Some Stories from Korea

Yesterday, an 18 year old Korean girl named Felicity who is volunteering at the Conference walked me down the street to an ATM. She was wearing a traditional Korean dress, with sneakers underneath. She was quite chatty and proficient in English. She asked me if Iwas in school, and after I explained that I'm done with college and back in school again, I found out that she goes to high school in St. Paul, MN. While we were walking, some women stopped us and asked to take a picture with us. They told Felicity that they hadnever met a foreign person. I bet her traditionaldress didn't hurt either. On the way back, another woman scolded Felicity for wearing her dress out on the street, saying that she should go home. Anyway,today Felicity is volunteering in the computer lab,and when my computer wouldn't work I asked her to help me. She pounded on the keyboard with both hands, said"This computer sucks!" and led me to another one.

Here'sone more story from today:
Some cute variously-aged and variously-dressed Korean kids did a performance for us earlier. While they sang in Korean, danced, and played instruments, theEnglish words to their song flashed across the bottom of the huge tv screens that project what's happeningon the stage. The song was about a town that got sad and afraid, but then Jesus came and everything was happy and bright. So, at one point it was talking about Jesus being humbled into human form and it said"Jesus even took off his underwear and became a naked human baby." I promise.

I had to walk out of the Korean Cultural Night. Several factors contributed to my speedy exit. 1) The church is massive, and has been cold thus far,but I suppose the whole congregation came out tonight so it is full and hot in the "sanctuary" (it's more like a stadium).
2) The minister of this church gave a lecture aboutchurch growth for 45 minutes before the program even started. He is one of several brothers who are all bishops in the Korean Meth. Church, and who have built massive mega-churches. This is not the largest, but on Sunday we will attend the largest Methodist church in the world -- 95,000 members. Anyway, I suppose this brother felt like since we were in his church he should get to give a spiel (sp?).
3) There are lots of lilies in this building, and they stink. There are other flowers, too, but the lilies are the smelliest ones. Lilies are beautiful, but I can't handle too much of the smell. So, the heat, uncomfortableness after having sat forever, and the smell all came together and I was overwhelmed and felt a bit ill.

I'd better get back.