And so what we have learned...

... applies to our lives today, and God has a lot to say, in His Book!

Brownie points to whomever can tell me what that is from.

Yesterday was not such a hot day. And I'm not talking about the snow on the ground. Max is still getting over something, E is still getting over something, and I'm fighting off a sore throat and losing my voice. Do you have any idea how irritating and frustrating it is to have to not only repeat EVERYTHING you say 3 or 4 times to a 2 year old who just says "Huh?" but to do it with a sore throat?? It was not a good day.

Before bed last night (read: before I passed out, only to spend 3/4 of the night either coughing or taking care of a child who was coughing), I was working on my Bible Study, "The Power of a Woman's Words" (written by a lady who lives in Matthews, NC. Go figure. Longer story short, I was drawn to verse 12 in Colossians 3. Yeah, I've read it before. Heck, I've even memorized it. But it was still new and fresh. And no, I'm not old. (Inside joke.) Anyway, in the tNIV it reads : "Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience." Ouch. Compassion, I'm fairly good with. But it goes downhill from there. To the "punchline," if you will. Patience. Why does God save the zingers for last? (So it seems, anyway.) I wasn't patient. Yes, lots of things happen to try my patience. Some DO need to be dealt with. Some just need to be... being patient with.

Case in point: while I was in the middle of writing the above paragraph, Max stood on her sippy cup, causing the lid to pop off and orange juice to go all over the floor. No, it was not an accident. Really? Seriously? I have to stop writing my post on patience to mop up orange juice from the floor?

This isn't the first time Paul talks about patience. He does it earlier (at least in the Bible) in the book of Galatians, 5:22-24. "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires."

The thing about the last part is that it isn't a one time and you're done thing. It's moment by moment, decision by decision, thought by thought, and word by word thing. It's HARD. I fail. A lot. Way more than I succeed. Thankfully, I know that not only do I not have to do it own my own, but Christ stands in the gap for me. I'm saved by grace, not works.

I got bean pasted.

We knew this day was coming. We had heard horror stories from other people about when it happened to them. Somehow, we had managed to escape for just over 4 months unscathed. Then, it happened. Elisha, Max, and I walked down to the market today (the one that is big and bustling on days that end in 4 and 9. I'm not even kidding.) for something to do. We walked around and looked at things, seeing what was what. We walked by a great bakery. Max decided that nothing would do but that we go back and check it out. I'm good with that- I like bakeries as much as the next guy. Maybe a bit more. So we go in, look around, Max touches a few things (disobeying me, obviously, and making it so I had to buy those touched things), and we make a few selections. This bakery, though small, had dozens of yummy looking things to offer- French bread, rolls, regular bread, sugary looking things, puff pastry looking things, some covered in honey, etc. One things that caught my eye and called to my tastebuds was what appeared to be a nice round bread, kind of like a pita (pronounced PEA-tah), but more doughy. It looked soooo yummy. I decided that that needed to be on our tray of things we were purchasing.

The nice lady bagged up our few things, we paid, bundled back up (did I mention it snowed last night?), and headed outside. Max started gnawing on a cookie, and I pulled out the nice, round, yummy looking bread. Took a biiiig bite (at least as big as is befitting a lady) and.... AGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH they filled the middle with a semi-sweet RED BEAN PASTE. The HORROR. The LET-DOWN. The UNMITIGATED GALL!!! (That last one is from something but I don't remember what now...) Talk about sad. Talk about another lousy event in already lousy day.

Needless to say, I didn't eat anymore.

Now, Koreans love their red bean paste. Apparently. They put in places where an otherwise unsuspecting person wouldn't expect it. Like in the middle of doughnuts. Trickery. They even have ICE CREAM that is red bean flavored. We assume so, anyway, as the packet has red beans all over it. We have not purchased one. So, like I said, we were counting ourselves lucky to have escaped thus far. Well, I guess technically Ryan still has. He tasted it when he got home from school, but he knew it was coming.

They also have a thing for pressed fish paste. I haven't tasted that. I reeeeeaaaallllllyyyyy hope I never do.

Quotable Max Quotes

... and other things of interest.

The other she was trying out the potty, again, and had a toy cell phone with her. She starts talking on it and says "Hi. I on potty. I have pink toes. Bye." She pretended to call Ryan the other morning "Hi Daddy. I love you."

Victoria has a large vocabulary and can communicate her thoughts and feelings quite well. She and "E-sha" play together more and more which is great! They even have conversations using Elisha's current vocab.

The weather here changed almost overnight, it seemed. It was quite sudden, actually. One day we ran the A/C for naptime, the next day we didn't need it at all. Haven't used it since, and that was back in September! It has been dipping down into the 40's lately, so I had to dig out some of our winter paraphernalia. In fact, it even snowed last night! It's definitely harder to get out the door with having to bundle not only one's self up, but two little ones as well. Esp. when one or both of those two little ones don't see the need to do so, or have the desire to stop playing long enough to do so. That definitely makes going anywhere a challenge, and, to be honest, it's quite frustrating. Like I tell Ryan often, we have a great day, except when it is time to try and get out the door. Other than that, things go well! It's often a fight to get everything on both of them, keep it on both of them long enough to get out the door and into the stroller, AND remember to grab my jacket and the backpack. It took us half an hour just this morning. Sigh. A traveling circus sideshow, that's us. We are quite the entertainment for the Korean grandmas and grandpas.

Elisha crawls very well now, and pulls up on everything. He can walk around while holding onto our hands or furniture and walls. He's quite fast, and loooooves playing in the toilet, pushing the buttons on the washing machine while it's running, or pestering his sister during her nap. (Although yes, they do normally nap at the same time. Sometimes he goes down later than she does, though.)

Posts schmosts

Pie in the sky hopes and dreams. Big plans. Call 'em what you want. We're behind. Woefully. Sadly. Depressingly. Okay, not so much depressingly. But you get the idea. Take, for example, the curtains for the kids' room. I finished them this morning, so I thought... until I realized that I had made two left curtains and no right. (I did white edging on one side and the bottom to cheaply extend them.) And I KNEW that I had to pay attention and make sure to do one left and one right. Reminded myself of it several times. But it when it came down to it and I was all done, had I remembered? Had I paid enough attention? Of course not. Sigh. So I thought I was done. I was all excited. But no.

This happens a fair amount to us. Take, for example Ryan's Thanksgiving break. Actually, let's back up a bit. Remember Chusok? The Korean Thanksgiving when Ryan had a whole week off, then we all got sick. Yeah, that week. We wondering if that would happen this week, if we would all get sick. Even made jokes about it. Suffice to say, we need to start praying NOW that we will all stay healthy for Christmas break.

Ryan and I have thus far escaped fairly unscathed. I'm fighting off the end of a cough and sore throat, Ryan had a sore throat for a few days. Elisha is almost all better, but Victoria is still snotting up a storm, hacking up a lung, and generally being miserable and ornery.

So, instead of going up to Seoul a couple of times, as Ryan has yet to really visit it, we stayed home and visited the doctor a couple of times. And the pharmacy. And the Baskin Robbins across the hall from that. Very exciting, let me tell you. But, our house is squeaky clean, we've been spending tons of time together, and meals have been mostly home-cooked. So the vacation wasn't a total bust.

And I was going to add pictures, but the memory card got taken out of my computer, so you'll have to wait until next time.

Edited to add: I was just looking through my list of posts which also includes unpublished drafts, and in our defense, there were several that we forgot to go back and hit publish on. Sorry.

Chillin' at the O Club

Well, not really, but our friends the Carters did take us to dinner there. I tell you, Officer's Clubs have changed a lot since M*A*S*H. I expected a pre-fab, corrugated steel building with a bar, a piano, and a pinball machine. Instead we ate in a hotel-type ballroom that was full of tables and we got to make our own pizza. It was great. Thanks, Carters!

The Sortores made it in yesterday afternoon. I was very jealous to hear that they were able to sleep all night last night and not wake up at 3:00 AM like me, Corrie, and the kids did. Corrie has been showing them around and helping them learn about life in Korea. Ross and Renee served two years at a school in Taiwan so they have more experience with Asian culture than we did. Please pray that they settle in comfortably here and praise God that ICS found a secondary music teacher.

I spoke in Chapel a week ago today. Things went well and I believe that God gave me good words for our students. I talked about zombies. I gave the students ten tips for surviving zombie attacks and I told them a little of the history of the zombie movie sub-genre. I explained to them about how our world is filled with zombies (people who do things that make them think that they are alive, but they are not) and that there are also survivors (people who have recognized that they have to be rescued). I was able to use this fun premise to impress upon them the importance of a savior and why people cannot save themselves through good deeds. It was quite a positive experience.

Hope you all are well. Thanks for reading and praying!