the least of these

Last week I taught Jesus how to knit. We sat on the dirty cement floor of his small, plain, concrete-block house, the sun streaking through the torn flowered material that was his door. I had bought him some brightly-coloured yarn, needles, and a knitting book filled with trendy patterns, and had meekly presented them to him as his five half-clothed children gathered around, curiously rumaging through my bag and playing with its contents - an iPod, a Latin American Spanish phrase book, a camera, a pair of sunglasses, some lip gloss, and lots and lots of yarn. Fumbling through directions in Spanish and Creole, I slowly taught him (with lots of hand gestures to copy me) how to cast on, purl, change colors (he had trouble with this one), cast off, and sew up the finished product - a lime green, teal blue, and chocolate brown-coloured camera case that he could sell at the local fair-trade art co-op. Every hour or so we'd stand up to take a break, and I'd go outside to play with the kids and their friends on the dirt roads of the Haitian community they were apart of on the north shore of the Dominican Republic. Having gone there to visit my friend who works in the community and to do what I could to help, it was my desire to provide him with a skill that would help him put some food into his children's bloated stomachs. Throughout the four days, after I hiked up to his shack on a hill, as he was stitching away, the Spanish phrase book came in handy as I sought to discover a little about his life. As we talked, joked, and listened to music, we became friends. I grew to love the kids, too, as we jumped rope, drew pictures with sidewalk chalk, and played Cats and the Cradle. On the last day, I gave them some clothes, soap, crayons, paper, and other gifts, and as I decended slowly down the hill towards the rest of the village, I realized that I had come to know the Friend of the Poor in a way I never had before.

Now replace Jesus with Romona, a Haitian woman who works at La Tienda, Rachel's fair trade art co-op, and you have what Jesus talked about in Matthew 25:44-46:

Then they also will answer, saying, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?' Then he will answer them, saying, 'Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.' And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.

Through the reading of two very profound books (see below) and my experience with Ramona, I realized what Jesus was really saying here. On the Last Day, the very authenticity of our salvation will be measured not by the soundness of our theology or by what we claim to believe, but by how we treat "the least of these" in our society. By responding in love to the deperate needs of the poor, the lonely, and the rejected, we are literally responding to the God-Incarnate himself. Jesus becomes alive in the eyes of the lowly, and by reaching out to them we are opening ourselves up to a deeper undestanding of the gospel and intimacey with God that we could never know otherwise. Read the Gospels, and you can't miss that Jesus was all about befriending the forgotten, the lonely, the most-gossiped about, and the rejected. Translate that into modern culture and you will get the homeless, the poor (anyone trying to live on a non-living wage), the abused (emotionally, sexually, physically, or economically), the "socially awkard," the "loners," the "sexually loose," the "unfashionable," the "annoying," and the "fill-in-this-blank-with-whomever-you-seek-to-avoid." He sought them out not to patronize them with charity or write them a cheque to ease his conscience, but to befriend them, live among them, and share with them the love and grace of their Creator. This is the radically compassionate character of the God of the Bible. This is the very nature of the Upside-Down Kingdom of Jesus, of which we are all gently beckoned to be a part of.

There are two books that have shone the light so brightly on this urgent message that I was greatly disturbed with my own self-absorption and complacency. They helped me to see that I have been so focussed on my own existence and "issues" that I have not been fully denying myself and radically following this Way of God, that is to look so counter-cultural that it brings hope, love, and justice to a world full of cyclical injustice, cut-throat competiveness for money, power, and popularity, and abandonement of the desperate. They are:

1) The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical by Shane Claiborne

Highly readable, intensely inspiring, and disturbingly challenging, the author of this book is the Founder of The Simple Way, an intential Christian community that lives in the poorest ghettos of Philadephia. Believing firmly that Jesus meant what he said in the Beatitudes (blessed are the poor, meek, lowly, hungry and thirsty for righteousness, etc.) and how he lived his life (seeking out the forgotten, abandoned, and rejected to love and meet their needs), the Simple Way seeks to befriend the poor and homeless, fight against the social injustice against them, and actually meet their needs by sharing with them their food, clothes, and other resources. Having gone from the jail cells in the inner city to the slums of Calcutta to the war-torn neighbourhoods in Iraq (on a peace mission), Shane's semi-autobiographical work will seriously cause you to question why the heck you've been sitting on your butt. If you're comfortable with where your life is now, don't read this book. It may cause you to want to actually follow Jesus, which could, as Shane says, wreck everything.

2) God's Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It by Jim Wallis

For those who are frustrated with the self-righteousness ignorance of the Religious Right and doubtful still of the cynical Left, this book will help you see that God is not a Republican...or a Democrat, but cares about how we deal with poverty, the environment, war, injustice, and many other issues. He talks about the danger of claiming that the evildoers are "out there" and not within our own actions and policies, and claims that our faith should motivate us to stand in the way of injustice, needless violence, disregard of the environment, tax cuts for the rich, abandonement of the poor, and make our voices heard on every individual issue instead of being loyally partisan, and if God is on one side or the other. A must-read for people like me who love to talk about the two biggest taboo topics out there: religion and politics! Or for those who are simply seeking clarification as to how Christians should be involved in politics in a way that shows the world the love, grace, and justice of God.

If anyone in Korea is interested in starting a book club with either of these books, let me know, I'd LOVE to hear all your prospectives on them and discuss all this more, and then actually go and do something about what we learn. We can have it at my new apartment! Go here to order from within Korea and receive it in 10 days.

To those who are still reading, you deserve a medal. Thanks for reading about what I've been learning. May the God who loves the least of these surround you in all you do this week.




Peace,

Jen

p.s. Click on the flickr badge on the right to see the rest of my pics from the trip, plus some old pics of nepal i took years ago that i just recently came across, which actually just emailed to Shane to have published in his new book, Jesus for President. Check out his website for more details.

Koranglish

Well, its been four days since i landed in the Dominican Republic, and I'm just starting to train my tongue to stop speaking Korean when I know I need to communicate something in Spanish. I´ve been automatically responding with "Ney" (Korean for "yes") instead of "Si" and "Kumsumnida" (Korean for "thankyou") instead of "gracious." People here must think I´m from some crazy little European country whose language they´ve never heard before. haha. Although, I have decided that I am enrolling in Spanish classes as soon as I get back to Korea (how´s that for ironic), because I LOVE the language and have an eerie feeling that I will be needing it one day. I love it here. The people, music, food, and buildings are so full of life. Being with Rachel has been so comforting, rejuvanating, relaxing and inspiring - like simultaneously coming home, going to church, sleeping in, and enrolling in school. Even though much time has passed since we last saw each other, we are still the same together. We really love each other, and its been nice just to rest in that. She has felt blessed by all the gifts, cards, and presnts that have been sent with me, which has been a blessing to me as well to see her feel so loved. And seeing La Tienda has been wonderful. Everything inside of it - the women included - is soooo enchantingly beautiful. We´ve only been into the village once so far, the rest of the time I´ve been helping Rachel get some much needed away/relaxation time, with no complaints from me! So we´ve gone to the beach 3 times, and have just read, knitted, painted, sat in charming little beach-front restaurants, and talked. It´s been wonderful. I´ve been knitting some examples of iPod/camera bags to use to teach our sole knitter tomorrow at la tienda, I´m excited (the bikini idea is out, since Rachel didn´t think it was simple enough, plus it might not sell seeing as alot of the packages to sell are sent to churches/mission organizations...boo!). So, tomorrow will be great to spend real time in the co-op with the women...

Until next time....ciao!

Baby Got Book

freakin' hilarioius. that's all i have to say.

not enough headspace for this mind traffic

so among the normal i'm-only-home-for-6-weeks activities, like going to aqua-fit with mom and grandma every morning, eating lots and lots of homemade maple syrup chili and timbits, scheduling in friends' visits like they are doctor's appointments, driving all over ontario to see friends and their newest baby or boyfriend or marriage vows (not always in that order), flying to montreal to a) feel like i'm in Europe, seriously, b) kiss random people i meet twice, and freak out if it ends up on the lips cuz i didn't know which cheek to go for first, and c) see my ex-boyfriend's ex-girlfriend, who also happens to be my good friend from korea (don't ask), planning a trip to the dominican republic to visit my best friend's art co-op, yes, people, among all this (see pics here, btw), i'm making three major life decisions that require countless hours of tumultuous thinking.

A) where the heck do i work when i get back to korea in march?
B) where the heck do i work in September?
C) how the heck do i deal with all the political, spiritual, social (mis)information that keeps attacking me constantly over here?

possible answers:

A) this depends on a lot of factors. what's more important to me- working hours? money? job satisfication? vacation time? location? what would be most important to you? well, my dad, being the statistical engineer that he is, drew up this table with all the possible factors and i rated them all and they he did some fancy smancy formula thing and it turns out the job that won is the job with the best hours and job satisfaction and vacation time. but what about money? that is why i'm sacrificing time away from home to go to korea anyways : my end goal has always been to pay off debt and then save money for my masters. but i feel like being debt-free has become an idol, to which i sacrifice job satisfication and fun . Is being debt-free and saving money worth working at a slave labour school where i completely disagree with their philosophy of education? even if it's short term? what about trading $400 a month more for 2 months vacation? or good hours in dognae (far away from everything) vs. bad hours in haeundae (close to friends and beach)? what's worth more?

B) An International School in India or Busan? Adventure or Comfort? Starting over or building deeper relationships?

C) I don't know. Too many opinions, books, news channels, commentaries, people telling me what to believe or who to believe or how to live. Information overload, thanks in part to this media-crazed culture, whose ban-wagon i have recently jumped on. like by getting my new google homepage, where i've linked over 5 different media sources, all saying different things about the same person or event or ideology. somebody, please just shoot me. or at least just tell me what to believe. i just want to live in peace and do what is right! but who know's what that is anymore....Even within the boundaries of "Christianity" I'm annoyed at the "evangelical conservatives" and the "agnostic/liberal/emergent" types. It's hard to trust anyone these days, and i find myself sceptical of everyone's opinion for some reason or another. if only i could fast all forms of media for a few days....no tv, books, internet....how would my mindset change? does one need all this information? hmmm....the dominican republic is fast approaching.....saweet.

J.

home sweet home

so after 20 odd hours of flying, landing, getting off a plane in some random city that is not my final destination, going through customs, trying to convince the customs people that NO, the 15 odd gifts that i so foolishly wrapped and tried to take on the plane do not contain illicit drugs, porn, liquids or WMDs, getting back on yet another plane, taking gravol to knock me out, wavering in and out of consciousness amongst the sounds of screaming babies and crying toddlers, and headache, headache, headache....i am HOME. weird how i feel like i've left home at the same time. how is that possible?

anyways, the 6 hours that i've been home have so far been quite entertaining - my neice and nephews were quite willing to unwrap the WMDs - ur, i mean Winnie-the-Pooh (same-same) parcels, and that got the ball rolling for a exchanging presents blitz, which resulted in my family loving their mementos from Korea and me with some sweet new clothes from....get ready - Costco. yeah, my parents surely know where to shop for high-fashion merchandise - but really these clothes are actual kinda cool! i'll just have to avoid that "place drop" when someone compliments me - "hey, love the sweater, where'd you get it?" "oooh, in this fabulous little boutique in Canada called (with a French accent) "Cos-coo." You should go there some time. I bought this right after i went on a dog-sled through the exotic desserts of potato fields, during a crazy little maple-syrap festival they had going on. It truly was an adventure to remember."

so then I had a home-cooked meal by my mom and listen to my brother talk as if he was on drugs. or so i thought at first, seeing as he was going on and on about this documentary he saw on the internet about how 9/11 was a conspiracy because A) the twin towers were rigged with explosives that caused the collapse of the buildings, and B) all these reports have been hidden by the US government to scare the Americans into supporting the War on Terror. Now if you knew my brother, you would also assume that he was on drugs, because normally i am the conspiracy theorist in the family while everyone else quietly listens and politely attempts to change the subject to something other than politics. so this was fun for me - we watched these documentaries and swapped theories. And all of a sudden, i have a heap-loads more respect for my elder sibling. Oh, how America brings people together...

so now i'm wide awake while my family sleeps, and i'm gonna finish some marking. yes, for my school. yes, they same one that i finished working for yesterday, and who (wahoo!) paid me all my severance pay. i need to hand them in via email by Monday, as reports go out on Wednesday and i had no time to do so this past week. So why not take advantage of my delirously jet-legged frame of mind and give my kids their final comments? And if they end up sounding a little, um, odd, I mean, really, what can they do?

i loved this christmas

it all went so fast. on december 24th, 2006, 18 of us, armed with bagfulls of food, including my own homemade eggnog (a drink totally unheard of here), candy canes (again, sooooo difficult to find and thus totally appreciated), and everything needed for goodies, snacks and a full-course omelette breakfast, gifts, stockings, pillows, blankets, and games, cabbed it up to a beautiful dalmagi apartment (in the "posh" side of Busan) to have a sleepover. we laughed, we danced, we did secret santas, played dutch blitz, poker, and bible trivia (haha), built puzzles (ok they did - i have no patience for those horridly intricate things), took pictures, exchanged gifts, and played with our new toy guns and numchucks (ok that was the boys.) i was able to give my girls the photo albums that i made for them - wrapped in korean rice paper and completed with a hand-carved coaster i glued on top - and filled with memories from this year -numerous parties, nights out, norae-bongs (kareokee rooms), paintball, small group, exploring, and just hanging out and laughing and talking and playing. then we had a huge breakfast, napped, and went out for indian food (not exactly a chrismtas tradition but delicious enough for me!) the night was topped off by yet another (different) party in dalmagi. good times had by all. it was a phenomenal way to end my year here, and it made me really excited to come back again to everyone in March.
Though i AM super excited to come home!! 4 days!!

see more pics here!

typhoon surfin'

k, this pic was from about 2 months ago, where me and Aussie Nathan took advantage of a typhoon's waves and went for a little surf. We forgot our cameras, so we asked a kind Frenchman to take our picture with his camera and email them to us....and we just got them now, and with them come flooding back the memories of that epic stormy day...

I wanted to go surfing, because I heard that Busan was the only city where you could really get decent waves in all of Korea. Being the seasoned surf chick that i am (hahahaha...I'm from Southern Ontario, people....haha), I thought it would be no problem for me to get back into it. After all, I learned how to surf in Maui of all places, which I think should make one automatically a pro surfer, or at least...good. And so I phoned my friend that I thought would also be good, basing it only on the fact that he is from The Land Down Under. Let me just say, as cool as we look in our snazzy wetsuits, we both proved to be an embarrassment to both the Golden Coast and the Golden Isle. Nathan got up once or twice for a 2 second ride and I got up...*sigh*....nil. Apparently, it's all about "timing" and being able to "read the ocean," both which, seemingly, I suck at. Ah well. I still had fun, and got a couple belly rides which I didn't want to ruin by attempting to stand up. It was still good to be out there in the water, floating around with my fellow wanna-be surfers and a few actual ones who were kind enough to let us know that "it just takes time." Apparently an intense desire to be cool and a closet full of surf clothes just doesn't cut it.

a fantabulous 3 day weekend, and i love korea again...

surprises! korea's full of 'em. like for instance, on thursday evening, my supervisor comes to my classroom and tells me that classes arecancelled for the next day. Cancelled! This was a major shock, because my hagwon closes for absolutely nothing usually. Like, we were open for Children's Day, Buddha's Birthday, and all other national holidays, and even during a crazy typhoon, which most hagwons were clossed for. And so what major catastrophe did we close so suddenly because of? The death of the prime minister? Nope. The sudden attack of North Korea? Ha - no, most Koreans are so completely unconcerned about that. We closed for the 2006 second annual APEC fireworks show. And yes, APEC was not even in Korea this year. But it was last year around this time, and so this, apparently, was good enough reason for Korea to drop an estimated 1.2 billion Won (approx. $1.4 million CAD) for a 30-minute, insanely overdramatic fireworks extravaganza.

Now you must understand, Koreans love their fireworks. Every Saturday night of the summer there is a show at the beach, just for the heck of it. Plus, there are adjijis (older korean men) selling various types and sizes down at the beach for anyone to buy and set off at any time throughout the year. It's a regular couple thing to do - the boy sets off fireworks and the girl giggles, or people aim fireworks at each other's feet to get them to DANCE (i don't recommend that though, the last time i did that i got some fortune-teller adjiji in the ear - he wasn't too impressed). So I've gotten quite desensitized to the awesomeness of fireworks...but man, this was a spectacle.... but I'm not talking about the actual fireworks....they were all amazing and such, but even more so, the PEOPLE were insane. 3 million people crowded around a little beach - up in trees, on tops of the rooves of coffee shops, apartment buildings, hotels, and trucks. I went on my motorbike, planning to meet friends there, and my cell phone didn't even work because of the amount of people and cellphones. So I ended up running into other lost foreigners to enjoy the show with, and took lots of pics. Notice the multitudes of cellphones being used as cameras...funny (koreans also love their cellphones).

But the craziest part of the evening was after the show was over, where i almost got stampeded to death....3 million people all trying to go in the same direction = ridiculousness. People's mere ruthlessness comes out in moments like these. I was shoved, pushed, tripped, poked, and prodded like cattle. At one moment, an ambulance drove by with a women inside who had been trampled on (yikes), and people were taking the opportunity to get through the crowd by running as fast as they could behind the ambulance, in the empty-pavement-wake it left behind....and then there was me on my motorbike trying to get home, weaving in and out the millions people who were walking in the middle of all the streets within a 5 mile radius of the beach...and joined with a train of about 5 other motorbikes, i managed to get home unharmed and without harming anyone... in about an hour (i live 20 normally from this beach). good fun. and that was only friday night...

saturday - PAINTBALL!! soooooooooo fun, i felt like i was a kid playing at camp....a group of about 15 of us got all dawled up in korean military camoflauge and played capture the flag in a beautiful forest off the coast of song jung beach, just 10 mins north of my apartment...see the pics here.

i had to leave early to go to work, as i'm teaching for 3 hours on saturdays now at my hagwon for overtime pay...but it was the BEST class ever - full of almost fluent, talkative, opinionated 15 year olds about the varying philosophies of education in the world - mainly US vs. Korean. Had a phenomenal talk centered around this quote:

"Don't let school get in the way of your education." (by some dead guy, probably)

We talked about WHY they all feel its necessary in korea to get only 3-5 hours of sleep a night and do NOTHING but study between the ages of 4-25, with NO vacation time and NO extra-curriculars and NO life outside of the monotonous cycle of school, hagwon, study, bed, school, hagwon, study, bed.....we talked about the PURPOSES of education - to train for life - and how the most important things are learned outside of school - like in friendships, making mistakes and learning from them, and in just living life and enjoying it....i got them thinking, i think, and we had a great convo about it....for the first time in a while i felt completely rewarded as an educator, as someone who opens minds ever so slightly to think a bit out of the box. a great way to spend a saturday evening!

sunday - church in the am, dancing with the most precious little korean girls in the world...and aubrey, too, of course :)....and THEN...hung out with the coolest people in the world all day in a beautiful apartment over looking the ocean, and went exploring on my motorbike with my new friends sacha and kevin....we raced, we went down random roads, we avoided seriously ridiculous long lines of traffic by driving on the sidewalks....way fun....and perfect weather for it - it's still very fall here!

good weather, good fun, good education, good friends...and just like that...i'm on a korea high again....(quick, ma, take a picture!!)

-J.

new pics!!

go here!

how living in korea makes me feel better about myself

1. it doesn't take much to make me feel like the funniest person in the world. like for instance - i drive a motorcycle. and i'm a girl. and i have blonde hair. OH MY GOD - LOOK AT HER!!! SHE'S DRIVING A MOTORCYCLE!!! AND SHE'S A GIRL!!! AND SHE HAS BLONDE HAIR!!!! THAT IS SOOOO FUNNY!!!! LET'S LAUGH AND STARE AND POINT TO SHOW OUR AMUSEMENT!!!!! awesome. also, taxi drivers and starbucks servers and the like find it humourous whenever i speak any korean. i KNOW - it's SO funny!!! she knows how to say "please turn left here!" wow!

2. i am constantly feeling respected as a woman. like everywhere i go, people are telling me, "oh, so beautiful! so beautiful!" in the same breath that they ask me if i am a prostitute. well not in so many words, but they ask me if i'm russian, which here means, "so how much?" oh, plus there's the little matter of me teaching all the younger classes because i'm a woman. because naturally, women are better with younger kids, and older kids respect men more. even though our male teacher is a qualified elementary school teacher and i'm a qualified high school teacher. it's just so logical. and not sexist at all. (hehe, she said "sex!" quick! pretend we don't know what she means! play the language barrier card!")

3. i consistently feel validated as a serious educator. like for instance today, my supervisor told me that there have been complaints that i am not working through the textbooks fast enough. k, so my TEN YEAR OLD children who go to school from 9am-11pm are supposed to go through 8 pages a day, and that's only for MY class. then they've got 2 other classes to do homework for, in which they have to memorize like 100 vocab words, which they will forget by the end of the hour after the test and which they will never know how to use in a proper sentence. and THEN they've got to do their homework for Science Hagwon (academy), Computer Hagwon, and Math Hagwon. Yet I should be giving them more homework. Because piling on more work and showing the parents they've finished 400 pages in 6 weeks is totally the point of education. COMPRENDING something? RETAINING information? Actually being able to have a free-flowing conversation? What's all that? Complain! That darn teacher isn't pushing my child hard enough! He's actually ENJOYING her class!!!

4. the number 4 has always been my lucky number. it's my birthday (January 4) and has always been my sports number on teams and such. here the korean word for 4 is the same word for "death." some buildings don't have the floor number 4, they change it to "F," because nobody, apparently, wants to live on the floor of death (can't figure out why). also, when i wanted to get my phone, and they asked me what number i wanted, i said "4444" and they gasped and said no! i guess they figured it would go over well - "call me! 010- 4572- death-death-death-death." perfect.

5. i feel the love from my students. little truth-telling weasels they are. "teacher! today shirt so ugly!" "teacher, what is THAT?" (pointing to a large red zit on my face). "teacher! you look like alien with 1000 babies in your stomach!" "teacher! you sick? you look sick." "teacher! that black sweater makes you look like witch!" just what every girl wants to hear. now excuse me while i go slit my wrists.


ah korea.....gotta love it.


J.

bye bye blogger

well, blogger has served me well, for this period of investigating my long-hidden computer geekness within....my new blog is

here

check her out!

so long folks!

love Jen

a new look

well, things are changing. so i thought, why not give my ol' blog a face lift? a wise soul told me just the other day that it is i who choose to be scatter-brained. perhaps this is true. so i am seeking to living afresh, with a mind set on the future...anyone who knows me well enough might have some inkling as to the meaning of my new title. feel free to ask, if you're curious.

so i leave for korea in 3 weeks. wow. i'm feeling a mass of different things - excited, scared, but right now, most of me feels like i'm being pulled by someone a lot bigger than me, someone named Responsibility, and i'm skidding my heals, resisting the change. i love kingston.... being in chicago, as great as it has been, makes me eager to go home. to my house, my street, my soren, my church, my girls. i don't feel ready to go....and i'm not talking practical details. but then again i was ready as ever to go to Maui, and disappointment awaited me. so perhaps this will be a great thing. i'll be independent like never before in my life. i'll actually be making money instead of going further into debt! i'll be with kids everyday, and my sole task will be to making their learning fun and meaningful. i can't wait to meet my kids! i already have so many ideas. i'll be teaching, btw, ages 7-12. crazy. i have a feeling i'll be learning lots about patience.

that wise soul told me something else that made a lot of sense to me. he told me that there are never problems, only momentary glitches. i've been feeling sort of uneasy lately, like i want to get on with a debt-free life, like, now. but i think i've realized that my thoughts regarding how i think my life should go are irrelevant. God may want me to experience a lot of things in these next two years that i wouldn't have the opportunity to before i go to seminary (the plan, btw, is to go to Regent seminary in Vancouver once i can pay off my debt and save enough to go for 3 or 4 years)...the older i am when i return to school, the more meaningful and insightful questions i can ask. and living in another culture, learning another language - man, that will offer me many riches, i think.

everything will work out great. for those who pray, i ask you pray for me in the coming weeks. pray that my soul will be calm and i will trust that God is closer than my skin, and i am never alone. Pray also for a community in Pusan that i will grow to love as much as the one in Kingston. And to all you Kingstonians, i love you. And if you love me.....hehehe....you will TRY and come to my party next week! Thursday, August 11th at 8:00 - a Wine and Yummy-Things party...at Rhonda's house, just down the street (colborne) from my old one - I'll get the # and email you all. If anyone from outside of kingston wants to come, do! it will be great. i cannot wait.

between now and isabella, many things will change. but you will not, o Maker. and i beseech you, come, and do life with me till we get there, and teach me how to live the things i know.


-J.

sleeeeeeeeepy

all my thinking and playing and running around at the multiple parks and pools and libraries with my neice and having debates with the "extra narrow-minded legalistic imperialist", as my brother's best friend likes to be known as, and his mates at the counseling center today wore me out....i will post a very extensive and enlightening post tommorrow. you'll see, the angels will sing at the wonder of it.

chicago is good though....... a very vacationesque time i am having.....

-J

widgets are my new best friend

ok - how COOL is this - i'm on my brand new ibook right now and my brother downloaded all the newest mac software and I am discovering how fun widgets are! for all you PC folks who have not yet converted to the simplicity and eloquence of macs - widgets are these cool little tools that you can put on your dashboard that make your life a little easier - like i'm writing this from a widget called "dashblog" and i don't have to go to my blog to do so! or i have mapquest widget or a recipe make widget and i have time zone widgets for korea and toronto, plus currency converter widgets - and a widget that puts little flowers in a jar when i get new emails! whoever thought being a mac geek would be so much fun!! k, i'm gonna go play some more now....

-J

I'm going to South Korea!!

Well, finally, folks, today I accepted a job (eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeehhheeeeheeee!!!) in Pusan,(or Busan, the P and B and the same in Korea) South Korea! It is an amazingly beautiful southeastern coastal city, yes right on the OCEAN, and it has mountains and rivers and places to hike and climb and scuba dive and stuff....i know like 5 people from my church who have been there and they all said that it was really a very earthy, cultural, historical city...a big seaport....so WAHOO!!!!! I'm very excited....this guy, my recruiter from Korea, phoned me today and answered all my questions and it turns out he's from Austrailia and he too is a Christian! So he said that there are a lot of English-speaking churches in Pusan which are very good....yeah - thanks, God!! And the package is great - i'll be able to save quite a bit because they pay for EVERYTHING....rent, airfare, medical - it's great! For all of you who care to learn more about this city that i'll be spending the next 12 months of my life in, the website is www.pusanweb.com - check her out!

so....the dealio pour moi for the next few weeks is:

1. since, as some of you know, i'm no longer working at the Lonestar (something about me being too scatterbrained, Ryder???! it's all good though!), I'm officially leaving kingston this thursday, will go home to Barrie (to my parents' new house!), sort stuff out, and pack.

2. then, i'll go to Chicago with the 'rents for a week and visit my brother and niece and nephew and celebrate their birthdays.

3. next, i'll return to barrie, and paint my parent's new house to earn some mula, and hang out with the Willow Day Camp crew and some Harvestites (!!)

4. then, i'll RETURN TO KINGSTON FOR A KILLER GOODBYE PARTY ON THURSDAY, AUGUST 11th - all you kingstonians better be there!!!!! (will fill you in on the details soon.) then I'll watch Jared get ordained at Next on the sunday, and say my tearful see-ya-later to my dear dear kingston.....:(....but redeemingly get to spend the weekend in k-town with my BEST FRIEND in the whole wide world - love you Christy!

5. then go back home for 5 days, pack pack pack and all that jazz

6. then i'll go to Esther and Dave's wedding on August 20th...my 4th one this sum...

7. finally, i'll FLY OFF to Korea on AUGUST 25th!!!! Yeah...its a frikin 21 hour flight and then a 6 hour trainride....but the coolio thing is that my Korean friend who lives next door to me will be in Korea and will come with me to Pusan and stay with me for a bit!! sweetness, i KNOW....

so Hurray!!!!!!!!!!!!
I'm really really excited!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I think in honour of this new chapter of my life I will start a brand new blog....I'll keep y'all posted....on when and the addy, etc....this random thoughts thing is getting a little....well, SO last year....

k, love you friends!
-J.

i'm just overqualified, folks....

so I've been offered positions in both Busan, South Korea, and in "various locations" in Taiwan - both teaching kindergarten-elementary kids....and yes, I am thrilled, but dang - it was just way too easy to sink these jobs!....I basically sent my resume, picture, and cover letter all over (although i avoided Iran this time:)) and then I started getting massive amounts of badly-written, horrible english emails from everywhere ("Hi Jen! we like resume, i would love talk on phone soon. We like come Korea." - and I was like: geez, these people reeeeeally need my help....) So anyways, I had a phone "interview" on Sunday with a woman from Korea, and she was basically begging me to come -she kept saying that with my qualifications and experience I would be an excellent asset to the school - it's cuz I have a B.Ed, and most ESL teachers just have any old B.A. and a TESL certificate....but anyways, I felt like I could've demanded a limo to pick me up at the airport and free season's passes to the nearest ski resort and she would have agreed....anyhoo, that i did not do, but basically the job is mine for the taking, and it seemed like a decent one....I always swore that I would not go to Korea because I've heard horror stories about it - but most of the bad jobs are in crazy concrete-jungle Seoul teaching business men, and Busan is a smaller city right on the ocean farher south - I've been told its a lot "earthier" and "relaxed," and its a fishing port apparerently...so this all seems much more me....and the Taiwan one is through the other guy who offered me the UAE job before the school crapped out on them....

BUT, I'm holding out for the UAE...I feel it is where God is leading me....there is sooooo many reasons now why I want to go to the middle east, I really just want to be involved in Arab/Indian culture, and I want to travel in Egypt and Israel, and the church there is apparently wicked because there are so many young people from all over the world - like S. Africa and Britain and Austrailia - how cool is that??? ...so pray people, cuz I could be hearing wrong.

love you all,
Jen

p.s. the silly thing that allows for easy commenting stopped working, I'll set it back up soon...so just email me for now!

Jahan's offer and a brand new ibook

so all week this is what i've done....sat in my room, on my dad's LOUD, old, crappy '95 PC laptop and sent out resumes all over the world - taiwan, korea, poland, iran, UAE....and then i realized halfway through the week....hmmmm, maybe i should only send my resume to places that i really WANT to go to, instead of just everywhere...reason? oh, i got a phonecall from a guy in Ottawa who is conducting phone interviews for a sketchy job that i applied to in Tahran, Iran....yep, so i look it up on a Lonely Planet site, and it says, of the city, "Iran's capital is definately not the most beutiful place in the world, as the pollution, crowds, and traffic jams are much of the focus....but the museums are great." wonderful...i may be hot, sick, clausterphobic, and wait in traffic for 3 hours a day, but hey! at least i get to see some ancient iranian jars that nobody cares about. sweet! ....no, none the less, i'm not calling this guy back, and i think i'm going to stick to more appealing places to send out my resume.....my next door neighbour tim took the photo for it and he did quite the fixin up on it, so needless to say, when the people who hire me meet me for the first time, they're going to be like "who ARE you? how did your skin get so pourous and blemishy and your teeth so yellow?" ha...oh well, by then i'll have already signed my contract, suckers....

in other news, i have a new ibook! well, technically, my brother should have it by now....my dad bought an Mac ibook G3 for me for grad and he's getting it sent to my bro in the states and i'll get it in July...i'm sooooooo excited cuz then i'll actually be able to listen to music and upload pictures and see what being a MAc geek is all about....i've always wanted to know....

ah, one more thing....if you all think about it, pray for the Raponi's - David, especially....pray for peace, forgiveness, understanding, and the nearness of God. Pray for me, too - that I will be forgiving and peace-bearing and understanding. Pray that God will be near me.

thanks, y'all.

i'll say goodnight, not goodbye.

J.

the classy pick-up

k, funniest thing EVER - so after kind of a sketchy weekend, i had a great hilarious shift at the Lonestar tonight...
the best thing in the world is to have fun with your tables....so these four guys come in and order two pitchers of Keiths...and we're joking around and such about stuff, and then i ask them if they want more chips...they say no, because they're too warm, and its too hot outside...so they ask if i can make "ice chips" so i tell them i'll see what i can do....so THEN, i come back with half a bowl of chips with a mountain of ice cubes on top - ha! twas funny....but folks, the story doesn't end there....

so the guy tries to pay with a credit card, and afterwards, as i'm going to pick up the slip, i noticed that he left me his number on it, saying "call me"...but the hilarious thing is, he left me the wrong slip so i'm thinkin that i'll have to pay for this bill...so i run out to try to find him , and he's gone...so then, my great friend Sheriff says, "hey, why don't you call him, and let him know?" so i'm of course, all game....so i call him and leave a msg, to the effect of, "um hi, Peter? this is Seniorita from the Lonestar...um, yah, i just thought i'd let you know that its pretty smooth of you to try to pick me up and then leave me the wrong slip, so now i have to pay for your beer. way to go. hey, so if you don't mind coming down to the Lonestar and giving me my 38 bucks, that would be great. thanks!" ha....so it turns out, i didn't have to pay for the beer but i just lost the tip...still...sooooooo funny...

on another note, i have the best friends in the world. seriously, i'm loving my girls these days....the last month hasn't really been steller for me...and my truest friends have really showed their true colours....here's thanking God for Christy, Kathy, Sarah O., Emma, Anne, Esther, Jessie and Anna....you girls rock and i'm thrilled to know you...its nice to have friends that you know you can count on...and even when we all make mistakes, forgiveness is jumping at the door....and that's sweet to know.


and now for sleep.
i love Sheriff, btw. :)

J.

unlikeness

The lesson of my life thus far: God is more concerned that I am different than that I am popular. He doesn’t want me to blend in, to be like everyone else. I am to be odd. Separate. Independent. I am to respond differently to catastrophe. I am to look differently, to have a unique perspective. I am to think differently. I am to work differently. I am to ooze unlikeness. I am to turn the other cheek. I am to love those who wish me harm.I am to forgive and carry on. I am to respond with grace and humility, and if that means to receive a little injustice on this earth, so be it. God is in control and one day His justice will be complete. Great I Am, praise you.

Too bad to carry through with this is much less romantic than proclaiming my intentions….

Father...do it for me?

J.

its a start, but only that

i'm glad that the problem of the third-world debt is making international headlines these days....for those of you who know nothing about it, here is a great intro article found on cbc webpage:

www.cbc.ca/story/world/national/2005/06/10/african-debt050610.html

click on the "in-depth" link - it provides a great overview for the problems and solutions surrounding the third world debt.

pray for our world leaders, that they would make wiser and more selfless decisions that would benefit our poor global neighbours.

may we all seek to think globally, act locally, and serve the poor in our own communities first.

J.