OSU-PNU 2006

This is Min Cheol, a friend of one of my students who has escorted me to the church I wrote about last Sunday. We met again today to attend the service together. He's a student at Pusan National University and has spent some time studying in the States, so his English is quite good.

Last week we didn't make it to the service on time because Min Cheol thought it started at 10:30am when it actually started at 10:00am. Today we made it on time.

The service today was really interesting in that it reflected the vision of the church, which is a strong international missions focus. Today's service included commissioning several missionaries to go to the Phillipines, Cambodia, and Canada.

After the service, I attended one of the fellowship group Bible studies. Since this church is so large, they emphasize the importance of joining a small group. The name of the group I'm now a part of is Living Stones. Today we met at one of the co-leader's apartments. Afterwards we went to a nearby department store that had a food court on the ground floor and had lunch together. This was a great time to get to meet Korean and other expats living in Pusan and attending the church. After having lunch, we went to Starbucks for a drink and more conversation. (For those of you who know I boycott Starbucks, all I had was water.) Again, this was a great time to meet others and find out more about their experiences living and working in Pusan.

I also was able to get some more information about the orphanage ministry this group has just started. Last Sunday was their first activity with children from the orphanage. Members of the group took the children to an indoors playground and just spent time talking and playing with the kids. Next Sunday, we'll be going to the orphanage to play with the kids. I'm really looking forward to this opportunity.