Are we crazy?!

If you think about it, the idea of skiing is rather odd. We strap some glorified popsicle sticks to our feet, keep our hands busy with some sticks, ride a plank to the top of a groomed mountainside, and try to make it down to the bottom without killing ourselves.... then there's snowboarding.

The same insane idea, but with a tongue depressor and no poles to even give the misconception of stability! Today, our school took a "snow day" to a local ski resort and in the spirit of trying new things, I strapped a snowboard to my shaky legs and worked my way down the bunny hill repeatedly. It was more like throwing myself down the hill, but the falls became a little more graceful as the day progressed.

I can now say that I've tried snowboarding; and on the final run I managed a couple good turns, and ended with a pleasant back-edge-slow-to-stop instead of the wipe-out-to-stop option I'd been forced to use all day! In return for my day of hard labor at learning a new skill (btw, you can rent snow gear, but not coordination!), I'm now the proud owner of limbs that won't move without complaining violently! The funny thing is, the legs aren't that sore, it's the arms-- each fall equalled a couple mighty push-ups to get me back on my feet again!OOOOWWWWWW!!!!!! Although it was counter to everything my tailbone was telling me, I joined the others in yoga as a finish to the body-thrashing day; I had to sit out a couple of poses, but it was very therapeutic overall.

Tomorrow I'll be heading to Taejon (a couple hours south by bus) with a friend who is having an interview and I'll see a new little piece of Korea after our half-day of concerts and fun to wave good-bye to our first semester. Can you believe it? The school year is half over!

Putting my sore body in bed now... I'll leave the snow sports to others until I can find a bucket of coordination on the black market somewhere!

Instruments of Blessing

James 1:17Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.

When I came to Korea, I had to leave my guitar at home, but for the sake of sanity, I knew I would need to find one for "music therapy" sessions on a regular basis. I also knew that God would provide, but, as always, I just figured that He would provide the way and means to buy one.

Much like the bike that found me, God brought a beautiful guitar to me! Looking back at the bike adventure, I see a toungue-in-cheek faith that My Provider would bring a guitar to me when I needed it... Not only did He prove faithful yet again, but with His own tongue-in-cheek plan, for He gave me friends and a church to share music with, put me in proximity to someone who can find good used instruments, blessed me with funds to buy a guitar, and then handed it over for free!

Maybe it's from being without for so long, maybe it's the confidence that comes from being trusted with a blessing so big, maybe it's just another step in this life-adventure of getting over myself, but the GREAT thing is that I'm not as tentative about playing. Not doing anything grand, but just strumming some worship songs in someone's living room, or picking some folk tunes for a sing-along next door-- there's joy in this blessing and freedom in this gift!

May this instrument-child of His be faithful to use HIS instrument for her Father's ultimate glory!

You Know it's a Monday When...

It's funny how irony and Monday seem to go together. I do clumsy, klutzy things quite often, but lately, the floors of my apartment have been spared the trauma of my butterfingers dropping stuff all over it. For this reason, (and because I'm a lousy housekeeper =) it's been a long time since I really attacked my livingspace with a good mopping.

Yesterday, I did some entertaining at home and it gave me the perfect excuse to get back on top of the clutter and mess that was beginning to close in on me... and I mopped the floor. (If you've read this far, you're wondering where the story is, why I'm inconveniencing so many electrons to write about mopping, and you're looking at your watch-- it gets better, I promise!) One area in front of the refrigerator needed more scrubbing than the rest, but it felt good to have my floors back to their dinged, scuffed, snagged, fake-wood-laminate glory.

After leaving the ice cream out too long, I dropped it on the way to the freezer and all the runny, sticky vanilla yumminess splattered to the floor-- in front of the fridge. While wiping it up, I laughed at my clumsiness and how a carton of ice cream could possibly know that the floor was clean for the first time in a long time.
Now it's a Monday. Eggs sounded good for breakfast... they didn't sound so good as the carton slipped from my fingers and a half dozen splattered to their death-- on the floor in front of the fridge! As I raced the beat the egg-white-dash under the fridge, I had to laugh at Monday's irony-- I also had to cook more eggs than I had planned as they were cracked, but not shattered.

I think that will be my motto for today: cracked, but not destroyed. No use crying over spilled frozen milk or splattered eggs. I think that if we can continue to find the humor in such mundane calamities, then the REAL catastrophes will be easier to handle when they come along too.

So, to all of you a day behind us here in Korea, beware of Monday and get ready to giggle at the ironies... you might want to have a mop handy too!

A little trip through Christmas Vacation:

Something like 500 photos came home with me from Thailand (with enough souveneirs and gifts to require the a new piece of rolly luggage that I needed anyway ). After sorting and editing all these pics, it's hard to have good perspective on which images are most interesting, but I'll let them babble for themselves:

Tour the temple ruins of Ayutaya (former capital of Thailand) and a cultural history performance

Here and there around towns and beaches

The Floating Market is this amazing collection of canals and the small "shops" that manuever through them to sell their food/goods to passersby on foot or on water!