Last Post (August 2009)

Greetings to you all in the name of our Lrd JC.
I hope you are all doing well right now and are holding firm to the faith that binds us together. This is my last bl0g for my time here and it is a little surreal. It took 7 years from the time I first conceived the idea about serving abroad to the moment I first set foot here. Now 18 months later I am about to go home and it has gone by rather quickly.

Overall the weather here this summer has been abnormally wet with consistent rain shower and it has been relatively cool. So much different than the scorcher & moth/mosquito infested summer last year. The semester ended in late June and I’ve spent July and August here resting, jogging, language learning, prepping to go home and doing an occasional B-study and one-on-one session.

It’s difficult to self-evaluate how successful my ministries were since I’m speaking from my own limited perspective. I guess only time and G himself can tell. But I have faith that good works sowed in His name will not come back empty handed.

In men’s group a fellow brother said that the person you’ll find changing the most in the M field is yourself. I can’t deny that statement since being out here taxed my entire consciousness and stretched me beyond the limits of my perceived capabilities. For example, when someone asks me if I can do something, it’s not so much of a request, but much more an urgent plea for help. It’s hard to decide when to say yes or no. When I say yes I feel burdened, but when I say no I can’t help but feel a little guilty. Also, I’m introverted in nature but everything I do requires an extroverted personality. At least that’s what I feel like is needed but I know that’s not necessarily true. Whenever I do something I can’t help but think how much better a job someone else, either from here or someone I know in The States, could do because they have this language ability, that teacher/b1bl1cal training or this kind of experience or personality, etc. It was humbling and intimidating to be used by Him in such a variety of ways. However, in hindsight I am grateful for the opportunities I had to serve and wouldn’t change a thing.

It was also a challenge to win the mental battle. For me it was hard to deal with what I would sometimes perceive as criticism or dissatisfaction with my performance/character. I like to mull over peoples words and see them from all kinds of angles. Not a great thing since I tend to fixate on the negative and am initially disinclined to improve/fix myself and want to justify myself in my behavior/actions. Thankfully through much yarper and a timely book (The Bait of Satan by John Bevere) recommended by a brother here that I have able to mature a bit from this trait of mine. It’s kind of funny I got some insight from a listening conversation in my Korean class. It basically said that when living in a foreign country (or anywhere for this matter) with a much different culture to have a “wide” heart. My heart has been narrow for far too long and I yarp I will change with His help.

Well that’s my short introspective spiel. Anyways here’s how the semester went:

1. SK B study. I don’t know why but I still felt nervous teaching this class the third time around. Anyways I had a good time teaching this class. Many of the students had spent some time overseas and had pretty good English. As a result we had pretty good discussions on John and they were able to understand my analogies. Thankfully I had purchased a digital B with commentary and that helped me a lot with ideas on how to explain the text. A couple of non-believers came so I hope the lessons were good for them. At the end of the semester my partner, Hillary, and I took them out to dinner, as is the tradition between many teachers and students. The students were so kind to print a group picture we took and put it in a frame as gifts for me and Hillary.

2. I enjoyed my lunch/dinner conversations with my 8 students. At the end of the semester I took them out to dinner. I yarped out loud for everyone before the meal which was interesting since several of them, I know or suspect, are part of the c0mmun1st party. In the party you must pledge no allegiance to a higher power. One girl I know does not have any knowledge of the good book. Anyways I was happy to share at least this little part of my faith with them.

3. The B study with my former student went pretty well. We weren’t able to meet consistently every week but I think the studies went well. When I would go over review questions from the previous or current study he was able to answer the vast majority of questions. I think he’s a member of the c0mmun1st party but I haven’t got around to asking if that’s true. At any rate I’m grateful that he wanted to hear the word and being a member of the party makes that an even more remarkable desire on his part.

4. Teaching this past spring semester went rather well for me. I had two above average classes making the interaction with students rather smooth. For the most part, they could understand my grammar explanations and quirky jokes. Several students expressed how much they liked my teaching with one even saying it was her best English conversation class. That was encouraging since it was almost everyone’s last semester of English conversation. At the beginning of the semester, I also had several former students seeing if they could add my particular class. I guess I did something right, for some students at least. I know I have a lot to learn when it comes to teaching so I’m glad to have gotten some direct/indirect words of encouragement.

5. As before, I have been continuing my one on one meetings with Russian speaking males. I have been privileged to witness growth in some but others seemed to have either stagnated or backslidden. For the most part, as a whole-including males and females, they seem to be on the opinionated side making it a little difficult for them to want to submit to authority and eachother. One yarp request they have amongst themselves is to have patience with one another and spiritual growth. I am happy they realize these things about themselves and I believe they truly want to change despite it being difficult to do so. I used to think they were all similar sharing a common language, ethnicity and country of residence. I have learned they are all very different from one another. This is why they have their cliques. It must bewilder non-believers when they see believers in a Chrch with divisions amongst themselves despite sharing the same core beliefs and our LJC. However, I believe the struggle comes from spiritual forces from above (Eph 6:12). So concerning my students, I must do a better job yarping and encouraging them. I hope this is a weeding out period where everyone comes to realize what they truly believe and it brings about an even greater faith in them.

Someone here once said the harvest here is ripe. I believe that to be true and I’m glad for the small window of opportunity I was given to work here. I’ve met great servants here and have started good friendships here. Thank you everyone for your support with yarping, finances and words of encouragement. I could not have done it without you. I hope to find you all in good spirits when I return on Aug 24th. Take care.

In Him,
Eugene

P.S.
Extras-A list of some things I’ve done up through this summer. Counted the tithe on Sundays and delivered it to the treasurer. Met up with two different students for English/Korean exchange and another student for English/Chinese exchange. I continued my Korean study in the summer for 4 weeks. I’ve actually been able to order food and got a water bottle delivered to my room-an amazing achievement for monolingual me. (I barely passed Spanish and got negative homework points in high school!)

As I was with last year’s set of summer volunteers, I’m also impressed again with this year’s crop of summer volunteers. They bring a lot of energy, have specific goals in mind and haven’t settled in to “living life as usual” here. (In the past, before I came here, this time of the year used to be hard for the long termers. The volunteers in years long passed had a less than desirable level of faith and maturity making it hard for the veterans to maintain the program’s integrity.) With the short interactions I had with some of this year’s volunteers I could see they were doing a good work in their 5 weeks here serving as teachers and English House roommate leaders.

Summer Session

Interested in experiencing a new culture and traveling to a foreign country? Well we have a summer English teaching program you will never forget. For 5 weeks you and other volunteers from around the world get to teach English to students enrolled in our summer program in July and the first week of August. In the English House program you will be dorming with English major students and will have the opportunity to intimately know them and share the B. If you want more info please let me know and I can forward the contact person to you. I can also get you in touch with some of last year's volunteers so you can get some first hand info. A couple of prerequisites include being a native English speaker and having an open heart.

Take care,

E

Fall Semester 2009

Office Pic

Hello everyone and thanks for reading my first blog of the new semester.

I very much appreciate my time here and now that I have the first year behind me, each day feels like a huge blessing to be here. I am very grateful to be here for one last semester and will do my best to make the most of it.

Over January and February we had winter break and I was able to take a much needed vacation. I spent the first couple of weeks in Yanji and cleaned up house in my office and dorm room. I briefly helped teach English Corner as well. English Corner is a bi-weekly event where anyone can come to our class on campus and spend a couple hours of learning English and playing games. We get all ages from elementary kids to seniors coming. On the off days we offer a bi-weekly b-study to those who come to English Corner. The OP & co. here never take a break.

After spending a couple of weeks in Yanji, I spent 5 weeks in SE Asia and went to Cambodia to visit my family and see the kids. It was fun. I did a little homeschool teaching as well. I also spent a couple of weeks traveling by myself while I was there and saw Vietnam, Laos and Thailand. It was a little awkard to hear the other side of the story about the war in Vietnam while I was in Ho Chi Minh City, but it was very interesting. I was impressed during my journey with the number of people who could speak English, tourists and locals included. On the second day of this semester, I used the pictures from my travels to present a slideshow to my current students. I told them the locals, as well as the foreigners had to use English to communicate with eachother. I wanted to encourage them to study English hard to become part of the global community.

This semester I gratefully have just two classes to teach at the Intermediate level. Except that the first week+, I had to sub for a teacher who came late in the semester. I have more freedom to do other things now. What do I have time to do now? Here's my list:

1. I changed the SK B study to a thursday night, now that I have fridays off, and this has helped with attendance. We have met 4 times now and we're getting pretty consistent numbers of about 8 students. I have a new teaching partner now, a old YUST vet who came back for 1 semester, and she's doing great in helping out. I am going to need yarper to make new study material because it looks like they'll be coming out consistently every week. The last two semesters, we had some off weeks when no one came and so I was able to save the teaching material for the following week. I got most of my teaching material from my team leader, from whom I took copious notes of everything he had to say line by line, not to mention the handouts he created. I basically regurgitated everything he had to say. I am not trained or educated enough to make b studies so yarp I can come up with sound material with enought time to review it with my team leader for consistency. I also play one song on the guitar which I hope helps them learn English as well. Right now everyone who comes is a believer but my aim is to help them learn the material well enough so that they can eventually share the material with others in English.

2. I am spending more time with students from my classes. I gave an open invitation to anyone who wanted to spend lunch or dinner with me to practice English conversation. As of right now I am meeting 8 students, in pairs, for a meal at the cafeteria. We just casually talk, as my students hope to improve their conversation ability. They are all girls so far, but I hope some guys will take part in my hope that they would be interested in a study with me in the summer.

3. An old student of mine, from my first semester here, came back from his exchange program in SK last semester. (I mentioned in a previous post that I did some one on one teaching with him during the summer.) I caught up with him over dinner in my room and we had a good conversation. He was very generous and bought me dinner and a gift of animal shaped magnets. I offered to have a weekly study with him and he accepted. We will be having some one on one lessons soon and I hope he learns a lot. I was a little worried since I had no material to teach but I just received some books from which to plan some lessons. Thank G for that and I hope I'll make time to do a good job preparing the material.

4. I'm taking an evening Korean language class twice a week, it's four times a week but I only have time to go twice, and I seem to be progressing slowly. I packed in with a bunch of Chinese college students at the beginner level.

5 I'm finally working out a little. That's nice.

I'm also still meeting one on one with the Russian speaking students. They just voted in a whole new leadership team from the presidency, vice presidency, etc., so I hope the change in personal works out well for them in creating harmony in the group.

Well, please continue to yarp for me. My support for the new semester is not as much as the previous semesters, but it's ok. Much thanks for the new and continued support in these tough times. You can also yarp for the $ status of our school. With the Korean won going down and overall less backing they are going to lay off a good number of paid staff here. Also the job prospects for our seniors is way down. There's a feeling of uncertainty in the air. May we always be leaning on Ya Way for guidance and strength.

Peace,

Eugene

Food #15 Love Kalbi

This place we went to was called "Love" Kalbi (korean short rib bbq). On the menu they even have the famous L.A. kalbi style. They got 1 Cor. 13 posted on the wall.


Here's the front of the restauarnt with Lauren, Hyun-Ju and Ashley. (L-R)


Here's all the tasty side dishes.


The coals are hot.


Lauren is protecting me from the heat. The smoke stack extends up and down and does a good job in keeping your clothes from smelling like beef smoke.


The beef is read for cookin'


On the grill.


That's me and my "Prison Break" co-star Caleb. His Korean speaking is awesome.

Food #14 Ratatouille

Of all the places for me to finally try ratatouille it's here in Yanji. It doesn't look like what I saw in the movie of the same name. This was made by a chef who catered for the academy awards, used to work for Wolfgang Pucks and owns the restaurant Mark Lau's. Back in Cali, me and a friend Chris thought we were going to make this one night during a movie showing. I'm glad we didn't, it looks too complicated to get right the first time.

Teaching Samples

As a sampling of the English teaching work I do here, I thought I'd show you several videos. The first two are listening dialogs that were given out during tests. The third video is based on environmental issues I assigned as homework for students to post on youtube.

Holiday Pics

Here are some pictures I took while celebrating Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years.

For Thanksgiving I actually celebrated by eating "three" meals. The first thanksgiving meal was on Nov 22nd and is pictured below. Then I ate on the 26th at a restaurant called Mark Lau's. It was a new western restaurant opened by Mark who used to work for Wolfgang Pucks on Hollywood & Highland in CA. He gave everyone who reserved a completely free meal! My third meal (all you can eat) was at another new western restaurant called Gina's Place. Unfortunately only Mark Lau's had turkey and my table mates took it all before I could have any. But I did have great chicken.

Here's our English Service hall turned into a banquet hall. We got some praise going on.


Some table decorations


A pot luck with much food.


A sample of our desserts


For Christmas I celebrated three times. On X-Mas Eve I took a break from grading and went with a student to eat X-mas food at Gina's Place. Afterward, right before midnight me and some other teachers began watching "It's a Wonderful Life." Then on X-Mas day I had brunch and then in the evening I went to a X-Mas potluck where we had a white elephant gift exchange and played some games. I only bring drinks to all these potlucks. Sadly, I had to work in between these gatherings on Christmas day. Though I didn't really mind much at all.

Here's one of the performers playing at Gina's Place on Christmas Eve. I think he's pretty good.


Here's me and some fellow teachers in the midst of the gift exchange.


My O team leader Mike and some gifts no one wanted to steal from him. I got a box of powdered drink packets.


Mike's wife Lili and their two sons Johnny and David. Johnny on the left picked out the gifts.

On New Years Eve I had dinner downtown with some friends. I ate fajitas at Gina's Place. After eating we bought some fireworks. When we got back we had a quiet evening of movie watching and board games before midnight.

This is what one of the fireworks stands looks like. It's huge and there will be tons of these stands around during Chinese New Year (Jan 26-Feb 1).


Here's me holding a fireworks launcher and some sparklers. You definitely can't buy these in California.


Here are the cool fireworks coming out of the casing I was holding. These things shoot up about 3 stories high and then burst. Really cool.


Here it is with all the fireworks gone. You can buys things like this that are 3-4 times taller and 3-4 times wider. I hope to pick one up in February if they're still selling them.

After shooting off the fireworks and holding the sparklers out in the freezing cold with members from the German department, I hung out with the Russian speaking students. I sampled some of their Uzbekistan food and watched part of "The Return of the King" dubbed in Korean.

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The End of the Race...for 2008

Well I'm at the end of my originally planned term of service here. It all seems like a blur. I finally made it to the end. The last final we gave out was on Dec 22nd and I finished submitting all my grades on the 26th. I was the last one to get everything done (much to the chagrin of my team leaders since I was late) but I'm totally satisfied that I got every graded to my satisfaction. I also gave all my lower level students a good shot to pass and most of them did.

Here are some hi/low-lights since mid october:

Caught Cheating
After the midterm we found that two of my students had cheated on the midterm exam. A student taking the test at 3pm gave the multiple choice vocabulary answers to a friend taking the test at 4pm. (Students try to memorize the answers or write them on small slips of paper and pass the info to friends.) Little did they know that we switch the answers around between the two test times so it's pretty obvious when someone at 4pm has copied, since their answers match the 3pm test answers. We called the 4pm student in and said we would give their friend from 3pm a chance to confess and turn themselves in. (It could have been anyone of hundreds of students but I did a little detective work so we already knew who the 3pm student was before asking) Thankfully the 3pm student turned (them)self in with their friend. They wanted to drop the class and were ashamed but we told them we'd give them a chance to continue with the class and that there was still a possibility of passing. They were reluctant but accepted the offer. We gave them a zero for the written portion of the exam, but I convinced the other teachers to let them keep the speaking test portion of the exam. Thankfully neither quit coming to class and one of them actually did pass the class. The other could have passed had they not been absent a couple times nor missed some homework assignments. I hope if anything we taught them the meaning of grace in our actions and that they will discover the meaning of Integrity. (Our schools motto is C.I.M. Campus Integrity Movement)

Class Load
I remember writing that I wished I had only two classes to teach, meaning I wouldn't have had my 10am Elementary level class. I don't regret having the three classes to teach. My 10am class seemed to teach itself sometimes. They got the highest midterm and final scores of all the classes. For the most part they were very vocal in answering questions (very helpful compared to my very quiet 3pm class) and seemed to have a lot of fun being in class together. During mock wedding presentations one group that was demonstrating a western style wedding made me stand up and catch the flower bouquet! They even wished for me to have a happy marriage in the future. My 4pm Intermediate level class got the lowest scores of any class but they liked to laugh a lot which made things nice. I'm happy to say all but one passed that class. (The student we caught cheating passed!)



Mens Group
About mid-term I remember my "coach" in Atlanta mentioning I should get connected to an accountability group or at least be accountable to someone. Last semester I only went to our men's study once since I felt so busy. With those words ringing in my mind and seeing how even busy new teachers were attending monday night men's group, I started go about mid-semester. Before coming to Yanji, I developed a bad attitude of not wanting to lead/help a men's group in any way, but I was fine with just attending and blending in. I was like, "I don't want to help babysit a bunch of grown men who should know better." Right away I was asked to teach something the following week. My attitude was like "I don't have time for this" and "I don't have anything to teach." I chose to briefly cover a study I covered with a small group back home. I chose to cover the 5 Love Languages and it went alright, the standard fare. The next week was very different. The following week another new person lead and through that I witnessed a couple of individuals go through a deep level of repentance to begin their road to healing. It was amazing. I saw the bond being developed right there in our group. I'm thankful I became a regular. I had become numb to the needs of others because I was only concerned about myself. A great paradigm shift for me.

SK B Study
The SK study this semester didn't have the regular attendees like last semester. Maybe it had to do with many factors such as the new time, less new exchange students or lack of prayer on my part. I don't know. If anything we were able to encourage the one SK student from last semester in his walk and yarp for eachother. I'm realizing I'm not much of a b-study leader. Particularly in terms of knowledge and understanding. I'm at a loss about what to teach. I'm thankful that in my 1st semester our team leader, who is stateside now, had material for me to teach and went through each verse carefully with me. I had to write everything down and still I'd forget what I wrote. If anything it says I need to spend much more time in the word in terms of just practical understanding and flat out meditation. I see others here who seem to teach with such ease, understanding and comfort. Granted they may be P's or future one's but I definitely appreciate the gifting after being away from teaching the b on a regular basis for so long. (I gave props to teachers in a previous entry now I give props to all you B teachers out there.) Looking back I am grateful to have stumbled teaching through this material. I find myself realizing how John is different from the other 3 books and if not for that 1st semester I wouldn't have had material to teach in the summer.

Counseling
Concerning the Russian speaking students, I was able to meet all of them once to have a meal and yarp for them. They had some pretty major scuffles in the group involving even haymakers being thrown. This group is known as being x-ian so they have an added burden when others see their actions. I had a special yarper session with the president of the group who decided to step down because he felt he could handle it anymore. I'm not positive but I think I'm in a special position where they can share certain things with me because of my age and my relationship to the group. Not exactly an everyday friend but not a distant leader either. A counselor I would say.

Forgiveness
Well I remember asking for yarper in my blog and emails about dealing with people who had said less than positive things to me. Well I yarped that if it was in our dad's will I would be able to have one on one time with certain people about issues. Not easy since everyone is so busy. Thankfully I did have these times of discussion with these people and it ended up being great. It's really hard for me to muster up an uncomfortable topic but it was definitely a blessed time. I learned to be as graceful and encouraging as one can be even in the midst of heartache. Not surprisingly I found others who had issues with other people and were unnecessarily burdening themselves by either holding it in or trying to deal with it indirectly. But in the end we need to give grace and yarp for eachother continually. I saw people as being on a high pedestal and any bad thing would bring them down in my opinion/feelings of them. Well, what I should have seen is that we are all fallen together and I need to lift others up to a higher level. Perhaps even carry them on my back if I need to.

Extracurricular Conversation
I wasn't able to find a new student to do a one on one study with but I did have one of my female intermediate students approach me for practicing conversational English. I would meet up with her during lunch or dinner twice a week and she would practice speaking. It looked like she had an adviser who was already sharing with her so that was good. I was happy and surprised she approached me since it seemed like most of my students in that class were disinterested in learning. Appearances are sometimes deceiving, I guess. She even made me this nice wreath I have hanging on my door.



Extra Duties
I've done a few little things here and there that have colored my experience here. I was asked by my team leader to preside for English service one sunday. I don't know exactly why I was chosen other than we're low on manpower sometimes. Anyways it was the first time I got to break out the suit I brought, which I initially thought I would be using to watch graduation ceremonies. I missed graduation last semester because I was busy finishing up grades. Here's a picture of me doing so. I was fortunate to find volunteers to do the hard parts like come up and yarp. Everyone I asked to help during service was from my mens group. I was pretty nervous that morning but it didn't show. Best thing about presiding is that it forces me to come early to service.

Another thing I did for the first 3/4 of the semester is help the architecture majors with their pronunciation. They tend to not do so well in English since they are so absorbed with all their projects. Every other monday night I would go to the architecture building and help a teacher who really wanted his students to improve their English. During the hour I spent there, students would individually approach me with some sentences they had translated into English. I would read their sentences aloud while they saved it onto their digital recorders. (Us teachers are backwards and are still using tape.) They would then go away for a while listening to and practicing the words I spoke. Next, they'd come back and practice their new phrases with me. I was happy to see them improve. The strangest sentence I had to record was something like "If you could be born again would you come back a man or a woman?" I only wonder how long they'll be saving my voice in their little devices in the years to come.



Future Goals/Conclusions
I want to stay here another semester (Spring 2009) since it feels like I'm just getting the hang of things here. I also want to continue on with the work I've been doing here. As is the case every semester there's always a shortage of workers. I want to continue working with the Russian speaking students, fine tune my English & b-study teaching, and help the O body I'm working under with their ministries. Two of my co-laborers who came the same time as me just left but we are getting one experienced female worker who is returning for one semester. Our group would be a little understaffed without me here. (Understaffed in regards to males who can counsel the Russian speaking males and someone to lead the SK study) As far as I know reinforcements will be coming the Fall semester of 2009. I've also been granted the gift of having just two classes next semester and this will free up much more of my time so that I will be more balanced in my life here. (Hopefully less nights working well past midnight!) I can spend more quality time with students and will have more language study time. I may even start exercising. As far as one of my main goals is concerned, I believe the two orgs I'm working with can establish a healthy relationship together for future endeavors.

Please yarp as you consider to continue your support for me in "gifts" and yarper.

In Him,

Eugene