Becoming "Korean"

We had a wonderful weekend at the Korean Church of Bloomington Normal! Our whole family joined the Korean Academy held at the church weekly on Saturdays. 

We want to learn Korean culture; language, customs, holidays, foods, songs, how to read and write, and hopefully to speak and understand more Korean before our precious baby comes home!

 Luke and I went back to the basics with our two boys; learning the alphabet and the phonetic sound pronunciation associated with each Korean character. 

Everyone at the Korean church was so warm, welcoming, and thoughtful ... they made us feel very much at home! It was a wonderful experience and we look forward to the Spring semester!

We were all given beautiful new Korean workbooks. We learned basic vowels and consonants and, I'm happy to say,  we all learned how to write our names and pronounce the sounds in Korean after our first class! 

(We also learned how to write and say "ouch!" and "milk" in Korean; words that will come in handy when our little one comes home!)

The learning style is structured,  yet in a relaxed atmosphere where parents learn alongside of their children. There are several other adoptive parents who attend with their children; so their whole family is embracing Korean culture!

Liberty and Eden loved their little class where they read Korean picture books and made a craft... and met new friends! Liberty says they learned some Korean words,  but I'm not sure that she remembers them yet... ;-)

The next day was Sunday... after attending early service at our church,  we headed up the road for the 11:00 service at the Korean Church! 

Again, we were welcomed warmly and saw our new friends from the Academy!

The English translator was not able to make it this morning, but they sang many of the songs in English, as well as in Korean. 

What a wonderful morning, worshipping with our brothers and sisters in Christ!

The Pastor preached a passionate sermon from John 9:13-25... we were drawn into his enthusiastic preaching - he so clearly loves his congregation and sharing God's Word - that we desperately wished we could understand what he was saying! (We look forward to hearing him preach thru a translator next week!)

It was special to sing familiar songs,  and to hear new ones sung heartily!

This is one of the songs we learned at the Sunday service... (we looked up this version online to refresh our memory.) 

After the service we enjoyed a light lunch of Korean New Year soup called Tteokguk. There are floating rice cakes in it with savory broth, topped with flavorful beef, chopped onions, julienned eggs yokes/whites, and strips of dried sea kelp.

Chinese Lunar New Year was Saturday, January 28th, 2017, which coincided with our first day of Academy ... so we also got to enjoy the soup after class!

They also had Kimchi; which are fermented vegetables like cabbage and kale. (Though not for the faint-hearted: very strong flavor!!)

Attending the Korean Academy and church this weekend, made us feel very close to our sweet little one. Luke mused that perhaps he had even attended a church service very much like the one we experienced; eating the same soup to celebrate the New Year holiday... all the way around the world in Seoul South Korea!

... On babies & ♡ languages

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New AtlaCHILDREN

Babies retain knowledge of their birth language even if they never speak it

Rich Haridy

January 19th, 2017

Information learned through languages spoken to a baby are retained by the subconscious later in life, even when the child is raised speaking a completely different language(Credit:choreograph/Depositphotos)

The learning capacity of infants is a source of constant amazement. We know that babies are already developing language recognition abilities while still in the womb but until recently we never understood just how significant, and permanent, early language learning actually was.

A recent study by language scientists from Radboud University, Western Sydney University and Hanyang University has shown that babies begin learning and storing speech earlier than previously thought. Their paper, published in Royal Society Open Science, indicates that language learning in the first six months of life is subconsciously retained even when a child is raised to speak an entirely different language.

The experiment studied 29 Korean-born Dutch speakers. All 29 subjects were adopted by Dutch parents at ages spanning 6 to 17 months. These adoptees were all raised as Dutch speakers having never learned their native language, and across a two-week period they were taught to identify and reproduce a series of Korean consonants. The distinction between Dutch and Korean was key to the study, as all the Korean sounds taught were notably unlike any natural sounds from the Dutch language.

The adoptee's attempts to rearticulate the Korean consonants were rated for accuracy by Korean listeners against a similar sized control group of native-born Dutch speakers. The results were incredibly clear, the Korean adoptees rate of learning, and ability to correctly pronounce the foreign sounds, significantly surpassed that of the control group. This was despite any of the adoptee group having ever learned or spoken Korean.

Most interestingly, the study found no difference in the results of the adoptee group between those adopted under six months of age and those adopted after the age of seventeen months. This observation highlights the significant language learning that occurs in the first six months of life, regardless of whether it turns out to be the dominant language spoken.

"This means that even in the very early months of life, useful language knowledge is laid down, and what has been retained about the birth language is abstract knowledge about what patterns are possible, not, for instance, words," explains Mirjam Broersma from Radboud University.

This evidence follows on from another recent study that examined a group of Canadian teenagers who were adopted as babies from China. These adoptees were raised with French as their only known language, but using functional MRI were seen to have similar brain activation to native Chinese speakers when exposed to Chinese linguistic elements. This was despite only being exposed to the the language in the first twelve months of life, and never learning or speaking it.

The revelations from these studies highlight the importance of talking to your babies as much as possible throughout these early stages of life. The results also show that information learned through languages spoken to a baby are retained by the subconscious later in life, even when the child is raised speaking a completely different language. This hidden retention could help the individual to (re)learn their birth language later in life, and also sheds a fascinating insight into how we acquire language.

Source: Radboud University

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Happy 1st Birthday, dear baby!

Thinking about our sweet little one in S. Korea today on his first birthday!

Since we can't share his name, details, or full pictures, we just wanted to show you his sweet hand... ♡

We love you dearly, sweetheart... we hope you got our birthday box and are warm and snuggly with your new blanky mama sewed, and your knitted hat, handmade by Aunt Betsi!

We all love you so much and can't wait to hold you in our arms and tell you so in person!!

"I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you!" - John 14:18

"Charge The Darkness"

This LM Montgomery quote may as well have referred to a fresh start in a brand new year: 2017 a year with no mistakes in it!

We love the verses in Lamentations 3:22-23 "The steadfast love of the Lord never fails, His mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning great is Your faithfulness."

Of course, deep into the second week of 2017, there have been many mistakes... we all make them daily! What a comfort to know that our Savior is always waiting for us to come back to Him with true repentance and confession of those mistakes and lovingly enables us to walk in His ways.

This is going to be a year of change for many people... our family has 5 weddings so far in 2017 and Lord-willing, two trips to Korea. And while the change on the horizon can sometimes feel overwhelming, we know that our Savior has walked before us and He will be with us as we transition through that change.

Change can be exciting and daunting; and sometimes even scary while at the same time, beautiful! I think most of the anxiety people associate with change comes from a natural fear-of-the-unknown.

A dear friend of mine once said "you can walk boldly into a dark room, if you know what's already there." The future in our world is as scary as it is unpredictable and chaotic. Evil seems to triumph at every corner. It's important for us to remember that we can "charge the darkness" with Christ's light, with bold confidence and assurance because we know Who is already there; Who controls everything; Who is Lord of all!

A shocking new report I read on Christian Post headlined,  "The United States has for the first time been named among the top 12 nations where Christians are targeted for their faith by a persecution watchdog group in its "Hall of Shame" report for 2016."

Of course,  I read further with bugging eyes:

"We felt it was very important this year that we highlight three countries where religious discrimination and persecution are deemed unusual but have reached a certain threshold of concern. These are Mexico, Russia, and sadly, the United States," explained in a press release Jeff King, president of International ChristianConcern."

We don't highlight that here to depress anybody at the start of a new year, but to quote Jude 3-4 "I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith for which was once for all delivered to the Saints. For certain men have crept in unnoticed who long ago were marked out for this condemnation; ungodly men who turn the grace of our God into lewdness and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ."

We choose to respond to that damning report by renewing our compassion and energies for the lost. By urgently and boldly proclaiming Christ in 2017 to a hurting and lost world; a sin-sick weary world whose people have chosen to shut out Christ and try to silence those who represent Him. 

Now, even in what used to be a bastion of freedom, a Nation founded on Judeo-christian principles, Christians are being boxed into corners where they feel embarrassed to claim the Name of Christ; ashamed of the doctrinal stands on which our faith is grounded; and even frightened to go against the toxic tide that is depravity in our nation.

Brothers and sisters, let us reach out to those around us with the love of Christ! Together let's be His hands and feet; a visual representation of all that He Is with all the unlimited strength that He pours into us through the Holy Spirit.

Let us charge the darkness in 2017! Let's shine His brillience, sharing the message to those around us that tomorrow can be a fresh day for them, filled with no mistakes... because of Jesus.


Happy New year!!