I’m currently sitting at a Starbucks in Portland, waiting patiently for my wife to arrive. It might be awhile, she is just leaving Salem. It feels like it has already been a long day! I got up around 5:30 this morning and drove to my parents house and jumped in their truck and headed for Seattle. My little brother was running in his final cross country meet of his college career so I went to cheer him on. It was fun, just an early morning.

After stopping for Coffee and a Donut shop in Seattle we were lucky to watch the whole race with no rain falling on us! That was amazing since it rained the whole car ride to Seattle. After the race we loaded back up in the truck and headed home.

Which leads me to this Starbucks (where I have purchased my second coffee of the day). My parents dropped me off across the street actually at a McDonald’s. In just over an hour I will be heading to a wedding for Darren and Sarah. So, I have time to waste as I wait for Charissa to show up to go to the wedding. After changing into my nice, wedding clothes in the bathroom of McDonald’s I walked over here. So, I wait.

In the mean time…It’s gotten pretty dark out and I love big cities at night. Some of you know I would love to live in a big city just to be able to look out the window at night. You see so many interesting people. There’s a lot of interesting people in this little Starbucks. I have already (in like 20 minutes) been asked if I am Tyler and Derick. Once by a guy and the other by a girl. I guess they are meeting people here…oddly as I look around, they are both still waiting for Tyler and Derick.

If you are actually still reading this, congradulations, because this post is pretty much about nothing. But I will end by saying, I’m excited for church tomorrow. We’re talking about humility for the second straight week. It’s not really a fun topic to discuss…mainly because I’m not that humble. You could probably accurately discribe me as a pridefull person who is persuing humility but continually fails. But I’m excited for church because I actually like church. I like getting together, worshiping, eating, and simply hanging out. I feel bad for people who sneak in the back of a church just before it starts and quickly exit at the end…they don’t really experience church. Considering that church isn’t a building or a program but people…If you don’t interact with people it really isn’t church. So,

I am a white guy working in a Korean church. The first question that I get asked by people who find out what I do is, “do you know how to speak Korean?” I always respond with, “no.” I have learned a lot in the past two and a half years working here. I’ve learned a lot about what it means to do ministry, but I have also learned a lot about Koreans.

Every Friday morning there is a moms group that meets for a Bible study here at church. Normally, around noon their Bible study is over and they all go home. Today was different. Together, they cooked lunch and asked me to eat with them. They had cooked a “seafood” soup. I’m not sure what the real name of it was but it was definately seafood and noodles in a bowl. Just for the record, I’m not a real fan of seafood. In fact, my motto is, “if it swims I don’t eat it.” With this in mind, Pastor Paul and I sat down for lunch with a bunch of Korean ladies. I’m pretty must used to being the only white person in the room at these kind of things. In fact, I have come to expect it on a daily basis. The funny thing is, my church knows me too well. They know I don’t like seafood so they offered me a different soup. It wasn’t as spicy and was a lot less seadfoodish. I thought it was really good – it tasted like chicken noodle soup to me. I was happy that I didn’t have to eat something I didn’t really like…but I was a little disappointed when I realized the soup I was eating was really the soup that was made for all the little kids. So, here I was sitting in a room with two tables. One table for the adults, one table for the children. All the children are eating the “chicken noodle soup.” All the adults are eating their “seafood” soup, except for me. I guess if there is one good thing to take away from this story, it is that they didn’t send me to the kids table.

Anyways, I thought it was kinda funny. But I also wanted to add, even though I don’t speak Korean I rarely feel out of place. I may not fully understand what is being said, but language is so much more than just words. I can usually figure out what is going on just by paying attention.

So, I’m thankful to be working in a Korean church. I may not always enjoy the food, but they seem to understand and make sure there is food I will like, even if it is children’s food. I may not understand eveything said, but I can still communicate. God works in amazing ways. If you had asked me 4 years ago if I would be sitting down for lunch on a Friday afternoon in a room full of Koreans to eat seafood soup…I would have laughed and said, “no way!” Now I wonder how I could be doing anything else.

Last night was one of the craziest nights I have ever been a part of at Corvallis Korean Church. The Asian Bible study on campus at OSU, called EPIC, used our building for their fall kick off. It was kind of a joint effort with the EPIC leadership and CKC. The church offered to cook dinner for everyone and EPIC brought their worship team.

Danny Kim and I spent the afternoon setting up all the sound equipment, tables and chairs. Honestly, I was hoping for 40 people to show up….and even then, I didn’t think that many would show up. We set up enough tables and chairs for 64 people and then waited to see who would show up.

The dinner began at 6:30 and the worship time started at 7:30. To make a long story short, by 7:00 there was over 80 people in our little gym. It was absolutely incredible! We barely had enough room for everyone to eat…luckily we had plenty of food. Koreans like to make lots of food…and lots of good food. We had Korean BBQ which was amazing.

After tearing down all the tables we rearranged the room for our worship time. Danny’s worship team did a great job and the guest speaker delivered a great message.

In all, it was an incredible experience. There was more people than I would have ever guessed would show up. Hopefully some of the students will return for church on Sunday.

Here are two pictures from the night, sorry they are such bad quality.