Back to the States

Tomorrow, Tyler and I will be heading back to the states for 2 months. We'll be visiting family in Minnesota and taking care of doctor/dental appointments in California. We are excited to see Georgia but sad to leave Andy once again. At least it will go by quick for both of us. Andy just started flying this week and is loving the air time so far...dogfighting over the ocean in a cool attack plane makes me just slightly jealous :) I am in the middle of packing right now and thought I'd take a break to send some photos from our last couple weeks. Please pray for a good flight, that Tyler sleeps, and adjusts quickly to the time change!

Koreans love their eggs! Here is a lady in the shopping district selling some out of coolers.

THE ANNOUNCER MAN!!! We found him! He drives around in this truck selling dried squid and seaweed. He has a recorded microphone that keeps the lovely announcements rolling daily...not annoying at all :) I actually hear him outside right now! Haha!We found our favorite restaurant; Sawatdee- a Thai place. Our appetizers were so yummy: chicken saute' with peanut sauce and vegetable spring rolls. Don't ask why the chicken is yellow...we don't know either; we just ignored it :)
This was just yesterday. Andy took the day off so we could all hang out together. We slept in, took a nap, shopped, ate, and played some heated games of UNO Spin! Here Andy is introducing Ty to the wonderful world of Mountain Dew....scary!

All the kids have to wear school uniforms. I think they look so cute!Stopping at a bakery after church on the way home. This is where we parked....

right next to the giant tank of EEL for sale!!

You can't get a free showing of sealife in American parking ramps :) haha! One rare night this week, Tyler was up for nearly 3 hours in the middle of the night and wanted to play. He usually eats and falls back to sleep. He finally crashed...and didn't wake up for a while!

On our date night to Sawatdee, thanks to our friends Shane and Melanie who watched Tyler. Thank you!!

Not so good with the chopsticks.

Korean Mountain Dew!! Someone was happy :)

At a birthday party for Shane and Melanie's son at the bowling alley on base.

Liking the Johnny Jump Up so far :) He doesn't quite know how to bounce in it yet...he just spins around in circles, but loves it!

Koreans love their Golf! Since they don't have space for an actual 9 or 18 hole course, they have these driving ranges everywhere in the middle of the crowded cities.

All the cars park below the net...what an ingenious use of space!

Lastly, they cannot get enough of their Bowling either! Their is an alley on every corner and they are always packed. Even the teenagers have their special wrist/hand gloves just like the pros!

Improvising!

Since we've been in Korea, we've had to do some improvising. Most of our things are being stored for the year in Tucson, and with the Base exchange (a mini-Walmart...kinda') only providing limited options for household goods, we have been living a modified lifestyle. Here are just a few pictures of our improvising. We think it's pretty funny, so feel free to laugh at our expense!

First, our Changing Table...or shall we say "Changing Floor"

Our Oven finally came! Can you see it? Look real hard and squint twice...it's the black thing on the counter :) I can fit a pizza in it if I fold the edges!! Wahoo!Our grill...you just never know when the good ol' George Foreman will come in handy!Who knew that the microwave could also be used as a mirror! Our bathroom doesn't have an outlet, and there are few in the apartment. We have to buy transformers to plug American appliances into so that they don't blow up. You can see between the microwave and the fridge is a transformer. We have our hairdryer on top of it and just switch out the plug when it's time to make coffee in the morning...haha!
Stir Fry pans also work great as large mixing bowls!
Our dishwasher, version 5.0!

Thanks to Amazon.com and the Post Office, we are able to have a variety of nightstands at no charge. They come in all shapes and sizes :)

Now this is the cheapest Bluetooth I've seen on the market to date...haha!

Milestones

Tyler has been so active lately! He's nearly 5 months only but has been rolling over for a month now; both sides. I lay him on his back to sleep and he wakes up on his belly. We've been practicing sitting up and he can hold it for a little while before falling over...so we are not quite there; but showing promise! Andy also noticed that we might have a "lefty" on our hands. He is very "busy" as most boys are when playing so we have been watching this. He will hold his toy in the right hand to brace it while his left does all the grabbing/pulling. We will see!

Be sure to watch the two videos at the bottom. I still don't have a video of him rolling from back to belly; I'm not quick enough with the camera :)

First, here are some fun pictures from the kitchen floor! (I think my eyes look kinda' freaky in this first one, so disregard :)

Sitting up!Not quite as tall as Daddy...yet :)

Playing on his tummy....Rolling over action shot!Voila!

Cult Encounter

So this is my very first post without a picture; simply because I do not have one that relates to this topic. In the last week we have had 6 different groups of people knocking on our door asking us if we were Christians and knew of the "Heavenly Mother". Last weekend, we invited them in to fill out a questionaire since they said it was an assignment for their seminary class. We were confused that they called themselves Christians as well but that they knew of the "Heavenly Mother" and we did not. I filled out the survey as they began to tell us that Jesus already had his second coming in the form of a Korean man named Ahnsahnghong who left the Seventh-day Adventist Church and preached the "missing pieces" of scripture to the Koreans. These missing pieces include:

1. Women must wear a veil to church
2. You must celebrate the Passover at their local church once a year
3. You must believe in the "Heavenly Mother" who is the main leader of their church currently. Her name is Zahng Gil Jah and claims that she is the Heavenly Mother. She says that Jesus was created by a Heavenly Father and a Heavenly Mother...therefore if God is worshipped, so should she as an equal creator of the Savior and of us!
4. You must believe in Ahnsahnghong as the second coming of Jesus and pray to him.

You cannot believe or partake in just one of these in order to receive salvation. You must practice them all to enter into heaven. Soooo, we set up a meeting for this afternoon at 2:30pm. They were perfectly on time and prepared to tell us all about the "missing links" of Scripture that all Christians have not been informed on. What they did not know is that I had nearly 10 pages of underlined and hilighted research with scriptural references to de-bunk each twisted theology. Thankfully Andy had the day off and was able to contribute to the conversation. One thing he asked was, "If I believe in the Heavenly Mother, Ahnsahnghong, go to your church, but cannot make the Passover on April 9th next year when I am deployed to Iraq, am I still going to heaven?" Her simple answer, "No!". I asked, "If I belive and pray to Ahnsahnghong, believe that the Heavenly Mother is God's partner and preaches here in Korea, partake in the Passover on April 9th each year, but do not want to wear a veil to church, am I going to heaven?" Answer: "No". We talked about Ephesians 2:8-9, "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith-and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God-not by works, so that no one can boast." We tried to tell her that salvation was a gift when Jesus died for us and that doing these extra "deeds" are not required for salvation. They basically said that we were selective in Scripture and not open to what the rest of the Bible says. She didn't quite have a respons though to the other 16 verses I showed her proving that salvation comes through faith. To her faith was irrelevant...hmmmm.

We talked about how the Bible talks about how only God will know of Christ's second coming, no one will know the day nor the hour and yet they claim that we misinterpret the Bible and that Scripture clearly states that Christ was to come back again with a new name in a land in the east. That could only mean South Korea!!! Of course...how could I have missed that! Of all the years I have studied the Bible, how did I miss that Jesus would return as a Korean baby! After going back and forth on how the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross is the only way to Salvation; we were told that we do not want to listen to the truth and that we were misinterpreting Scripture to defend our own opinion; we simply stopped the conversation. She didn't like the fact that I wore one of my church shirts with a big ol' cross on the front; because to her the cross is a form of idolatry. Needless to say, it wasn't a coincidence that I wore it.

With all that said, I am off to type a notice to place on the doors of the residents in our building to warn them of this cult. If you care to look more into what they believe, click here: http://english.watv.org/ They are called the "World Mission Society Church of God"

They have churches in the U.S. as well; so if you ever get asked about the "Heavenly Mother" either run, or be prepared to whip some cult butt!

"But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to anyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect." -1 Peter 3:15

Announcer Man...

For some reason the video did not want to play in the previous post so I added it separately and it works fine.

A Walking Tour

The temp has warmed up to a balming average of 45 degrees lately! At first this would have frozen me being spoiled in the southern states for the last 5 years; but I have adjusted to the cold and now think this is a heat wave! So Tyler and I decided to bundle up and go for a walk down to the shopping district outside the gate and I thought I would take my camera to give you a walking tour of our neighborhood. (Don't forget to watch/listen to the video at the bottom; we hear this guy everyday announcing something in Korean over loudspeaker from some unknown location...we are not sure what he is saying; but it gets loud enough to wake you out of your sleep!)

Anyway, let's start our tour...

This is the first view right outside of our apartment building
Looking back at our apartment. Our's is on the right.
Walking down the alley to get to the street

Coming to the street...this is the view to the right (or to the south if you are one of those north, south, east, west people. I had no choice but to convert when I got married :)And the view to the left (north) where we will be headingPassing the market by our place. Andy found the best grape fruit snacks here! He frequents it often :)The road to the base is pretty hilly and very narrow. I have to close my eyes sometimes when driving because it's a compeition as to who will pull over and let the other pass when coming from opposite directions. There is not enough room for two at the same time. At first I was gracious and pulled over every time and then I noticed that no one was doing this for me...well, that grace ended quickly! I drive down the hill and someone is coming up. I just keep driving; moving over just slightly to see if my opponent will budge. NOPE! He is a taxi driver on a mission and could care less if we hit mirrors. So I continue without giving in and with inches to spare there is no loser! I love driving in Korea!!A partial view to the east of Songtan cityGetting closer to the shopping area and gate entrance at the bottom of the hill.This is the "Triangle of Death". It's pretty much a free for all as most driving is here anyway; with no clear right of way and obviously no stoplight. Being such a crowded area there have been many close calls. In fact, I just drove to the base today and the car in front of me slammed on his brakes and skid when a little Kimchi car went blaring around the corner (right where the taxi is). Needless to say we drive slow here.The start of all the shops. If the base ever closed; most of these shops would collapse. The military drives most of the business here so you are bound to see mostly Americans in the area.Looking back at the Triangle of DeathThe front of the Main gate to Osan Air Base. It's about a 13 minute walk from the apartment to here and roughly a 4 minute drive; depending on how many times you have to pull over for the traffic...in my case not many, haha!

Here is the announcer guy just this afternoon