Lunch is Served: Jjajang Sauce on Rice

At our home church in Milpitas, CA, lunch is served every Sunday for a fee of $2 to any of the 2,000+ members that come through the doors each week. The fee actually goes to support missions (not sure if it still does..?) and isn't to cover costs. Sunday School classes take turns serving in the kitchen and dining area to prepare, serve lunch, and clean up.

As for our churches here in Hiroshima, Koyo Chapel is the biggest and serves lunch for $3-$5 once every few months. They used to eat lunch together more frequently when they first started out, but they say it's too difficult now because of its size. Lunch is made in the church kitchen by a few of the ladies and most people usually eat downstairs. Once or twice a year, they host a big lunch including members of Kabe Chapel (and now Asaminami Chapel too) and people eat upstairs and downstairs.

At Kabe Chapel, every 2nd and 3rd Sundays are lunch Sundays. Lunch is made in the church kitchen and served after service. They clear out the folding chairs in the main chapel, bring out the table tennis tables, cover them with tablecloth, and pull up chairs. Transformation complete.

At Asaminami Chapel, things are still changing, but for the most part during the past six months, every Sunday except for the first has been a lunch Sunday. I think the third Sunday has been the once-a-month obento Sunday when most people eat obentos ordered by the church. Some bring their own homemade ones. On the other Sundays, members have been taking turns preparing lunch for everyone, about 25 people including kids.

So far, our Pioneers Hiroshima Team has served lunch twice. Here are some pics from our latest:

Jess chopped a~ll of the onions + more veg. She's our onion queen. Scott chopped lots of veg and chicken too.

Peter was on kids duty. It really helped that the kids weren't in the house while there was so much chopping and boiling going on! Peter actually ended up making a friend at the park that he took the kids to too. :)

Jess with some of the Asaminami Chapel members.

 The picture that Peter was taking in the photo above.

The final product: jjajang sauce over rice (짜장밥 or 자장밥 as they say now... so awkward...:/) with sliced cucumbers on top, kimchi, and pickled radish. The jjajang sauce and kimchi were brought over from the U.S. (thank you Jess and Jess's mom!!!).  

All of the kimchi was eaten but we had tons of pickled radish left over. We made the same sauce a few months ago and it was much better the first time around. Wasn't so good this time... :( But it was still nice to be able to serve the church in this way, especially as Scott was here to help out this time too. It was a super busy Saturday - Koyo Chapel Kids' English Club in the morning, quick lunch at home and nap kids, Scott & Jess arrive to help prep jjajang sauce, etc for lunch the next day, eat dinner together, clean up, kids and I stay home and prepare for bedtime while the rest go to Asaminami Chapel for our first ever English Cafe. It was crazy, but we did it! :)

I can't think of any other Korean dishes that are simple like this. Usually the church meals tend to be rice with some sort of curry or sauce or a few toppings on top. Maybe we'll do something American next time..? Any suggestions?