Sick Birthdays, Tea-Time, and Mission Day

On September 22nd Matthew woke up without a voice. Well…maybe there was somewhat of a voice, but when your whole job is based on having a voice that students can hear, this is a problem. We are only a 7 teacher school and if he didn’t teach the rest of us would be teaching for him. Being the trooper he is, he came to school and taught as best he could.

At lunch time he went to the hospital with one of the Korean teachers, May. It may sound drastic to “go to the hospital” but here there aren’t clinics so to the hospital he went. The visit included translation, a few questions from the doctor and a shot. The shot was in an unusual spot…one that we usually sit on. Those of you who know about Matthew’s hate for shots might further understand how this could be a very unhappy event on his birthday. May told Matthew that he was probably sick because of the pollution. When the director of our school first came to Incheon, he had previously lived in the country, and he and his whole family got sick from the pollution. Plus many of the teachers get sick when they first come. So pollution is already causing us harm. But don’t worry, you should still come visit! May was gracious enough to lend us the money for the visit (we didn’t have our insurance cards at this point) and the prescription. The total was a whopping 23,000 won. Shocking, I know…

Matthew came back to the apartment with medicine in hand and also another package from Mama! Again, God is so patient with us. I was feeling frustrated because I didn’t feel like I had anything healthy and wholesome to give Matthew and we didn’t have any money so I felt stuck. When I opened the box there was granola cereal. Healthy and filling cereal (that also tastes great!). God sent it right on time so that in the days to come Matthew would at least have a healthy breakfast. There was some goodies in there too… =) Thankfully, before we had gone to Korea I had put a couple bags of tea in my belongings so Matthew had that for his throat at least.

We had planned to get a 5,000 won pizza for Matthew’s birthday but since he was sick we decided to wait. And because we had not gotten paid yet I only gave him the small present I had brought from home. Two teddy bears holding hands. A girlie present, but I have an amazing husband who appreciates and loves whatever he receives—even when he’s sick.



The best part of the day was after our 8-9pm class when Matthew showed me a small cake that Neo had brought him. What a great guy! He doesn’t know us that well, but remembered that it was Matthew’s birthday and brought him a cake. Maybe it seems silly to say, but I feel like that was also from God. We didn’t have the money to buy that, but He provided for us so that Matthew could have a cake. I think that is from God and it really warms my heart.



The cake was all inclusive. It came with fake party bottles, two matches, candles, and a knife. It’s great because Matthew turned twenty five, and there were two taller candles (for the twenty) and five smaller ones (for the five). How cool is that?





And even though Matthew was sick we shared a piece. It was mmm-mmm good.



September 22 was what we call Tea-Time for my classes, and on the 24th was Matthews. Tea-Time is just a party day where the students pool together to bring food and we play English games. The class president and vice president organize the food and then we just provide the games.

I brought Bananagrams and Catch Phrase to play. They did pretty good with Bananagrams, I edited the rules a bit to make it easier for them, but I was still very impressed with their word making abilities. Catch Phrase can be hard for native English speakers and so it was really hard for them. So after my Tea-Time day Matthew and I made up our own word game. Similar to Taboo where the person had a bunch of words that they go through and try to make their team guess the words. Matthew’s classes really seemed to enjoy this game so I want to try it next time.

My two morning classes only brought snakes. And all of the classes were so kind and gave the extras to me to bring home. The evening class ordered in pizza! When they were planning on what pizzas to get (they were talking in Korean) one of my students paused their discussion and said, “Teacher, you’re a vegetarian right?” So when I said that I was, there was a collective gasp. It made me laugh inside. But they were so kind and bought one whole pizza with vegetables just because I was a vegetarian! We were all sitting in a circle and the students handed out the pizza. When I looked at my pizza I saw corn, green peppers, onions, and mushrooms. Seeing the onions and mushrooms I literally prayed to God and asked him to help me eat it no matter what, just because I knew how much trouble they had taken to get me the vegetable pizza. Surprisingly…it was good! The mushrooms were crispy and the onions weren’t too bad. I defiantly think that was God. I’ve tried onions and mushrooms before. And even though Emily Ford had gotten me to eat her onions, this was different.

Matthew’s classes also gave him the extras from their parties. We got Asian Pears…delicious! If you’ve never had one, go and try to find some. They’re like apples because they are so crispy and fresh. Mmmm.

Matthew’s class also gave him sugar goodies too…



Hooray for American food!

That Thursday is what is called Mission Day. Once a term there is one mission day. That day all the classes go to the basement, where our church is, and here a sermon from one of the teachers. I guess it is our way of outreach to the students.

Our coordinator Cleopatra spoke and it was really good. I wished some of my students had been there to hear it, but I was blessed by her message. She talked about how you would warm a friend if something was going to happen, and how she considers the students her friend and she wants to tell them about what is going to happen. About Jesus’ second coming. I’m not doing it justice, but it was really good.

For lunch on mission day the school takes the teachers out to lunch. We went to a place called Ashley’s. It said, “Ashley’s: For lassie ladies”. Not sure if they were referring to the women as collie dogs, or if the ‘c’ just fell off for “classie” ladies (bad spelling) or if they meant a totally different word and I have no idea what it is. Anything is possible in Korea.

For example when driving, if it’s possible to do, it’s legal. This can be somewhat frightening at times.

Anything is also possible when it comes to food. This is not always a good things. Ashley’s is a buffet restaurant and happily it had English words and some American looking food. Going through line, I spotted “Angel hair pasta” that had tomato sauce and basil on it. It looked really good so I put some on my plate. Excited to eat it. Once I sat down I twirled my fork around in the pasta and put it into my mouth. I cringed. It was COLD and a weird type of spicy. I still don’t know what it exactly was. I tried to eat more of it, but just couldn’t. So I ended up going back for more French fries instead.

Overall the food was good though, they had ice cream and great pastry things for desert. Also they had blueberry butter. It was really good. Sorry there are no pictures for the past few events, but maybe you’ve actually made it through all this and read it all! Congratulations! And thank you for reading all of it!