So we started volunteering this week and we have also been able to visit several more unique places. This trip so far has been full or great experiences, frustrating experiences, and overall a great learning experience. I don't know where to begin with what to talk about. I guess I'll just tell about the different places we have visited. Because we had some free time before we started working and because transportation is cheap we were able to see a lot of Seoul and some areas north of the city. In Seoul we visited the world cup stadium and went to an FC Seoul soccer game there, we checked out some of the historical parts of the city, and we also went to the largest church in the world (mostly just to say we did it). We were also able to visit the DMZ, which is the border between north and south Korea. We were able to go to several different places along the DMZ and it was a very sobering experience. Learning about what is going on in North Korea and the tension that still exists between the two countries that were once a unified people. When people talk about starvation and oppressive governments it seems like North Korea is not talked about as much as it should. This isolated country is not well known about and I really encourage you to research the current situation. There are many documentaries that can be seen on YouTube if you just search North Korea. It's a very sad situation and something that we have been taking some time to learn about. Please keep them in your prayers.
As for the homeless and what we have done. We have started volunteering at a soup kitchen and we delivered food on sunday night with a group of foreigners like myself, except most of them have been here several years and not just a couple weeks or months. It was cool to here their stories and I always enjoy meeting new people. It was a lot of fun and a very good experience. We hope to continue going every sunday night and build friendships. As for the shelter/soup kitchen we went two times last week and hope to go more frequently if we can. When we serve there we work from 2:30-8:00pm preparing dinner, serving dinner, and cleaning up afterwards. There are about 300 people that get dinner from that shelter. The shelters and soup kitchens are run a little differently here than they are in the US. They are all run by the state and they started out with 90 different shelters around the country and are down to 37 now. Every shelter does a different meal but all of them look for a holistic recovery. They help with health care, food, shelter, and job searches. A homeless person is allowed to spend 20 nights a month at a shelter. It also seems like the biggest cause for homelessness is due to the economy or family situations. I really don't want to comment too much on this because we haven't been here very long at all. I hope to continue to learn more about it though. I feel like God is doing a lot of good through the homeless shelters and the group that goes out on sunday nights. I'm excited to meet knew friends, help the homeless, and learn more about the homeless situation here. Please pray for us as we seek to serve the poor.
As far as breaking the cultural differences, communication is still difficult. There isn't a great need to learn korean because most people are willing to try and speak english even if it is not the best, but I think that continuing to try and learn as much as I can is important. The language barrier is different than what I expected also. It's hard to practice my Korean with other people when I am out because it seems like people either want to only try to speak english to you or don't really speak at all. An example that seems pretty common and explains it pretty well is this story. I went to a Burger King last night in Seoul station and I ordered a drink and an apple pie in Korean. The cashier looked at me, took my money, held up 8 fingers, and in broken english said 'eight minutes'. I said thank you in Korean and that was the end of the conversations. There have been several times that I have spoken in Korean to someone asking where something is and I normally get a reply back in english. It's not really what I was expecting before coming here.
I don't really know what else to talk about, if you have any questions I'll try to answer them, just feel free to ask.
-Andy
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