Merry Christmas!!

Dear family and friends,

It has been a while since we have written on our blog. Since coming back to Canada we have both been busy with visiting as many people as we can, as well as adjusting back to North American culture. Funny things ? parking your car across the street and waiting for a break and being amazed that cars are stopping for you; going to the movie theatre and being a little confused by not having an assigned seat; even talking to servers, cashiers, or customer service people and not thinking in Korean. There are definitely things missed from Korea, but we are also quite happy to be home.

We?ve had the chance to visit some of you and catch you up with ?what happens next?, but not everyone, so here?s a brief update. Since coming back in the middle of October, we have been visiting with many many many people that I think has extended to early December. It has been great! Now, we?re figuring out what we do from here and what God has in store for us.

Darrell has begun the process to find a church. He has spoken to most of the regional ministers around the Maritimes, and now we?re playing the waiting game. Once a church is looking for a new addition to their staff a regional minster will pass on Darrell?s resume to them. If the church feels that Darrell would be a good fit, then meetings and interviews proceed from there. He has been approved with his license to minister, which is a great step in the right direction. We?re hoping for Darrell to start his Master?s at Acadia Divinity next fall. We continue to pray and trust that God will find us the right church, but until that time we will work with what we know and what is provided.
We are staying in Moncton for the time being. Darrell starts work for Bell in the New Year helping customers on the phone with their service. It sounds like a good job for the time being, and I start work at a daycare on the same date, teaching the 2 year-olds. It will be nice to work with little ones again, and I?m quite excited!

Right now?that?s what is happening with us. This Christmas season, we?d greatly appreciate your prayers, as we don?t know what God has in store for us and where He will lead, but we just ask that our hearts and minds will be open to what He wants of us. Thank you all for your support, and we hope you all have an amazing Christmas!

Love,
Shannon & Darrell

We're Coming Home!!!

Alright, so there's really not much to say beyond the title, but I'll tell a little bit of the story.

We had been a little confused about our end-date, so we met with our boss two weeks ago to discuss the matter. At the meeting, she said that, based on the current enrollment, they were going to be downsizing a little and replacing me and Shannon with only one foreign teacher. She also said that, provided they could find someone to replace us, we would be completing our contract sometime in October. We said, 'okay', and went on our merry way, still wondering when exactly we were going to be heading home.

Fast forward to this week, and I'll map this out for you a little bit.

Monday - I decide that I need to start emailing some people to let them know that we're going to be coming home a little sooner than anticipated.

Tuesday - We get to work, and our other boss comes in to meet with us, tells us the new guy's paperwork is almost done, and asks us when we'd like to go home. We say, 'Whatever's going to be best for you,' so he replies by saying that THIS weekend is impossible, because it's a major holiday in Korea this weekend (Chuseok, but we'll have more on that later), but NEXT weekend should be alright. Shannon and I are in a little bit of shock, but we say, 'okay' and go on our merry way.

Wednesday - We look at possible flights and compare what we've found with what our boss has found, tickets are purchased, and we're set to go, followed closely by tickets being purchased for the new guy. Shannon and I are still in shock, but we now have our tickets in hand, so we need to start making arrangements.

Thursday - We go to the post office to send a bunch of our stuff home, which we had been planning to do anyway, but now there's a sense of urgency to it, because there's a good chance we're going to beat our stuff home, now. We send numerous emails to people, making last minute arrangements for the end of our time in Korea.

So, at this point, we're still trying to figure some things out, but one thing we do know for certain: we're leaving Korea at 5:20pm on Sunday October 11, and landing in Halifax at 1:45am on Monday October 12 (and if you're following the time zones, that means that we're going to be in transit for 20 hours, and yet only 8 hours will have passed on the clock).

We still don't completely believe this is happening, but we're excited to be coming home and we're looking forward to seeing all of you for whom we've been writing this blog over the last year. So, as our second-last week winds to a close, we ask for your prayer as we get ready for the journey home.

Hahoe Folk Village

This past weekend, we had a rather unique opportunity; not only did we get to take a trip to a 600 year-old Korean folk village, but we also got to do it with our church family.

It was a wonderful and unique experience right from the get-go, because we arrived at the church with Chelsea (who came along for the ride), and were floored by the sight of people loading onto a huge tour bus with the church name printed on it! I must say, coming from a small-town background, something like that just tickled me, because I was expecting to see a small fleet of vans and cars (you know, like we do back home).

So, suffice it to say that the journey was a lot more comfortable than I was expecting, which was wonderful, because the drive was about three hours. We arrived about 11:00 (which, for those of you keeping track, means we had to get out of bed at 5:30 to make the commute to the church before the departure time), and almost immediately jumped into a walking tour of the town.

As we walked, we were absolutely amazed by the beauty of the town, and marvelled at the way that the locals had married their traditional homes with a (semi-)modern life. There were cars parked in the driveways and electricity running to most of the houses, but these were mere curiosities in the midst of a little village outside of time.

I also learned on this trip about the reverence that Koreans hold for the forest. There are very (and I mean very) few old trees in the whole country. Apparently, not much of the landscape survived the Korean war, which led to a massive reforestation effort by the US and Korean governments. The result is the beautiful countryside that exists now, and any old trees that remain are preserved with great reverence by the people. The tree at the center of this village is roped off with row after row of wishes that visitors have written on slips of paper.

After that, we made our way to lunch, where we had a delectable chicken dish (I forgot to ask what it was called), before we went to check out the Hahoe Mask Dance. This was certainly one of the most unique experiences of our trip, but was fascinating to witness, as this dance has been a part of the culture for centuries and is even considered to be a national treasure. I won't go into all of the details here, but you can learn all about the dance at http://www.hahoemask.co.kr/.

That pretty much concluded our day. Afterward, we found our way back to Daejeon to sort through the hundreds of pictures that I took over the course of the day. It was a wonderful day, and we were really happy to have been able to share in it with our church family.