Update

Rebecca is back in the states right now. When she comes back on Monday, she will have been gone for 10 days, the most we've been apart since my road trip 3 years ago, and definitely the most since we've been married. The purpose of her trip was to be able to spend time with her grandpa. He's 84 and is well along in years. His mind is sharp, but his body is failing. So rather than go home for a funeral, she chose to go spend time with him and the rest of our family for a bit. When i talked to her a couple days ago (God bless you, skype!), she was doing well. She said it had been really hard to leave. She had stayed the longest of anyone else, and it was almost as if his energy fluctuated in accordance with how many people were there. Imagine saying goodbye to someone you won't see on this earth again. That's possibly what she was doing. Please pray for Blackie McFall, that his quality of life will be good until its end.

It's hard to follow such a somber subject. I'm missing Rebs a lot right now. I have a small amount of anxiety that keeps me from always being able to read my body. For example, I didn't feel tired last night while I stayed up packing for climbing this weekend and watching a movie. When I finished packing, I sat down to watch the movie a bit longer. I felt tired, but not sleepy. Then I looked at the clock and realized it was after 1 a.m. But I didn't feel tired yet, so I decided to stay up and watch the rest of it. I didn't go to bed until 2, but by then my heart rate had risen and I was a little bit shaky. Even when I laid down, I didn't feel sleepy, but I knew my body needed rest. It's as if my mind is battling my body. The effects of separating the one body of marriage.

I went to feed the homeless on Wednesday night. It was a new experience. I remember going with my family and church friends downtown to feed the homeless when I was little and it was always a little scary because of the environment. But I didn't feel scared this time. I feel like God has shown me His heart through this. Rather than seeing the dirty, smelly, aged-beyond-their-years people that they are, I saw a society in need. They were people no different than anyone else. Our jobs were relatively simple. We helped carry hot water and tables and things downstairs to a small, circular pavilion-like area in the subway station. Then we put aprons on showing we were workers, bowed to each other and to the crowd (the leaders of this thing are Buddhist), and then got to work filling paper cups with instant coffee and hot water. They also handed out triangular rice cake things that could easily sit in one hand. This was their dinner. Everything was passed out on trays rather than going through a line, which was to keep the people from feeling like they were lower.
Pride is a big thing in Korea. One of my friends told me that they were once trying to donate money to the head guy before they left and mistook one of the homeless men for the worker and tried to give him their money. The guy wouldn't take it. He instead pointed them in the right direction. In America, people seem more willing to take handouts. And if they get them often enough, they begin to expect them.
Something about the way the Korean government works. If you don't have family in Korea, you can expect for your life to be very difficult. Many Korean people live with their parents until they get married. The average age to get married for men is in their early 30s, and women in their late 20s. One of the reasons for this is because housing costs are outrageous. So if you don't get along with your family or you lose your family, your life is expected to be difficult. The second part of all this is that the government does very little to help people who are homeless. There are orphanage-like places where parents take their kids if they can't afford to give them proper care. But as far as adult programs, my understanding is that the government's welfare program consists of giving a homeless person the equivalent of $30 a month to live off of. There are no programs to get people back on their feet, get them educated, even get them a shower. And if a dirty, smelly, Korean came into a gym wanting to pay money to take a shower, I wouldn't be surprised if they were turned away for the sake of "saving face" and not scaring off the other customers. It's a really sad thing. So as I poor coffee, I can't help but wonder, isn't there more that can be done?
In the past, I think I knew that there was a lot not being done. So my way of dealing with it was ignorance. If I didn't involve myself, then I wouldn't know. And not knowing sometimes seems better than realizing an ugly truth. Because when we see an ugly truth, we feel an urge to do something. And that means that we have to give up some of our precious time or money. And ignorance is often-times pretty comfortable.
My challenge to anyone reading this is to open your eyes to those around you who are the lowest of the low. How do you treat them? How does your culture treat them? What changes need to be made, and what are you willing and able to do to make those changes happen?

My birthday was last week, and it turned out to be a really good week. On my birthday, Rebs and I went out to eat at a cool little place in Itaewon, called Sid & Mel's. That's Austrailan short for Sydney and Melbourne. Rebs got the fish and chips and I got a tasty burger. Then, after eating half our meals, I remembered that I had seen a Cold Stone across the street when we came out of the subway. So we bagged the rest of our dinner and enjoyed some nice dessert. It was a simple birthday for simply turning 26.

Then on Friday, we had sent out an email earlier that week to meet up with people that night. So around 8pm, we went to a cool little Italian place called Di Matteo's. The prices were fair, but when we got our food, wow! There was so much cheese! I ordered lasagna and had trouble finding where the noodles were because there had to have been a pound of cheese melted on top of it.

It's hard to write about the experience in a way that can accentuate the goodness of it. It wasn't the food, or necessarily just the atmosphere, but just a really dynamic group of people. We ended up staying until the waitress came over and told us that they were closing. Our conversations were just fun and funny and interesting. It was a Brit, a few Americans, and a few Kiwi's (New Zealanders).
On our way out, we were talking about where to go next because we wanted to find a good jazz bar to hang out at, and one person suggested Jazz Story, which happened to be a place that our friend Luke had been looking for online for some time. So the rest of us gladly obliged. Jazz story turned out to be this awesome atmosphere, though there was a cover charge and slightly pricey drinks. The owner had renovated the building to look sort of rustic/woodsy. The windows were made with rebarb and glass in the shape of an eye. Our table was a 4 inch solid wood lathe table with the lathe still attached at the end. But again, our company couldn't have been better. We stayed until close to 2 in the morning, talking, hanging out, and one of our friends who is a musician went to talk with the owner about playing sometime and the owner suggested that he play then. So he jammed for about 20 minutes before we left. It was just a really good night.

Next time, I'll have to bring the camera and get pictures.

For those of you who haven't seen Rebs' facebook albums, here's a picture of our elephant ride in Thailand.