Sunday in Korea

Barton here. As Irene mentioned Saturday we went to the DMZ and saw one of the most divided places on the planet. It’s amazing to me how fractured a single small country could become—especially after so much fighting against other countries. Located between China and Japan, the Koreans have an old saying… “When whales fight, the shrimp gets hurt.” Korea has often been a stepping stone as one of these countries has warred with the other--we heard recently that in it’s over 4000 year history Korea has been invaded over 1000 times. Hard to imagine.

In contrast, yesterday we visited one of the most unified places on the planet—the largest church in the world, Yoido Full Gospel Church. Started by “David” Yonggi Cho and his mother-in-law after the Korean war, the church now has over 850,000 members world-wide. Tyler, Irene and I sat in the 11:00 service (one of 7 each Sunday) with over 10,000 people in each. Each service is translated in at least 10 languages with satellite feeds to over 140 sites around S. Korea and many more worldwide. It’s pretty amazing to experience. Here we are, halfway around the world, but reading the same Bible verses, singing the same hymns, hearing the same promise of salvation. In such a large church, closeness is created in small “cell” groups that meet in people’s homes. They gather together regularly and pray, study scripture and carry each other’s burdens. After the service we went to a briefing for first-time visitors. It was held in a different building, so we followed one of the church volunteers a couple blocks. He carried a large sign above his head that said “Foreigner Briefing” THE ENTIRE TIME. I couldn’t help but picture the same scene in downtown Chicago. Since the church has been there so long, it must be a very common sight, but it made us laugh.

There’s a fascinating place the church has built called Prayer Mountain. 14 times a day, free shuttles are available to take anyone to the mountain to pray. It’s located 6 miles from the DMZ and the loudspeakers from North Korea that broadcast Communist propaganda can easily be heard by those praying on the mountain. 3000 Christians pray or fast there every single day around the clock.

The briefing took a little longer than we thought, and we had a pretty long subway ride back to the hotel so we got lunch around the corner from the church. Tyler and I convinced Irene that we could eat one non-Korean meal this week, so we ate pizza and Spaghetti. Tyler got a seafood version and you should have seen the look on his face when it was served. Whole crabs, muscles, squid—shells and all. It was pretty comical watching him try to tell the difference between the pasta noodles and the calamari.

Afterward we walked through Yeouido Park on the way back to the subway. Other than the incredibly pungent smell of street vendors cooking silk worms, it’s a beautiful place. Families and little kids everywhere on bicycles and scooters. Irene has always been drawn to Asian kids and I thought Tyler and I would have to drag her out of there. Tyler started saying things like, “Look over there, Mom. There’s a little Korean girl. You’ve never seen one of those before.” I reminded her a couple times, “Uhh, honey…. I know she’s cute, but that one has a mommy—see, she’s right there staring at you and moving a little closer to her daughter. All of these you see belong to someone already.”

Irene and Tyler and have abandoned me to get breakfast, so I’m heading down to join them. As you’d expect, we’re very excited to meet Alayna in a few hours. It’s hard to believe this day is finally here. Irene’s been nesting all morning (since about 4AM). She’s remarkably calm (not) and we’ll be sure to update you on how the visit goes—10:30PM CST for all of you back home. Thank you for all your prayers. We're doing great. --Barton