanted to go out on a picnic.. if this is what they think a picnic is.. more picnics please!

Water World: I have no clue why the water is green.. but I'll let you know if I find the growth of another limb.. :/ HAH!

Spent the majority of the time in the lagoon.. came out all prunny.. possibly the green water?! hah

The M's: John (short-term), James, Caleb, Moses. These men are legit and awesome men of God

wasn't really a picnic.. but I'm down for more great Indian food!

"chook-ghu"a fusion of tennis/soccer Team A (Team Old People)

team B (Team Young Blood) I've learned after this game.. dont judge an athlete by their age. We got owned haha And I managed to get rid of the tan "tank-top" haha

what would a picnic be without seeing them filming a bollywood film right? 

now back to work I find myself. Working on the banner for St. Paul High School (4'x20')

final design.. the blasted file is...   1.56Gb... haha

So basically that's what I've been up to since my last update. I'm still currently working on the banner and will be taking it to get it printed tomorrow morning. Pretty funny story: I was chatting with my buddy Mike and saying wouldn't it be funny if we get the banner printed and put up along the side of the school and it's completely different than the final design? HAH! What if it was "Excellent results of University of Southern California" with trojans and had absolutely nothing to do with the school. haha! Then I would immediately pack my things and bounce before the M's could say anything and live out the rest of my time in Korea with all your support money.. HAH! jk jk.. but what if?! HAH! Random funny conversation.. but thank God for funny/jacked-up/random jokes and ideas.. I would go insane without them. They provide that little chuckle when the days are gloomy. HAH!

Progress Report

As promised this blog will be about the ministry growth..

It’s pretty amazing to see what God is doing with the construction progress of St. Paul School and Veracai (100 Acre Land) Some details before the pics to familiarize yourselves with the ministry:

St. Paul School – the school that houses daycare to 10th grade. Established roughly 20 years ago, started with nothing but it’s built two complete buildings, 4 stories each, with enough classrooms for 2000 students and a somewhat small and awkward “L” shaped open assembly area. (As of Summer of 2009)

Now:

Current St. Paul School exterior facade. 4 stories with classrooms for 2000+ students.(I spy pointless openings in the wall)

Mid-Term M: John, Missionary James & Missionary Caleb talking about construction(I spy manboobs)

Mid-term M: Timothy thinking he knows something about rebars. hah (I spy fob tshirt)

Rebars laid & getting ready to pour concrete(I spy James)

the new renovated open space. before, half of the space was taken by an adjacent building (I spy a bird)

pouring the concrete, they call the action "moulding" in India (I spy man skirts)

Veracai (100 Acre Land) – Land that the missionaries bought to build and establish a new Asia Evangelical College and Seminary that is made into an actual campus with various promenades, office buildings, dormitories, classrooms, labs, libraries, and more. The entire network of buildings, soccer field, and cricket field amounting to 100 Acres.. hence the name. The land has absolutely nothing besides a rough brick building without a roof.

Now:

Digging for water and YES! We have water.. after digging 1000ft through the rockbeds. 800+ft of pure rock (I spy nothing special hah)

inserting the pipe into the ground for water withdrawls (I spy 2 who aren't helping haha)

Missionary Moses, who lives out in Veracai by himself. what a servant! Missionary James on the right (I spy popped collar) 

God has been really making things move along this summer. So crazy to come back after a year and witness such progress. Oh and it’s not even close to finishing The missionaries have future plans to expand all their campuses and establish new ones too. It’s a big “fhwy-ting!” for the Missionaries and for God. HAH!

the rascal that always watches me pee with those big eyes.. awkward..

Prayer Requests:

1.    1. For the safe and lasting construction of the schools without much opposition from the legal issues of the government or unreliability at times of construction services.

2.    2. For the progress to be for the glory of God. Not for man, missionaries, us to boast of our accomplishments but in loving submission completely rely on God for all things and praise Him alone for everything so far.

3.    3. These new construction would be great outlets for the gospel of Jesus Christ to be furthered by enrolling/housing more students who can be exposed to the truth.

Indian food is the best!!

I HAVE to show you the food I just ate for lunch.. all-you-can-eat lunch. I couldn't find some photos cuz dont remember what it's called. enjoy.. OMG! I have 3-4lbs of food in my stomach right now while updating. HAH!

Mutton Briyani (sheep fried rice)

chicken masala

Eggplant and Tomato with some green sauce (spinach perhaps?)

Veg Kofta (Indian meatballs.. usually non-meat)

Masala Aloo (not sure if it was masala, but potato in creamy sauce)

Palak Paneer (cheese *thanks dan for the info* in some green curry)

Dal (not sure which dal we had, but some lintel dish) 

Wheat Roti (Indian flatbread, usually eaten with everything.. also comes in butter, garlic, spinach, regular, etc)

AND FOR DESSERT:

Indian Milk Cake (not too sweet but also not too mushy.. just perfect)

Mango Mousse

These are just a few of the dishes that I ate at the buffet. BUT best thing about this entire meal...

LUNCH PRICE: Rs. 198!!! That's equivalent to $4.40!!!! I won't be eating for probably a week. I feel like a bear going into hibernation hahah! 

adventures of a sunday

Every sunday I attend 3-4 worships. hahaha NUTS! From 9am-3:30pm. This past sunday was extremely tiring but still a joyous blessing. At 9am the first worship for the local St. Paul School students starts but unfortunately, no one showed up. BUT we were not discouraged, rather we still sang songs of praise and worshiped our Lord. They had asked James the night before to prepare a message to preach, so in my mind.. it was my sunday off. hah! After James was done giving the message, as I was getting ready to go to a time of responsive praying, I heard one of the brothers from AECS say, "Prof. Edward.. your turn. Can you also speak?" In utter shock, I just raised my head and the first thing I said was, "what?" HAHAHAH!! Of course, I got up and spoke while still getting over the fact that I thought I was free from speaking, but since I wasn't.. I spoke on Phil 1:20-23. Now I know how important Paul's charge to Timothy was when he said to be ready in and out of season to preach the word. I'm still thankful and in awe how God could use such an inadequate person like me to speak His truth. :) Lets hope I didn't butcher it.. or pull no Joel Olsteen. HAH!

the students that came to the second service for St. Paul students @ 10am-11am.

The second service had a greater turn out with about 20 students and we sung.. one of my favorite/funny songs: Jesus is the winner man. Here's a video, just imagine the song being 10x faster.. and just the lyrics "jesus is the winner man" and "winner man, winner man, winner man all the time" repeated over and over and over again. HAH! God knows I would go insane without some humor in India. Thank you God for being the creator of humor.

one of the students worshipping, not to "jesus is the winner man" though  haha that would involve mad clapping and dancing

Then off to our third worship where I can understand about.. 20% of the entire worship. haha. This service was great but boy, was it long: a little over 2 hours. My right butt cheek went into hibernation. This is Bangalore Korean Church. Majority of the members here aren't missionaries, they're in India working for companies like Samsung, LG, and various IT companies as managers, interns, supervisors, etc. It's great how this church is still going strong! Praise God.

BKC church preparing for worship @ 11:00am

After the worship.. for enduring it all.. God blessed us with the highlight of every week: Really GOOD korean food made by probably shi-gol grown women in the church. I need to get myself a shi-gol girl, but not those that wear overalls, chew hay all day, and have misaligned teeth. HAHAH! jk. but no joke the food was delish!

mr. YSL digging in. I heard some of these guys aren't believers, they just come for the food. haha

Then.. for our last worship for the Youth/Young adults + Small groups. (2-3:30pm) Small group was awesome, got to share my testimony, what I've learned through my mission trips, and encourage but also be encouraged by the other brothers in my group. 

My SG: SaeMyung, me, SangSook, Kevin, James, David (a recent convert)

That's a typical sunday, as draining as it is.. it's a blessing! Oh, you bet I slept well that night. I think I went to sleep @ 8pm. 9hr sleep.. so sweet, dreaming of jang-jjoh-leems dancing and jumping alongside bowls of rice while laughing and singing with kim-chee, gheem, and marinated chikens. :)

In other news: Got a gym membership for 6 months and went for the first time the yesterday. Still getting used to the lb-kg switch so hard to figure out what exactly I'm working out with, but I'm not sore.. so maybe not enough. HA! Loving how all the workout posters in the gym are not Indian, saw couple of Arnold Schwarzenegger, and some pages torn our from like Men's Fitness Magazine or something. haha.

next update will involve ministry and progress on the St. Paul School campus renovations as well as progress in Veracai (100 Acre Land).