Preaching & Bread

Emily & I both preached today, I at our home church and Emily at a church in Mokpo. Both sermons went well, though I had one lady ask why I didn't finish all of my prayers with "In Jesus' name, Amen." Apparently, in Korea, they always end their prayers that way. I told her it was a cultural thing and we didn't always finish prayers that way. She wasn't too sure about my answer, and so I said I would try to remember that in the future, which made her a lot happier. In the end, it's not really a big deal either way. Hopefully she got more out of the sermon than that.

We then hopped on a train and went out to the church where Emily would preach. In order to not be late, we have to arrive about 90 minutes early what with the train schedule and all. The worship team was practicing when we got there and there were a few other people that were also there early. One lady wanted to take Emily and I hiking up a mountain for 10 minutes before church started (translate: no less than 45 minutes, in my opinion). Instead, we settled on going "out for bread." Koreans are convinced that all foreigners love bread and, compared to their regular diet, it's true.

However, Korean bakeries often leave something to be desired. Worse still is when they include something that was never desired. The most common surprise fillings are red bean paste and sweet potato paste. In addition, every bread is white and every baked good is sweet, even garlic bread and other non-sweet things. In short, going out for bread was a little intimidating. We said yes, however, and to the bakery we went.

We got some sort of round thing that was supposed to be an apple type bread, cream cheese baguette and fig yogurt for drinking. We went to the little sitting area (convenience stores and bakeries alike almost all have an area for you to sit and eat your stuff, 7-11 included) and we ate. The stuff was all much better than we feared and we had a nice chat.

We went back to the church and Emily preached her sermon marvelously. I was very proud of her and it went really well - rebuke free, even. The people at the Mokpo church are amazing - they're all so kind and there's a wonderful feeling of community there. Everybody just seems to care and want to engage with you. If I had to guess, that feeling increases inversely proportional (love that phrase!) to the size of the church. Bigger the church, less the attitude of universal caring. In that way, small churches are amazing.

We got back on the train and I finished up my lesson for tomorrow and then just enjoyed the ride. Our apartment was a bit of a mess when we got home so we cleaned it up, I made ham/egg/cheese bagels for a snack, finished my lesson on the computer and Emily packed up all our meat from Costco yesterday and put it in the freezer. Portioning is the best.

All in all, a grand weekend though busy and tiring. Hopefully I'll get a day off this week because of tests! It's been almost two weeks since my last holiday, so I think I deserve one now. Otherwise, I'll have to wait until next week when we get the Wednesday off because of the federal election. (Good idea, no? Statutory holiday for election day. I like!)

Mmm... holiday.