SDA Language Institute: Last Week

Here are some pictures from our last few days and our last classes.





My classroom. I shared it with different teachers but mostly Coco.

Matthew's classroom, that he shared with May.

One of our wonderful Jip-Suneem (I'm sure this is not the correct spelling) who would clean our classrooms.

Tea. It was so cool looking but tasted mostly like Dandelions.

My last class, that I only got to teach for about two weeks.

Staff meetings! Left to right: Jane, Solomon, Kelly Ann, Cleo, Connie, Ruth, me, Pastor Kim (you can only see his tie). Awesome, awesome group of people. We were so blessed.



Here are some pictures of our students. We miss them and pray for them daily, those in the pictures and all those we ever taught or came in contact with. May God work in their hearts daily. It is my dearest prayer that we will all be in heaven together someday.

Matthew's early am class.

This was supposed to be my class, but since I had surgery Matthew taught them the whole time until we left. Another am class.

Afternoon junior class.

More junior students!

Mr. White the teacher

Teacher! Teacher!

Yay for more junior students!

One of my junior classes. The boy to the left of me (blue shirt), and in front (black shirt) and the three girls to the right, I had in a couple classes. They were typical teenager students, quiet but really great. In the term before they had me sit down and eat duk boki with them. Duk boki is a thick rice noodle with spicy sauce. They were funny when they had me sit and eat with them because they didn't know what to say but they wanted me there. It's a great memory.

Steven and Tommy more of my crazy students. =)

Tommy, Steven and the two girls on the right, Annie and Lily I had taught for 6 months before and then was really blessed to have the opportunity to teach them again for 2 weeks before I left.

This little girl would always say hi and wave to Matthew and an occasional hug. She brightened up his day on a daily basis.

Evening junior students.

Elite class. This helped Matthew remember why he wanted to teach. Great group of students.

Two of our wonderful junior teachers, Joanne and Joy.

Matthew's religion class.... This just makes me laugh. I taught all of them in different classes before too, they're great. Yool, Margiela, and Jinny.

Party day food. Dr. You actually had some yummy stuff! And we're pretend it was healthy.

Am adult students

Working hard...or at least pretending to for the picture! (This is my classroom)

Religion class party day. I was overwhelmed by sweet gifts even though I'd only been their teacher for a short time.

Religion class. Back row L:R- Suru, Theresa, Esther, Sophia, Allie, Me. From row L:R- Joy, Matthew, and Mike. God please grow in their hearts.

My last vespers talk, two days before we left.

This is Matthew and Sonia. She said that the teachers at SDA had an influence on her spiritually and made her want to get to know God more. We are humbled and yet amazed.

It is our prayer that the seeds we planted, by the grace of God, will grow in the Holy Spirit and we'll all be together in heaven.

Videos from Everyday Life

If you can't see the videos try reloading your screen.

This is just one random day where Matthew was going to cook me breakfast and we found out that our eggs had become frozen by our frig.



Our last week we were giving things away to people (whether they wanted them or not!) and here we are off to give Ruth and Cleo some stuff. We're just a bit silly.... ^_^




Sorry that this video isn't longer, but this is Jemulpo Shopping where we did most of our shopping. See all the Ramen noodles?



This is Jemulpo Station, which is across the street from Jemulpo Shopping. Imagine that!




This video is a tour of our apartment on our last night, as we cleaned up. It's a little over 5 minutes, but if you want to see how our apartment was, then you can enjoy. If not, that's okay too. =)




Saying goodbye and packing are exhausting.

Misc Everyday Things

Our last days in Korea were getting warmer and it was nice to see different splashes of color amidst cement. These rose bushes were my favorite though.





This is the stairwell at Cleo and Ruth's apartment. The picture doesn't do it justice but it's about 1 inch from Matthew's head to the ceiling. He really had to watch his head when we went there.





One of the many driving sales people. They had speakers that blasted what they were selling. Only problem is if you don't speak Korean. It is a kind of useful though if you knew what it was and they were driving around.




This is Jemulpo Station. It was only a short walk from the school or our apartment to the station. It was really convenient for many reasons. It helped when we'd get lost and just say the name of our station to someone or a taxi driver. We always knew if we could just get here we'd be okay.

Across from Jemulpo Station was Jemulpo Shopping. We did most of our shopping here, E-Mart and two produce stands. This was the dried seafood section. Notice Matthew's face for our feeling on the yummy-ness of this food.

This is our wonderful fruit lady. She's the one who came and brought me the fruit and flowers at the hospital. We went to say goodbye to her and brought her some gifts. We all shed tears and "I love you"s. It is amazing how we barely exchanged any words but somehow we exchanged hearts.

This is just a sample of a very common (and annoying) occurrence. This little "junk mail" ads would be hanging on our door, or magnetized to our door. Usually they were all meat ads but this one had a pie looking thing with fruit.

I took this picture on one of our last days of moving. This is how they move from their apartments and it was interesting to have them moving and realize that soon I'd be moving out from my apartment as well.

One of our last days was a crazy rush to try and get to the bank and settle sending money and closing our accounts and so we got pizza for our lunch to be quick. This was our cheap pizza. It tastes different than ours. I think it's the sauce, but I actually think I enjoyed it by the end of our time in Korea.

It was the quick bake kind of pizza but it was cheap and quick, so it worked for us.

This is our beloved Korean Exchange Bank (KEB). They were really great and always seemed to be on top of things and know how to deal with foreigners and their accounts. It made it a lot easier for dealing with bank things.

I just had to take at least one picture of the heels in Korea. I wish I had a while string of them to show you but I guess this is enough. The girls wear them All The Time. I don't know how they do it. They are high and look painful but they do it.

This is the Incheon City mascot. A bunny? An alien? You pick.

Even on the last days we had to wear our masks to keep us from the yellow dust but in the mornings we still woke up with sore throats and stuffy noses. We were ready for clean air if nothing else!

I know this was a random mix of things but I just wanted to put them up and they were things from our everyday life other than school. I hope you enjoyed it.

(Videos from Everyday Things to be posted later)

China Town and Jayu Park

One Saturday evening we had a friend from our orientation group, Makeeya come and visit us. She knew we were leaving and plus she wanted to visit Chinatown! We are located just a few subway stops from the only Chinatown in Korea. So after sundown we went out on the town!




This is one of our other teachers Ruth. This was still shortly after surgery so I wasn't sure if I should go out so late, but I am glad that I did.




Because it was late and our stop was the end of the line, there was hardly anyone on the subway.
Me, Matt, and Makeeya...M. M. M.




We took advantage of the empty subway and did what we'd always thought about doing...







Eventually we came to China town...



Most everything was closed but we were heading to the park so it was okay.



We have become very friendly with sea creatures/seafood






After walking up many stairs we got to a stopping point (before we climbed more stairs) and celebrated a bit!











After "hanging" around (get it?) we climbed the rest of the stairs and walked around the park.




The water looked so clear that Ruth wanted to really see if there was water (I wasn't so sure there was any the way the lights looked on it) so she stepped into it, and lo and behold, her shoe got wet.




We're glowing!



Getting some refreshments. Nestle Ice Tea.



The infamous exercise swivel things.




I don't know why, but these guys made me laugh.




At the half-way point we met this awesome dog.



So cute and friendly! He was obedient too.

After playing around some more it was time to head back. It was really late by this point (probably past curfew...hehe) and we ended up taking the rapid train and passing our stop and getting off and going back. All in all it was a good time and a pretty little park. I was kind of sad we only found it as we were leaving!