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!
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