Weekend of family time

This weekend, I went up to Seoul to spend time with Imo, Uncle Josh, Jinyoung, and Eujin. I have not seen them since August when they surprised me at the airport on my way back to Korea from Hong Kong. They are one of the sweetest families I have known and I was well overdue for a visit.

On Saturday, I arrived at their home and met their friends from church and their two adorable girls. We played card games which included Spoons, Go Fish, Kings Corner, and Old Maid, which we gave a new name to: "Ajumma" (which means a middle aged woman, usually single, pretty much the same as the original name). After a few card games, we went out to dinner for barbecued duck.

The next morning, I joined the family for church. We went to Uncle Josh's church, which is about a ten minute drive from their home. I attended the English service with Josh and Jinyoung, which is the service they usually attend for several reasons. One, because they want to improve their English. The other reason is that the senior pastor of the Korean side of the church is accused of stealing church funds for his lavish lifestyle and is awaiting sentencing. Despite his guilt of stealing from his own church members, most of the members are defending the pastor's actions. This is a rampant issue in Korean churches: the congregation attends the church for the pastor, not for the community of believers. Pastors of mega churches have a reputation for corruption and dishonesty in Korea. I find it tragic that the men that are entrusted with the duty to lead groups of believers abuse their power and sin against the people they are told to encourage. I hope that Josh's church will recover from this scandal and unite in the faith, not the pastor.

I enjoyed worshiping with another group of Christians. It was nice to attend church with Jinyoung and Josh. After our service ended, we went to pick up Imo and Eujin from childrens church. After church, Imo made a delicious seafood soup for lunch. After lunch, Eujin showed me his Halloween costume, Spiderman. In addition, he defended us girls from the evils of Josh as they fought one another in the living room. After this action sequence, we played a few more rounds of Kings Corner before I had to leave for school.