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

I got Tagged!

So I just got tagged by my friend Janell. The instructions are that if they tag you, you have to go into the pictures on your computer and go to your 4th folder and post your 4th picture. I was so happy to see that the picture was of our dear friend Bill back in Del Rio, TX. As many of you know, he was a big part of our life there for 4 years. We spent every weekend checking up on the old guy and thought we were doing our "Christian Service" of be-friending the elderly; but really; he be-friended us. God taught us the meaning of contentment, simplicity, the gift of life, simple pleasures, history, laughter, and perseverance through Bill. Some of our greatest moments were watching the Spurs game with pizza, Andy fixing his computer (haha, not really...it happened just about every time we went over there), collecting pecans in his back yard, and counting the "pickup trucks" while rocking on his front porch. He will be turning 99 this September! We miss him dearly and still call to check in on him. Andy called two nights ago and he was "tickled pink" to get a call from Korea! He was thrilled when we told him that Tyler's middle name is after him (Bill is short for William). If any of you who read this are still in Del Rio; take a moment to cheer up an old man...you won't regret it!!

Anyway, here is a picture of our friend Bill taking his afternoon nap. I went over to visit and wanted to get a picture of him sleeping but he was too quick for the camera :)

Jessica Cameron, Haley Campbell, Jessica Korsmo, and Beth Szmodis (if you still blog!!); y'all are next!!

Superbowl Monday and Flat-top February!

Here are just some random photos from the past week. While everyone in the states was watching the superbowl with burgers, beer, and chips Sunday evening; we watched it Monday morning at 8:30 am with quiche, sausages, and orange juice! haha. Andy also rang in the month of February with a flat top haircut. All the guys in the squadron get a Flat top February haircut, Mustache March, Sideburn September, No hair November, and so on for the fighter traditions...pretty funny to see who can pull it off and who can't :) The snow is melting from last week as we have had several days of upper 40's and low 50's weather...so nice! Friday we brought pizza over to our friends Grant and Summer's and played several (very heated) games of UNO...cheating was allowed and Andy was rather good at it! Last Saturday night Andy and I had a date night (thanks to our wonderful friends who volunteered to watch Ty!!) and went to the Wild West Night at the Officer's Club. Here are some pics from the week...

Summer and Andy competing at Super Mario Bro's.

God has truely blessed us with such a happy boy!!At the Wild West Night

Everyone was dressed in cowboy attire except for us it seems like. I've been recycling the 3 shirts and two pairs of jeans that I brought with me...Looking in the mirror is like groundhog's day :)

Ahhh...the flat-top...and proud of it!

Superbowl....Monday!? At the squadron Bar.

Ty and Ryan watching the game.

The 25th Fighter Squadron where Andy works

Summer and I meeting at Starbucks before she leaves for the states for a couple months...can you believe she is a fellow Minnesotan!? We were destined to be friends :)