Church Thanksgiving

For the past couple of weeks David and I have been attending a new church here in Korea. While it may seem like a wonderful new development I must first explain how we ended up there. Let me back track by introducing Mr. Kim. He is an older Korean man that works for David's company, building their chemical plant. Mr. Kim has been a wonderful friend to David and myself, constantly taking us hiking or out to dinner. Well, during one of our hikes Mr. Kim invited us to attend church with him. We had heard about his church from some of the other expats and agreed to go and just check it out. We knew ahead of time that there would be no English translations for the service so we were under no allusion of visiting more than once or twice. That same day while having lunch he promptly gifted us two very nice Korean/English bibles and said he would pick us up for church the following Sunday. While the service was nice, we walked away having not understood a single word of the message and understandably did not anticipate ever returning. Much to my surprise however my wonderful husband guilt tripped me into attending another service in order to visit with Mr. Kim once more. Now this is where the catch comes in! During our next visit to the church Mr. Kim lead us into a room and placed two pieces of paper in front of us with Korean writing. He told us to fill in our names and address without explaining what they were for. As it turned out we had merely registered to be members of the congregation. Mr. Kim explained that we were now supposed to attend church every Sunday and we should not miss any days. I must say I was glaring at my husband quite a bit after that, but neither of us saw it coming. Since that time we have not missed a Sunday but I cant say that the pattern wont be broken.
In mentioning our church involvement however, I really wanted to talk about the service we attended last Sunday for their Thanksgiving/Harvest festival. The church had been planning the festival for a while because every week there would be a count down until the day finally arrived. They call it a Thanksgiving Festival because it is their time to give thanks for the harvest and the many blessing it brings forth every year. The first half of the service encompassed a variety of singing and Korean traditional dances. My favorite part however was a procession of elders each carrying a large offering of food to be placed on the alter followed by six family member that gave a speech on what they were thankful for-at least I think that's what they were talking about. We were able to get a few distant pictures but they aren't near as good as seeing it first hand. I also loved all the beautiful costumes that were worn for the dances. David and I really enjoyed seeing their various forms of worship and were certainly reminded of all we have to be thankful for. I am certainly looking forward to our more traditional Thanksgiving and you better believe we will be celebrating here in Korea as well!

Happy Thanksgiving