I’ve now been here on campus at Handong for a little more than two full days. I’m still in the midst of settling in and time seems to be moving along a quite a slow and steady pace. No deadlines, no demands, yet I still feel like I have so much to do before I am ready to begin the fall term just one week from tomorrow. I have a nearly constant sense that I’m completely dependent on others to make my way here – I imagine it is another gentle reminder that I am ultimately entirely dependent upon the grace of God to see my way through each day. (The photo above is of Joyful Church in downtown Pohang where I worshipped with the Enlow's and many other believers this past Sunday)
Yesterday, Eric & Danika Enlow, along with their four children, invited me to attend their home church in downtown Pohang – the church I had, in fact, visited with the Enlow’s when I was here during July and August, 2004. As I waited for them to pick me up at my apartment across campus from them, I stood for a time on my back porch and look over the open rice field that fills the valley below. In the distance, I noticed a large bird taking flight and coming up the valley towards me. As it drew closer, I recognized it as an Asian cousin to the great blue heron that inhabits many of the river bottoms and lake areas in Missouri.
The great blue has come to have special significance for me over the past years. During the summers in the mid-1990’s, I recall how graceful herons looked flying up the Current River on those early mornings when I would be preparing breakfast for my sons, Caleb and Justin, as well as a number of other young men who ventured with us on those week-long wilderness canoe trips in Southern Missouri. There was also the time I sighted a great blue feeding in a creek while out walking in Mountain Brook, Alabama, a suburb of Birmingham.
These and numerous other sightings have been through the years another way that I have been made aware that we all live and breathe in the presence of God. Like the wild goose to the Celtic Christians, the great blue heron has become a symbol to me of God’s Holy Spirit. So, when I spotted what looked for all intents and purposes to be a near relative of the great blue flying along the valley behind my guesthouse apartment here at Handong, I was deeply impressed with a sense of God’s abiding presence.
Within a few minutes, the Enlow van pulled up in front and I hopped in (with clean dishes in hand from the wonderful steak dinner Eric had brought over for me the evening before) and we were off on the 20 minute drive into downtown Pohang where Joyful Church is located and a modest-sized, international congregation gathers for an English worship service on Sunday afternoons.
Believers from Kenya, Cambodia, Canada, several European countries, Australia and the States, as well as Korean Christians eager to improve their English language skills, all joined together to sing songs of praise and worship and to hear the Word preached and taught. It was a true time of spiritual refreshment! When it came time for the visitors to introduce themselves (a local custom of churches in Korea) to the congregation, I took my cue from Prof. John Lee who had taught me the wonderful expression – “The Christ in me greets the Christ in you!”
Eric preached an encouraging and challenging message from Daniel 9 on God’s covenant of love and the promise of the coming Messiah that came in response to Daniel’s prayer of confession and appeal for God’s mercy on His people. The entire afternoon provided a delightful time of fellowship with the one Body of Christ. I was reminded that there is only one Body, one Lord, and one faith for all who Christ has called to Himself!
After church, the Enlows took me shopping and then Eric treated his family and me to a stop at the new Baskin-Robbins ice cream shop. Who would have thought that I would be enjoying an enormous scoop of mint chocolate chip on my second day in Korea! What’s more, right next door to Baskin-Robins is a Dunkin Donuts! Danika informed me that this was one of their family’s favorite spots for treats, although Eric admitted that the ice cream couldn’t stand-up to Ted Drewes. I wonder if we two St. Louisans should open a Korean branch of that frozen custard fav!
Later that evening after returning to campus and setting-up the apartment with a few of the items I’d purchased (fan, desk lamp and CD player), I prepared myself “breakfast for dinner” – something I’ve been known to do around the Schulten household. The menu – scrambled eggs, bacon and toast – however, the bacon is as thin as paper – nothing like the thick slices provided by my mother from Jenning’s Market in New Franklin that had become a standard item for our monthly men’s breakfasts at West Hills. All-in-all though, it set well and ushered me off to my second night of sporadic sleep – still trying to get adjusted to living on the other side of the earth from St. Louis.
Yesterday, Eric & Danika Enlow, along with their four children, invited me to attend their home church in downtown Pohang – the church I had, in fact, visited with the Enlow’s when I was here during July and August, 2004. As I waited for them to pick me up at my apartment across campus from them, I stood for a time on my back porch and look over the open rice field that fills the valley below. In the distance, I noticed a large bird taking flight and coming up the valley towards me. As it drew closer, I recognized it as an Asian cousin to the great blue heron that inhabits many of the river bottoms and lake areas in Missouri.
The great blue has come to have special significance for me over the past years. During the summers in the mid-1990’s, I recall how graceful herons looked flying up the Current River on those early mornings when I would be preparing breakfast for my sons, Caleb and Justin, as well as a number of other young men who ventured with us on those week-long wilderness canoe trips in Southern Missouri. There was also the time I sighted a great blue feeding in a creek while out walking in Mountain Brook, Alabama, a suburb of Birmingham.
These and numerous other sightings have been through the years another way that I have been made aware that we all live and breathe in the presence of God. Like the wild goose to the Celtic Christians, the great blue heron has become a symbol to me of God’s Holy Spirit. So, when I spotted what looked for all intents and purposes to be a near relative of the great blue flying along the valley behind my guesthouse apartment here at Handong, I was deeply impressed with a sense of God’s abiding presence.
Within a few minutes, the Enlow van pulled up in front and I hopped in (with clean dishes in hand from the wonderful steak dinner Eric had brought over for me the evening before) and we were off on the 20 minute drive into downtown Pohang where Joyful Church is located and a modest-sized, international congregation gathers for an English worship service on Sunday afternoons.
Believers from Kenya, Cambodia, Canada, several European countries, Australia and the States, as well as Korean Christians eager to improve their English language skills, all joined together to sing songs of praise and worship and to hear the Word preached and taught. It was a true time of spiritual refreshment! When it came time for the visitors to introduce themselves (a local custom of churches in Korea) to the congregation, I took my cue from Prof. John Lee who had taught me the wonderful expression – “The Christ in me greets the Christ in you!”
Eric preached an encouraging and challenging message from Daniel 9 on God’s covenant of love and the promise of the coming Messiah that came in response to Daniel’s prayer of confession and appeal for God’s mercy on His people. The entire afternoon provided a delightful time of fellowship with the one Body of Christ. I was reminded that there is only one Body, one Lord, and one faith for all who Christ has called to Himself!
After church, the Enlows took me shopping and then Eric treated his family and me to a stop at the new Baskin-Robbins ice cream shop. Who would have thought that I would be enjoying an enormous scoop of mint chocolate chip on my second day in Korea! What’s more, right next door to Baskin-Robins is a Dunkin Donuts! Danika informed me that this was one of their family’s favorite spots for treats, although Eric admitted that the ice cream couldn’t stand-up to Ted Drewes. I wonder if we two St. Louisans should open a Korean branch of that frozen custard fav!
Later that evening after returning to campus and setting-up the apartment with a few of the items I’d purchased (fan, desk lamp and CD player), I prepared myself “breakfast for dinner” – something I’ve been known to do around the Schulten household. The menu – scrambled eggs, bacon and toast – however, the bacon is as thin as paper – nothing like the thick slices provided by my mother from Jenning’s Market in New Franklin that had become a standard item for our monthly men’s breakfasts at West Hills. All-in-all though, it set well and ushered me off to my second night of sporadic sleep – still trying to get adjusted to living on the other side of the earth from St. Louis.
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