09.20.07

Happy Thanksgiving!

Posted in General News at 1603 by quitomandie

This weekend is “Korean Thanksgiving” - better known to our students as “Chusok” (pronounced “chew sock”).

Actually, most of the North Americans here (including the US embassy) call it Thanksgiving, but from what I’ve heard it sounds more like Korean “Dia de los muertos.”  (Uhm . . . how do I make an accent mark in wordpress?)

For those who don’t know Spanish, that would be “Day of the Dead” - a holiday celebrated throughout Latin America in the beginning of November.  The actual festivities vary from country to country, but generally involve visiting the graves of family members who have died, eating a special meal of traditional food (often as a picnic at the cemetery), taking food to the graves of your loved ones, and sometimes special masses/candle lightings/etc.  In some countries, like Mexico, there might also be elaborate parades or dances in the town square involving skeleton costumes and stuff like that, or even fireworks.  The main foci are remembering your heritage (family, cultural, and religious), and the realization that death comes to us all sooner or later.

Traditionally, way back in the day, Korea’s main religion was ancestor worship.  Chusok is a holiday that has its roots in that history.  Many families travel away from the city to the rural areas of their family roots.  They visit the graves of their ancestors, taking food with them, offer the food to the spirit of the dead relatives, bow to the graves, and then enjoy a picnic eating the food they brought.  Other families, who have been city-dwellers for generations and/or are families of conservative Christians, gather at the home of a relative (such as grandma) for a special meal and “family reunion” rather than visiting their ancestors’ graves.  Still others DO go out to the graves to remember loved ones, but don’t participate in the food-offerings.

I made the mistake of asking one of my classes (in which the majority of the students are Christians, and more than half from Christian families) if, in their opinion, it was more like American Thanksgiving or like Day of the Dead (which, by the way, is considered a religious holiday in Catholic Latin America - unlike, say, Memorial Day in the US which is patriotic).  This question led to a 15 minute discussion that almost turned into a fight.   (Reminded me more of a discussion on Halloween than either of the two holidays I brought up.)

One girl, whose multi-generational Christian family has decided not to participate, said that her family celebrates it like Thanksgiving, but that they are “untraditional” because they are Christians and the holiday is really about worshiping spirits.  Another girl (also from a multi-generational Christian family) was very upset by this description, and said that no, that wasn’t fair - they weren’t really worshiping the ancestors, you just brought the food and bowed to the grave because it was Chusok and it’s what you do, but it doesn’t mean anything.  (She made a comparison to Santa Claus.)  Yet another student, a first-generation Christian, said that to his grandfather it DOES mean something, but that his parents don’t like fighting the traffic so they just stay home and enjoy the three days off of work.  It all led to a very interesting discussion that has NOTHING to do with trigonometry, but did give me some valuable insights into the shifting Korean culture and into the hearts of my students . . .

Please pray for our students at ICS-UJB this week.  Chusok day is on Tuesday, and many will have decisions to make about how they celebrate the holiday.  Several of our students are the only believers in their families, and may have extra-difficult decisions to make - balancing their own convictions about worship with commands to obey their parents.  Pray for wisdom, discernment, and safety in traveling (traffic is horrible this time of year).  Also pray that our students can be good testimonies to those around them, whatever situation they find themselves in, and that God’s light will shine this holiday season.

09.07.07

September already?

Posted in General News at 924 by quitomandie

Wow!  Here we are, back at the weekend of the big season-opening cross-country meet.  (One of the few conference-wide athletic events that our school can actually host.)  Anyway, last year at this time we were still overwhelmed with moving, getting into the swing of work, making friends . . . a lot has changed in the last 12 months.

School is going very well lately.  Mike has been busy with his new job.  The annual audit was the last week of August, and we still haven’t heard officially if we passed or not.  However, we do know that it went much better than last year - so that is good news.   I have been getting used to a new school year, new classes, and new students.  Lots of familiar faces, but new combinations and dynamics.  I am very excited about my Spanish 2 class - they have retained a lot of information over the summer, seem eager to learn, and have great attitudes.  My Spanish 1 class is about half the size of last year’s class, and also seems ready to dive right in.  Pre-calculus is going well.  Their first test is today, but I’m pretty confident they’ll do fine.   Most of my students from last year’s Algebra II class continued on for Pre-calc, so it is nice to have a little more time with them, since we got off to a late start last year.

Two of my classes have been a little challenging.  The new Algebra II class has a much wider range of abilities than last year’s.  Some of the students are extremely bright and catching on very quickly, others are really struggling even just in chapters 1 and 2.  Because of the amount of information required to prepare the kids for pre-calc next year, this is a fast-moving course designed for students with solid backgrounds in Algebra I and Geometry, and several of the kids are really struggling with basic Algebra I concepts.  It is hard, because I really can’t slow down that much, but if they don’t get a handle on the basics the whole year will be a struggle.  Pray that God gives me wisdom in balancing covering the material, challenging the advanced students, and helping those who are struggling.

I’m also teaching a middle-school class - “from scratch” - that covers topics from Bible, relationships, study-skills, health, and a variety of other areas.  We meet once  a week - a challenge in itself.  Pray that God will give me wisdom in knowing what things to cover, in what order, and the best way to communicate it.  My desire for this class is that the girls would learn to seek God first - and that all the confusion of peer pressure, relationships, beauty, academics, boys, self-image, and all the other “stuff” that life throws at teen-age girls and young women only clears up and makes sense when looked at in His light.   That they truly are “fearfully and wonderfully made” and don’t need to buy in to society’s definitions of “perfection.”  If they can grasp that message now, as 12 and 13 year olds, it may spare them some of the emotional agony and drama that scars so many young women in our culture.

Anyway, please be remembering us . . .

- Mandie