Goodbye Korea

Today is our last day in Korea. We spent the day in a community center that serves Seniors, children, and adults with disabilities in a number of ways.

For senior citizens, they provide lunch, either in the cafeteria or in their home; they offer classes in computers,  yoga, traditional dance, even job training. The center operates a beauty job and coffee job operated by senior citizens in training.

The center offers job training, social skills classes, counselling, and activities for adults with mental and emotional problems.
It has a preschool and after school programs for children.


 Our group was divided into small groups. Libby, Abby, and I got to deliver meals. We walked a few blocks to a high rise apartment building and took meals to 5 households.

 

After lunch, we cooked for a birthday party; chicken nuggets in a green salad, fried shrimp, and little pizzas on toast. 

Finally, we helped with the after school program. We made halloween hats with the children.

   This evening, we went to stage show, a sort of blue-man group in a kitchen setting, but not painted blue...extremely funny and entertaining, and we ended with a farewell dinner at a very nice Chinese restaurant.
 

Korea Trip; Wednesday

Wednesday started with a special ceremonial time. The Korean people are a very formal people who like ceremony. There are many social norms that we are expected to follow; call adults by their last name with the title Mr, Mrs, Dr, etc., bow when greeting another adult, give a small gift to everyone who helps you in any way, show a lot of respect to those in leadership. Wednesday morning we were honored to have a meeting with the Director of Eastern Welfare Society.
The organization was started in 1972 by a Dr. Kim, a Christian refugee from North Korea who loved children and was concerned about the welfare of the many orphans. He passed away just a few years ago, and his daughter is now the director, who is also Dr. Kim. On Wednesday morning, we gathered in the chapel of the Eastern Welfare building which houses the baby nursery, the baby clinic, Eastern offices, and the Eastern guest house we are staying in. First an assistant came and spoke, then showed us a video about the history of Eastern, then took us on a tour of the building. Then we sat together in family groups. Dr Kim came in and spoke about the organization and her father's heart in starting it and running it for so many years. After that, she went to each family group and gave each us us small gift. When she completed that and returned to the front, each of us went to her as a family group and gave a cash donation to her for Eastern, and a donation of goods that Eastern could use for their work.
Libby had an envelope with cash. I had a bag with Tshirts and socks that would be useful for the disabled children who are in their care  in one of their homes. We were told to hold our gifts with two hands when we gave it to her, and bow. This kind of behavior is quite strange to casual, informal Americans, but it was a very nice time. We then had a formal lunch in the Eastern cafeteria.
In the afternoon, we broke into two groups. Libby went to the nursery to hold babies. I went to the home for single mom's which is next door to help out. I spend the next three hours sitting on the floor holding a 6 day old baby. I don't know why that was needed, but I sure enjoyed it.

 Then, we gathered in the Cafeteria with the single expectant mom's, and some who are parenting their children and are still living in the home. The social worker had planned an ice-breaker "bingo" game that was difficult to explain and caused a lot of confusion, but in the end was fun. THEN we worked together on a craft. We could NOT understand what we were supposed to do. After 20 minutes of explanation, we finally possibly understood. We were to use construction paper to create a tree, put trees and flowers on it, then make "fruit" with our names, ages, our "babies" age, our wish for ourselves and our wish for them????

 This is the tree we made.After making the trees, we were supposed to work together to make a spaghetti dinner. I can't describe the confusion and chaos that came from that. We did finally get dinner made and ate.

The purpose of all this was to help us all connect, but connecting young single expectant Korean women and a group of middle age American's was pretty hard. The fact that we could not communicate at all made it impossible.
This whole trip seems to be more of a cultural bridge building trip than anything else. Libby and I have decided that we just have to accept that fact, call it what it is, and not be disappointed about the shortage of true ministry.

I sure didn't expect THIS

Monday morning, we loaded up in a bus and drove 5 hours to a resort in southern Korea. A province (I won't even try the name) had invited all of our group, plus a number of domestic adoptive families to a special event.

The idea was to connect American adoptive families and Korean adoptive families to promote adoption in Korea, where it is still not well accepted. 

Imagine 100 adults and 100 or so children, many of them toddlers wearing "squeaker shoes" in a large ballroom, a speaker speaking Korean with English translation. It was chaos. Eventually, we broke into small groups to discuss issues that we face in adoption. Each group had 2 Americans. Libby and I had a very sweet translator who was so moved by the adoption stories of the Korean parents that she was not able to translate. She said she would tell us later. The only issue they discussed was when and if to tell their children they were adopted. We don't have that issue, because it is usually obvious that our Korean children have been adopted into Caucasian American families. We did tell the group that the practice in America is to tell children they are adopted at a very early age, even if they look very much like their parents. In Korea, adoption is still not well accepted, and adopted children are often teased and shamed. 

After the group meeting, we had a very nice dinner, then we went back to the ballroom and were dressed in the traditional Korean Hanbocks, and were taught how to bow. 

 After that, we went to our suites. Before you look at the pictures, I have to tell you that the province paid all the expenses for this conference.  

This is the view from our balcony

 

 This is our living room. 
This place was beautiful, 
not anything we expected. 

The next day, we continued the conference, then we visited a home for single pregnant women that is owned by Eastern Welfare Society. We cooked lunch together (that was the plan, but the women did most of the cooking.) Then we cleaned the living room and the teaching areas and balcony. I am sure that they only let us do that to give us something to do. 

We took a train back to Seoul, had pizza, and called it a night.

Pictures from the Children's Home

Sunday we played with children at a home children's home nearby ( for details see previous post). Thanks to Libby, I now have some pictures. 

Here we are arriving at the school.

 This is one of the outside play areas.

 A very well equipped play therapy room.

 A beautiful library.

An indoor play area next to the library.

 The balcony of one of the dorm rooms.

 Another outdoor play area.

 Here we are with the director of the home.

 A few of the children.

Abby painted faces.

 We did some crafts.

We had a break and the students danced. They did a dance from a video of a Korean singer that is all over youtube.
Even the little ones joined in. The little girl with girly hair really got into it. She did all of the steps just like the big kids. Later in the day, someone started the song, and she stopped what she was doing and started to dance all by herself.

Korea Trip Day Two

Day two was Sunday, so of course, we started the day by attending a church service. We went to a 25,000 member Presbyterian church in Seoul.
I have often heard that Korean Christians are very serious and intense, and the few I have known have been. Worshiping today proved it to be true. Since it was a Presbyterian church, it was a formal service. The music was magnificent, with a wonderful choir and small orchestra. There were several times of prayer. A church elder prayed early in the service for several minutes. He prayed strongly for the nation, especially for the Christians of Korea, that they would be leaders in their nation, and their nation would be a leader in the world, to be an example, to be an influence for peace and unity.
After the service, we were given a tour of their building, then we met with the International Ministry of the church for coffee and cookies. We were treated like celebrities or dignitaries. Even the soloist from the choir came and repeated his solo for us.

We spent the afternoon at a children's home. Seventy children live in the home, plus 30 teenagers who live in a separate building. Some are orphans, but most have at least one parent living. The children are in the home because their parents cannot take care of them due to poverty or illness. The facility was very nice, extremely clean and well maintained. The director said that it is the best children's home in Korea! It probably is. They had a beautiful library, with an indoor play area next to it, a computer room, and very nice dorm suites. They have 12 children per suite, with one adult. Each suite has two sleeping rooms, a bath, a large living, play area, and kitchenette; no furniture. The children sleep on mats that are stored during the day.
Everything about the home was good. It was well equipped and supplied, and the director obviously loved the children and made every effort to provide for them well. Even so, it is so sad that these children cannot be in homes with parents.
After we toured the home, we broke into small groups to play with the children, do crafts, and a simple English lesson. The children's ages ranged from 2 years to 12, with some teenagers helping us. One little boy broke my heart. He is 2 years old, and was abandoned by his mother. He cannot be adopted because since 1988 Korean law requires parents to relinquish parental rights in writing before a child can be adopted. Because the little boy was abandoned and the parents cannot be found, there is no way to get the proper paperwork done. So, this precious, beautiful, little boy will spend the next 16 years or so in this group home.
I don't have pictures from this afternoon, because I was too busy to take any! I will get some from Libby soon.

Day One Continued

After spending the morning holding babies, we had an unexpected treat. A group of domestic adoptees were practicing for a Christmas program and invited us to watch the practice, which was delightful.

In the afternoon, we visited the old emporer's palace, which is 1000 years old. We toured in small groups, with local middle school students as our guides. 

One of the huge things I have enjoyed about this trip is getting to know the other group members. There are 4 young adoptees, plus a biological son in the group.  They have already bonded and are really enjoying being together 

Everyone else is either an adult adoptee or adoptive parents, and one other adoptive grandmother. I am enjoying getting to know them and hearing all their stories.