Some Interesting Things...

So, some very interesting things have been happening to me while in Korea... I'm not sure if being a foreigner here makes me an easy target for these sorts of incidents or if I'm just lucky, but allow me to share a few of these moments with you...

One day, I was in Gwanghwamun with some friends. We were sitting by this lovely river reading books. Suddenly, Shannon (one of my friends) notices that there is a strange Korean man taking our picture from across the river. After she tells us about him and we all look up, he waves to us and then snaps a few more. No big deal... whatever.

Then he come over to where we are. He asks us in broken English if we would please go over and sit on some stones and splash water around. He wants to take more pictures.... Ok. He seems nice enough. So we do... And that's all really. After he was done, he said thank you, we said thank you... we splashed each other and laughed a lot and that was it. I still wonder why he wanted to take our picture... maybe I'm going to end up in a magazine somewhere!

This is Leigh and I splashing water in the river for the strange man!

Then, today I was on my way back home from teaching my adult class when two young Korean women approached me about a survey they wanted me to take. It was in English and after reading the first question, I figured out that it was about God. It really looked as if they were a couple of Christian women and just wanted me to fill this survey out for them for a class or something they were taking.... I was wrong!

They believe something about there being a Father God and a Mother God and that only Mother God can save us and only by taking the Passover communion and they were trying to prove it to me through scripture. They were really taking the Word of God out of context and, it seemed to me, just inferring a lot of things about there being a Mother God who is equal to Father God without any basis or support. I was really disappointed that they used the pretext of a survey and a "preaching practice" (they said I was going to evaluate them on their English) to draw me in.

I really feel dumb now that I see what they did. I should have known that they were going to try to convert me or insist that I believe their religion. They also came at me in the name of Christianity... I wouldn't call what they believe Christianity. After a lot of listening I finally said to them, "I appreciate your enthusiasm and your desire to help me, but I believe that people were eternally separted from God by sin. But, after Jesus died on the cross, He took all of the sin upon Himself and if we believe that He is our Lord and Savior and ask Him to come into our hearts, that is all we need to be saved. That's it!" And then I drew the little thing where there are people on one side and God on the other and Jesus serves as the bridge. They tried to brush that off and say stuff about the Mother God and the Passover. I told them I wanted to leave and, thought they looked really disappointed, they walked me out. On our walk they kept trying to convince me to think about what they had told me and were asking me questions... I told them "I'm not confused about what I believe. I'm confused about what you believe."

We actually parted well. I really didn't want to be rude to them, but I felt like they took advantage of me. I felt like they pushed WAY too hard and I know what they believe is just.... wrong. But, I figure I'm a guest in this country and I'm going to try as hard as I can not to be rude... even when people are challenging my faith.

So, yeah, strange even number 2!