These Hilarious Old People!

SO...
Marisa has been too sleepy to have me update her blog, but I just had to share some stories about these people in the rehab center!

So Marisa's roommate here is named Nanay which just means mother in Tagalog. She's Chinese Filipino..but her Tagalog is kind of broken according to most of the nurses here, and she can't speak English (A lot of them are Filipino which my dad has just loved since he can speak Tagalog to them and we get some free Filipino food!)

So anyways, everyone here calls her the Queen...for a few obvious reasons.
1) She assumes everyone here is her servant. For example: my dad made eye contact with her the other day and she called him servant boy and asked him to clean up the water on the floor. Then today I said "Kamusta po?" which is how are you to an elder, and then she said "Ayaw ko" which is like I don't want this or I don't like this and she was referring to her food, and asked me to get her something else!
2) She has to have her light on at night..gets super mad if you turn it off...and if you turn her tv volume down she freaks out!
3) she has this hilarious huge smile and kind of tilts her head back like she's a queen...its kind of cute actually.

Anyways, we're not that annoyed with her, its just really funny to us since every time we're nice or friendly, she assumes we want to do something for her..which i don't mind, but I do draw the line at changing her diaper! ;) And I'm enjoying practicing some Tagalog! Its so funny because when we ask the nurses to do something that she's asked us to do, a lot of the time they just take her out of the room since she might be trying to be difficult and not cooperate like with the TV and light.

There's this other lady who is just awesome. She has hearing problems and alzheimers. So she uses this wheelchair type thing and just roams the halls all day yelling "hi hi!" and she always wears pink and is super tiny. One day she yelled "hi hi!" to me because Marisa's door was open and I was sitting there. Well, Marisa was asleep so I put my fingers to my lips and said "shh!" and smiled at her. THEN (and this is the best part..dont think ill forget this face for the rest of my life) she got this evil scary movie look on her face and yelled "BYE BYE!" and it literally woke Marisa up and we both just started dying of laughter. it was awesome. and now we tell everyone about it when they come to visit and happen to see that lady. she's my favorite :)

Everyone is really nice here. A lot of the nurses say that Marisa is their favorite patient! For some reason, maybe its because of the angle with Marisa laying down or maybe its the boot that makes her taller, but they all think she's the oldest! And most of the Filipina women say how beautiful we are, and try to feed us everything under the sun (but it is a nursing home so the food isnt that great!) just because they think we're all too skinny. Overall, this is definitely an interesting experience and I think I'm going to miss these ladies! We might need to visit often :)

The End...A Little Sooner Than Expected

Well everyone, I am headed home on Friday. The parents of my students come tomorrow for an Ending Celebration, and then the kiddos leave. I had planned to stay until August 18, but due to family circumstances we all decided I should return home earlier. Yesterday my sister was in a three vehicle crash on her way to training camp for Cross Country down at CBU. Here's a link that explains some of it http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/08/10/california.collision/index.html

She is now in the hospital in Riverside, had surgery today on her broken femur, and a fracture in her fibula or tibia (I just know it was her "lower leg". She has a metal rod from right below her hip to right above her knee, but didn't need any pins in her ankle which is aweosme. She will probably be in the hospital for two or three more days. My parents are both down there with her, along with a bunch of my friends, coworkers, and people from my church in Riverside who have all been visiting on and off. You guys can be praying for her and everyone else involved in the situation. Obviously it was a big enough deal to make the news on CNN.

Today my students all wrote letters to my sister. It was so amazing to see a different side of them, and it was definitely something that I needed to see. One class spent thirty minutes of their time, were all completely silent, and had their American dictionaries and Bibles open. They handed me pieces of paper filled with words of encouragement, love, humor, wisdom, and a little info about Korea. The next class spent almost an hour and they filled their letters with the same things, but also wrote me letters as well. They requested that I waited and read the letters to my sister, and corrected any grammar so they wouldn't feel embarrassed. Some kids even bought Korean snacks to give to her at the hospital since "she must miss real food"...although I don't know how comforting Korean food will be, I'm sure its the thought that counts :) One of my girls, named Kate had some positive words to make me feel better. She said "Teacher, I know you're sad you can't go to Lotte World (Korean theme park) but your sister really needs you right now. And when she's all better, you can take her to Disneyland which is better than Lotte World! But teacher?" and i said "what kate (while kinda crying)" "Can you bring your sister to Korea when she's well again? I want to meet the girl we all prayed for...the girl that you love so much that it made you cry really loud and made you not smile for a long time. You smile so much usually so this is serious isn't it?" I told her "yeah Kate this is kind of serious" and she goes "Well, at least she's not dead right? Because when you cried so much, I thought she was dead."...there's not really much else I wanted to say. Except that God is awesome, and He has a great plan that none of us can see yet. pray pray pray!

Unexpected Diet

FOOD FOOD FOOD FOOD.

This is something that we are all constantly thinking about here. When I wake up in the morning, starving, I dread going to breakfast. Why? Because I'm about to eat white rice (I calculated, and I eat rice 21 times a week. Awesome.), chicken broth, kim chi, and maybe chocolate cereal.

Then for lunch I'm going to have white rice, some sort of soup, sometimes with fish, some sort of meat: fish or chicken, kim chi, and then other things that I cannot even possibly describe. At least one thing will be so spicy that your nose will run, or sometimes make your eyes water.

For dinner I'll have the same type of thing that I had for lunch. The biggest problem here is that you can't drink water during the meal, so if it tastes gross, too bad. The other problem is that the fish tastes like it just jumped out of the ocean. There is a cafe and a store on campus, but thats like going into a land mine. Our students, whose parents are sometimes twice as rich as my own parents, always ask for us to buy them candy, ice cream, and drinks. I've told them over and over that I'm a poor college student, but they don't seem to get it!

I'm really not trying to complain, or dwell on the whole food issue. Its just that my students spend their day asking me about food such as pizza, mcdonalds, macaroni and cheese, cheese in general, pasta, and taco bell. In the classroom sometimes I joke and say "what did you say? crunch wrap supreme?" "Huh? Cheese? Where?" and while I'm joking, I really do randomly think I hear them talking about food. And sometimes they are. At the dinner table they will say, "is this as good as a hamburger?" and I just can't lie to them, so I say "Well, they are good in different ways...." and for different people...Koreans really really love Korean food, and really really don't! Besides ramen :)

Jesus was in the room tonight!

Tonight we had a worship service instead of the usual study hall. It was definitely a welcomed change, and we prayed that the students would feel closer to God, and to us as well. We had the opportunity to pray over each student individually. It took about an hour to pray over each of my 39 students, but it was worth it in so many ways. First of all, God gave me a deeper love as I prayed for each kid, even the ones I have had conflict with. Secondly, the kids could see how much we love them, but more importantly how much God loves them. There were quite a few tears, which is VERY unlike the Korean culture. Even a few boys were crying. Since this school is an expensive school, many of the students are not actually Christians. While I prayed rapidly in English (Koreans pray quickly and loudly), I hoped that they would somehow understand what I was saying. For most of them I just prayed that God would protect them from evil, make them leaders, use their talents, and just guide them. I kept praying over and over for protection. I don't really know why, but many people have mentioned that they feel like there is a lot of spiritual warfare here at GVCS. I have seen it in the way my students fall asleep every day, constantly get hurt or ill, and more. After the service was over, two boys accepted Christ which was seriously so amazing to see. I've led people to Christ before, but there is nothing like spending 8 hours a day with a kid for three weeks, praying for him every day, and then seeing God work miracles in him all in one hour. I am still in awe of what God has done here tonight. Please be praying for strength and wisdom and steadfastness for these two students who made public confessions of faith, and for other students who are either still thinking about it, or just need a little spiritual encouragement.

LOVE

I've been trying to teach my students about love lately. They are very good at saying "I love you" whenever they want something, or whenever they are trying to apologize. I had a talk with them about how much I love them, but how they are not showing love in return by their actions. They keep being really disrespectful, and then saying sorry...and...I can't believe I'm saying this, but I told them "Sorry doesn't always cut it." Yeah, I definitely have been quoting my mother! :) Last week I even cried in class and told them that I'm saddened by their actions toward me and each other. It was kind of funny because that day they learned the word "weep" and so a few of the boys came up to me after class and said "Teachah weep?". I have been told that Korean teachers only show anger, never sadness, so although to me it was a sign of weakness, to them it shows them how much I really care about them.

Its now halfway through the third week and some of the girls are finally holding my hand and hugging me. One girl even gave me a back massage on the weekend. We only have one week left of class and I am already thinking about the end, and how much I am going to miss them. They keep asking me to be their teacher during the school year.

Something that is very interesting is how obsessed they all are with couples, yet they do not understand what love it. They focus on money, and education, rather than true love, between a husband and a wife, but more importantly with God. As I've talked to them about love and acceptance of others, I've been stressing that only God's love is perfect and pure. I found out that however many rings you wear on your fingers, is how many boyfriends you have. So they keep guessing who my three boyfriends are! And when I tell them that I don't have a boyfriend, they mention a cousin or uncle of theirs that might be available.

You can be praying for my girls here. As we've gotten closer they have opened up about how they think that I am beautiful. Every day I hear how they would love to have my curly brown hair, my green eyes, my nose, and the shape of my eyes. I keep reminding them that God created us all different for a reason and this world would be boring if we all looked the same. I have also been mentioning their features that I think are beautiful. I know this is the age where girls and boys are insecure, but this is like nothing I have ever seen. It is so sad to see that they want to change EVERYTHING about how they look. I've come to the point where I'm going to start copying my mom again and say that it hurts God feelings when I say I don't like how I look, since He made me to be beautiful and in His Image.

Also, my feelings have been hurt a little bit by the Korean bluntness. Kids have said that they think my freckles are ugly...so again I repeated a family member (my grandma I think) and said my freckles are angels kisses...but they didn't go for that. They asked if I could get them removed, and when I said no, they asked how many I have, and proceeded to count over 75. Then they estimated how many were on the parts of my body that they couldn't see! The girls also say "Oh teachah, no makeups today?" It feels like I am being constantly watched and scrutinized, even judged. Pray that I will not take it personally or close off my heart because I am being hurt by their comments about my appearance, and their actions related to school issues.

Lastly, please pray for my leaders, and that we would continue to have respect for them. They have been making some decisions that many of us do not agree with, and it makes it even more difficult having my peers be my leaders. One has been really selfish, and left us to fend for ourselves and find our way home from the city on the weekend, simply because she wanted to stay and shop longer. Also, some disciplinary things such as certain teachers, not even in my camp, going against the rules and giving kids candy when they are being punished or something. In that area, I'm really afraid of it showing my students that they do not need to respect authority, or even that what they did really wasn't that bad. Pray that I could be patient and keep my mouth shut when I need to :)