Saying our final goodbyes.....

We will miss you Felix!
Oh Asher....just give me one smile!!! :) (For crying out loud!!! :)
The dedicated teachers who worked SO hard!

Felix's last chance for a California beach sunset......

and it was spectacular....just for him!



This one we took through my sunglasses! Pretty cool! :)

Who knew?

.....that Felix could also play the piano!!!

A long night studying Algebra!

Measurements on the doorframe.....

Even though Felix may look taller, Kevin still beat him out by about 1/8 " at the end of the day :)

Students lead worship in school chapel....

..... with Felix on the saxaphone!

Most Valuable Player Award for the soccer team!
John teaches the finer arts of Foosball.....

The tradition continues....
After much searching, Felix finds his Easter basket!

Catching up......

Happy Sunday! Life is busy, but we have much for which to be thankful, primarily the fact that God is Jehovah Jireh, our God who provides! Thank goodness He is in control instead of us! This week brought all sorts of challenges, the minor ones being two broken down cars (a third car was already in the body shop) with accompanying repair and car rental bills! Hhmmm....oh well.....as we say around here, "It is what it is!" Thankfully, life with Felix is humming along swimmingly. He made the "A" team in junior high soccer and will have practice or games 4 x's a week after school. His social life is rivaling our own. He had his friend Asher stay with us last weekend (much of it spent on the trampoline and basketball court, and it was Felix's first time is a jacuzzi) and has spent this weekend with Asher's host family, with the opportunity to fish off the jetty in the harbor yesterday. Unfortunately, much to his dismay, no fish were caught. I've also included a photo of the boys on "roller skating night" for the junior high students......for which the theme was "tacky"......I think goofy would be a better description! I expect him back in the next hour or so, when we will settle into our Sunday night routine. Melissa heads off to youth group and John and Kevin head off to play volleyball at the gym, so Felix and I take a long walk around the neighborhood and then grocery shop or watch a movie or play a game. Actually, I'd like to help him with his English on Sunday nights.....I know he wants to get better, but it is so busy during the week with all the kids' sports schedules and regular homework that this might be a good opportunity to focus on language skills. I'm just not sure of the best way to use our time, but I think having him read out loud to me in an appropriate level book would be a great start. That way I can correct pronunciation, and help with comprehension, etc. I think I'll check with his teachers tomorrow. Anyway, nothing else too exciting, which is just fine with me! However, I am looking forward to Felix's first game....evidently he is one of the better players, so it should be fun! Thanks for following along.....and feel free to post a comment or question. :)

Greetings! Sorry it has been a while, but I am really busy! Mostly I am cooking.....this child can eat! We finally bribed him to bring out his saxophone (John told him he'd have to sleep outside if he didn't at least show it to us....for those of you in Korea, John was just joking:). But it worked, AND he played "You Raise Me Up" by Josh Groban for us! Absolutely beautiful! He has a music book that has the words in Korean and English. Today Felix asked me to find saxophone sheet music for "Just the Two of Us" from back in the 80's. Evidently the "boys" are putting something together.....his friend Asher already has his bass part memorized! Life is settling in and I may have three kids in three different sports this season (even with my own three I don't think I ever had that happen!). Melissa made the softball team today, Kevin is helping out with high school boys volleyball (he can't actually compete because he's in 8th grade), and Felix is considering going out for the soccer team in two days. Thank goodness Melissa drives herself around! We had a fun-filled weekend and I think we are all still recovering. Kevin's good friend Stephen had a "Top Chef" competition for his birthday party, as you can see in the photo with Kevin and Felix. Their team won one of the contests of the evening! They had a lot of fun, and then Sunday night we had a Host Family bar-b-que at school. It was good to chat with some of the other "parents" and compare lives. This weekend he'll probably attend the roller skating party for junior high students with Kevin, but I think that is all we have planned (thank goodness!). I can't believe Felix will have been here three weeks this Friday!

Time flies when you are having fun!

Wow! Sorry this is so delayed! I can't believe Su Hyun has been here a whole week. For the record, all the Korean students chose an American name for their stay here and he chose "Felix", which means "happy" in Latin according to Wikipedia. And he is happy, and so are we! God has answered our prayers and we are so grateful. Felix is very sweet with a great sense of humor and a continually happy countenance. AND he plays the saxaphone! We haven't heard him play yet, but he is actually part of their worship team back home (another answered prayer...some of you know that we prayed he might play an instrument:) so I'm guessing it is just a matter of time before they get together to jam. Pretty exciting! Communication is going well....much better than I thought it would. If he doesn't understand us, which is about 40% of the time right now (he is not used to the way we pronounce certain words), we just write it down and he almost always catches on. He also starts conversations now, and we almost always undertand what he is saying to us. We laugh a lot of the time and he eats everything we make.....what more could we ask? Felix loves school and is very studious, as well as very neat and clean. He loves talking to his parents on the phone and we have been in touch with them by email as well. He is just very excited to be here and wants to make the most of it, and we are all enjoying the experience very much!

We have a name!!!

O.K. The word is in! His last name is Cho (or CHO), so we'll see Su Hyun in about 36 hours!

1 1/2 more days....

We have been informed that "Fes's" real name is Su Hyun CHO. We are looking forward to finding out which part is his "family name" (like our last name.....but in Korea it is usually listed first) since I'm not sure why the CHO is capitalized or if the American administrators decided to 'help us out" by putting the family name last, like we do. Anyway, while Kevin won't be here to welcome him because he is on the 8th grade east coast trip, big brother Ryan had some time off and decided to fly in from Seattle for 3 days! So I'm kind of excited that Su Hyun CHO will have the opportunity to meet our oldest, and vice versa! The rice cooker should be arriving tomorrow (yea! I'll post my reviews on that later), Su Hyun CHO arrives tomorrow night at 9p.m., and I still have lots to do, so bye-bye for now! Feel free to continue praying for all of us! :) SM

Three Days and Counting

John (Dad) chiming in. I never thought that I would be excited to have another child but, low and behold, I am! Of course we'll only have Fes for a short time, but I feel that it will be an incredible experience for our family and hopefully for Fes as well. In typical male fashion I have undertaken the task of learning as much as I can about the Korean culture before Fes arrives; you can never be too prepared! Unfortunately, I have discovered that there is too much to learn and too little time, so I've now left it all in the hands of God, where it should be.

It has been quite an enlightening experience studying about the Korean culture and the history of what is now two nations. Honestly, when I had thought of Asian cultures in the past, I never really took note of Korea, couldn't point it out on a map, nor did I know how the predominant religion in South Korea became Christianity. Now that I know these things, and more, it only makes me more excited to meet Fes and learn more about their fascinating culture.

Preparing For Our Guest

First things first! We have been praying about this adventure since the opportunity arose, and we continue to pray daily for the student who will join us in exactly one week! We don't know his name yet, so to make it a little easier in the interim we are fondly calling him "Fes", which is short for "foreign exchange student" (as in: "I wonder if Fes drinks milk?" or "I wonder if Fes plays sports or a musical instrument?" :). Evidently, there is a chance he will be assigned an English name when he arrives and hopefully we won't have any trouble making the switch!
All we know at this point is that he is an 8th grade boy who attends a Christian boarding school just outside Seoul, South Korea. His family might live in an apartment in the city, or they may be from a little farm out in the country. We'll soon find out! He will be joined by 28 other junior high students from his school (19 boys and 9 girls), and will attend an English Immersion program at Melissa and Kevin's school, Tri-City Christian, where Kevin is also in 8th grade, and Melissa is a senior. Korean students ultimately have to pass a rigorous test in their homeland to be admitted into college, so families sometimes sacrifice to give their children an edge by sending them overseas to programs like ours. If they don't pass the test, they don't go to college! So, we pray for God's hand to be on his entire visit and that it will be a positive educational experience for him as well as a great cross-cultural experience for all of us.
Since this is a family blog, I hope each of us will post our own observations and/or photos, etc., but it may be mostly me (Sue). That said, even though it will always say "Posted by Kevin", we will try to identify ourselves with our initials at the end of each entry. I hope John will share some of the interesting things we've been learning about Korea through library books and the internet in the next few days, and I'm sure the photojournalists in the house will have lots of fun, too!
Thanks for reading!
SM :)