One year ago I was on Korea Air flight 34 out of Atlanta winging it at 35,000 feet. I thought it was somewhat incredible that a two engine jet liner could fly 14,000 miles in no time at all. A GPS tracked our flight over the United States, Canada, the Bering Straight, Russia and the East Sea, until we landed at Incheon International Airport, sometime around 1700 hours.
One in-flight movie was a Korean drama about a police officer investigating a suicide. I slept through Lindsey Lohan's film with Herbie the Love Bug. I slept through Bewitched. I didn't pay that much attention to the remake of The Longest Yard with Adam Sandler and Burt Reynolds. I wanted to focus on other things.
My first flight was from Huntington, West Virgina to Cincinnati, Ohio. On take-off I simply said in prayer, God, I trust You. I trust you, I trust you, I trust you.
From Cincinnati to Atlanta, I looked out the window the whole time, admiring the beauty that is so overlooked and underappreciated at ground level.
Atlanta to Seoul was the flight to deep serious. It was firmly entrenched in my mind that I was to be a missionary teacher of English. What would it be like? Would I meet the right girl. Where would I go? What would I do and see and experience in this land I only knew from watching M*A*S*H reruns?
So many people have come along in this first year. The staff at SDALI who ran orientation were passionate about the work. The people in my group had a variety of reasons for coming. We laughed, we snored, we accepted the call to do the job assigned to us.
Daebang is my first school assignment. Nervous on day one. Check the role, read the book, watch the clock, enjoy the conversation. Wait for students to complete their own orientation. Enjoy the day. Thank You, God, for bringing me to Korea. I don't know how often I've said that since I arrived.
Visit Doeksugung, shop at E-Mart, get lost on the way to Jonggak, get help and learn more about the subway system. Shop Itaewon. Costco. Enjoy the beauty of the day. Enjoy the beauty of the night sky lit up by Trump World Two on Yeouido. Fall asleep and wake up to the highway noises of Olympic Parkway in full swing. It never stops.
Christmas hustle. Christmas bustle. It's all the same.
Visit Namdaemun before sundown as the year ends. The gate is incredible, and with four megapixels at my disposal I photograph Korea's national treasure no. 1. I walk to Cheonggyecheon and enjoy the amateur fireworks. Christmas music fills the night with something special, as the new year whispers its way onto the calander. Each firecracker prepares the way for 2006.
Everything blooms in its time. More students come along. Friendships are made. Some last longer than I expected. Other people disappear. Were they really there? The role sheet says yes, but I wonder...
Cool spring gives way to yellow dust. Yellow dust gives up to clear days. Clear days of summer drown in the muddy Hangang during rainy season. It's over before its begun. Then it rains again...
So much to see. So much to hear. So much to experience.
So many souls to save. I see 12 million people and wonder at it all. Thank you, God, for bringing me to Korea.
I am in awe that I am here at all. I thought I would die in a dead-end town somewhere next to nowhere, which is next to Kentucky, if you read the right map.
Do the drills. Take the tests. Grade the scores. New students and returning students and another Thank you, God for bringing me to Korea...
Cold snap following the rains. Day 360 and I'm preparing the end of the term and for a move to the mountains and lakes and rivers of Chuncheon. I'm not ready to leave. Some leave for home and will return. Others will leave forever. On this day 365 of my arrival, I see how the world has turned. One nuke after another, the world keeps spinning and with phlegmatic grace I stare at a computer screen and think of 40,000 artillery pieces and a handful of nukes and all I can say is Thank You God for bringing me to Korea. Thank You God for letting me stay one more year.
Hallelujah
Amen
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