What the heck is Kim Chee?

Today was our first full day of ministry here in the city of Daejeon, Korea. It's a city of about 1.5 million people and has been recognized as a premier city in all of Asia for its scientific advancements. That means there's a ton of smart people here. It would probably be comparable to the Research Triangle in North Carolina.

We had 3 services today. 11:00 - Main Service - Dad preached - 2:00 - Children's service - Another american dude on our team preached - and 4:00 - Youth and college service - I sang and preached. It went really good. We had several people saved in the first service.

We played b-ball tonight with some of the youth and college kids from the church. It was awesome. They're all great kids who really love the Lord and have a hunger for Jesus. One of them, Philip, 27, just returned from a year-long mission trip in Bangladesh and he plans to return there in the future as a life-long missionary. It's awesome to see how God is raising up His people outside of the U.S. who are catching His vision to see all nations worship Him. It's pretty exciting.

Tomorrow I think we begin some home visits during the day and then have the revival meeting in the evening. I think that's pretty much the schedule until the end of the week.

Let me tell you a little about the food thus far. It's been interesting, to say the least. Lunch was held in the fellowship hall of the church and provided by the sweet ladies of Daejeon Central Baptist Church. [Disclaimer: This has nothing to do against them.] The menu consisted of rice, 5-year old pickled garlic stalks, processed seaweed, kim chee (this is basically boiled cabbage covered in Texas Pete), mystery meat sandwiches layered with apples, and rice cake!!! My mouth is watering as I write this!

Tonight, the staff of the church took us to a traditional Korean quisine - sitting indian style on the floor and the whole 9. The menu consisted of more kim chee (I'm realizing it's a staple), various and sundry vegetables that I never knew existed such as a boiled root of the ginseng family, onion/wasabi sauce for dipping EVERYTHING, more rice (rice is our friend right now), and beef and shrimp. The beef and shrimp would have been easier to handle had they not been all cooked together in the same boiling pot resting on the center of the table. Since the beef finished first, it was to be eaten along with the raw juices of the shrimp, which finished cooking later. There's something just wrong about eating beef that smells and tastes like the ocean. It's unbiblical I think. It's in Leviticus somewhere. Anyway, all of that to say that our food experiences have been interesting and would make for some rather good material for the food and travel channels.

Please continue to pray for receptive hearts to the Gospel message. We have had some issues and minor frustrations with the interpreting so far, so just pray that the Lord would get His Word through to the ears of the people, and that they would hear what He wants them to hear. Thanks a bunch.