Korean Festival :)

It was awesome!!! :)  The Korean Festival at Kabe Chapel on Friday, July 6th, from 10:30am - 1pm was awesomeness...

It was a lot of hard work.  Hours of meetings, hours of teaching how to prepare the food, hours spent preparing the 50+ slides powerpoint, hours spent preparing my talk in Japanese, hours spent praying about who to invite, opportunities to invite them, and actually inviting people to the event...  Those are just my hours.  A group of ladies from Kabe Chapel's Women's Ministry, especially Junko-san and Chie-san, also spent hours creating the flyer, talking to the other volunteers, doing the grocery shopping, in meetings with Pastor Kitano and the other leaders of the church...

Lots of chopping, lots of batter, lots of frying and flipping, lots of ingredients, and of course, thoughtfully and carefully planned out arranged seating. We wanted everyone to feel comfortable, be able to sit with their friends, and also have a "suitable" church member at each table too.

We started out with a Korean test (pic on left).  You should have heard the ladies gasp when I told them that we were going to take a Korean test! =D  There was absolutely no Japanese on the test sheet.  There were 15 or so words on the test.  They were a mixture of greetings (like 안녕하세요 annyunghaseyo), words that sound the same in both languages (like 기도 gido (pray)), words that often appear in K-drama (like 오빠 obba (older brother)), and words of cultural significance (like 한국 hankook (Korea) and 한복 hanbok (Korean traditional attire) which they call 치마저고리 ㅡㅡ;;; ).  The "test" was a good way to break the ice as they discussed among themselves what the meaning might be based on their previous knowledge and my hints.  It was also a good way for me to share a bit about Korean culture and Korea.  I had fun doing the test and so did all of the ladies.  I'd prepared prizes for the ones that got the highest scores and the ladies that received the Korean seaweed were super happy!  Even when giving out the prizes, I took it as an opportunity to teach the difference between the way Koreans and Japanese people cut their seaweed.  Koreans cut sheets of seaweed vertically (long side) in half first then horizontally.  Japanese people cut it horizontally in half first then lengthwise, so Japanese seaweed ends up being thinner and longer.

After the test Chie-san taught them "You Were Born to be Loved" 당신은 사랑 받기 위해 태어난 사람 in Japanese and then I taught it to them in Korean. I told them that when we sing it in Korean, we usually have our hands extended and we all did it together (pic on right).  That was pretty cool.

I then gave a talk in Japanese.  It was basically the same talk that I'd given at Koyo Chapel's Women's Ministry outreach event a couple of weeks earlier, but it had an important change.  A few days before the Korean Festival, Pastor Kitano called asking to see my manuscript.  I was worried that he was going to change a lot of it and maybe even censor some parts of it.  He edited it and sent it to me on Thursday morning, the day before the event.  There was so way I was going to be able to try to figure out everything that he wrote and practice it too before Friday morning!  I communicated this to him while I was at Kabe Chapel on Thursday, prepping for Friday with the ladies, and he offered to go through the changes with me when I had time.  We did, and I was so happy with the changes!!!  He took out unnecessary parts, made better the parts that he'd left, and added the whole gospel message (JX coming and dying on the cross for our sins...) to my message!  I was on cloud nine!!! :)  He said that if he had been the one giving the talk, he couldn't have included the Good News, but as I'm a foreign missionary, it was acceptable for me to do so.  Cool, right?! :)  I was really encouraged by the things I learned from him that day and really enjoyed the opportunity to work closely with him.

One of the main messages of my talk was that God knew and loved every single one of us even from before birth and has a special plan for us.  After my talk, the Women's Ministry ladies needed a little time to get ready for the cooking demonstration so we sang You Were Born to be Loved again.  I asked them if they believed that they were born to be loved.  Pray that they'll believe it.  That they'll believe in the truth that they were created for a purpose, that they are loved unconditionally, and that God has great plans for each and every one of them.

Chie-san prepared the Seafood Soft Tofu Soup 해물순두부찌게 and Spring Onion-Seafood Pancake 해물파전 while explaining everything in Japanese.  I couldn't have done that part in Japanese.  I answered questions and added bits and pieces now and again.  For the Soft Tofu Soup, I used a pack that's sold in Japanese supermarkets so that it's simple and do-able.  The soup is already ready and you just need to add tofu.  But I taught them how to make a seafood version using the same pack, told them that the non-spicy version sold doesn't taste like any Korean food that I've ever tasted (so don't buy it!), and the reason why the last instruction on the packet doesn't really work.  It says to put in a raw egg after putting the soup in a bowl, but then the egg doesn't cook enough.  It works at Korean restaurants 'cause they give you the soup boiling hot in a stone pot that keeps the soup hot for a long time, long enough for the egg to become soft boiled, but that obviously won't work in a normal bowl.  So I advised them to add the egg to the soup while it's still in the pot, wait a couple of minutes and then serve it.  I can't imagine runny egg in Soft Tofu Soup...  That's just... wrong... :/

So for lunch, everyone had rice, Soft Tofu Soup (with one egg each), and a few side dishes: seafood scallion pancakes, a spicy spinach side dish 매운 시금치 무침 and a non-spicy one 시금치 나물, kimchi, and Korean seaweed.  The most expensive thing was... the kimchi!  It was slightly Japanese-y, but better than most supermarket ones.

It probably turned out to be a bigger event than originally planned, and took a lot more woman-power than originally intended too.  30 were originally signed up to attend the event but as 20 of them were non-Christians, we had to ask for reinforcements. :)  It was the first time that they'd had a 2:1 ratio.  The highest before was 1:1, so this was a big deal.  9 of the non-Christians were moms from the kids' preschool that I'd invited.  2 were from the English classes.  A granddaughter of a church member who's really into K-drama and K-pop became emotional as she was leaving saying how happy she was to have been able to come.  Please pray for the 20 non-Christians that came that day, that along with their tummies and curiosity re Korean culture and language being filled, that their minds, hearts, and souls were touched in some way too.  Pray that they'll come out to more events too!

One of the moms of Juhee's preschool that came is actually a close friend of Junko-san and she brought her daughter to the next Kids' English Club.  That was pretty cool. :)

It was a LOT of work for a LOT of people, especially as it was the first time for everyone...  First Korean Festival, first big meal including lots of food that needs to be hot when served, first time there were so many not yet believers attending...  But it was a bigger blessing than anyone had imagined.

Thank you God for being there, for taking care of all of the details, for being our strength.  I'm going to end this long (sorry!) blog post with the verse that He gave me that morning: But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.  Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. (2 Corinthians 12:9)

Amen. :)