Season of Hope!

Sunny and I wish you all a very merry and blessed Christmas!

We hope you enjoy your time with your families and loved ones and stay safe during these holidays.

This year has been quite a ride, but one we're both very grateful for. There have been incredible highs, and lows that cut to the core of our hearts, and yet the one constant has been God's neverending faithfulness and love.

He truly has been our hope when there seemed to be none. And we can attest that in Him, we truly have a Living Hope!

And we thank His goodness in bringing into our lives each and every single one of you! For dropping by thank you! For your prayers, thank you even more!

We're really excited about the new things God has in store for us in 2007. If you haven't already heard, drop by again as I'll post up the details in a few days.

God bless! And once more, Merry Christmas! :)


with lots of love,
Sunny & Steve
S.D.G.

Staying Connected: A Retrospective

At the start of this week, I got myself an early Christmas present of sorts with a Dopod 838 Pro.

This is a Windows Mobile 5 PDA phone manufactured by HTC under the code-name Hermes. It’s re-badged by several other companies, most notably i-Mate who call it the JASJAM here in Australia.

As usual when I get a new toy, I was going to post up a review after a bit of use. As I was thinking of doing this review, I thought it’d also be fun to have a bit of a stroll down memory lane in my PDA & mobile phone experience. So I’ve jotted down a few thoughts on all the PDAs and mobile phones I’ve owned.

BTW, my recollection of dates and exact specs may be a bit off on the vintage tech gear. It was a while ago…

Nokia 101

My very first mobile phone was a rather large Nokia 101. To be more precise, it wasn’t solely mine, but was for the whole family. It was on the old analogue network, and I got it in January 1995. I can’t remember the exact details, but I think I had 30 minutes of calls on a $39 plan through Telstra.

It was heavy, so carrying it in a pocket was out of the question. And reception was absolutely hopeless. Any sort of hilly terrain meant that calls got garbled or dropped out altogether. And it was useless in tall buildings. I had no reception in my office in the middle of the city because I was on the 20^th floor.

This was a time when you had a mobile phone either as a yuppie status symbol, or for work as a tradesman. Tradespeople used the famous Motorola brick phone, while the other group went for the new Nokias.

Nokia 2110

Anyways, soon after that, the new GSM network was introduced. So I retired the Nokia 101 to my parents and got myself the “Rolls-Royce” of mobile phones at the time – the Nokia 2110 on the new upstart telco, Vodafone. This was late 1995, around August.

At the time, GSM reception was even worse than the analogue network. But the phone was much, much smaller and call quality, when you could use it, was much better than the static-ridden analogue handset.

This was a great phone that I used for about 3 years.

Ericsson T-18z
I finally upgraded my phone in 1998 to this newly released marvel of modern miniaturisation. A tiny flip-phone, it was almost half the size of my old Nokia 2110. It was a decent phone, but in terms of functionality, it wasn’t much of a step up from my old Nokia 2110.

At this time, Motorola owned the patent for answering a call by opening up the flip. So while the T-18 was a flip phone, opening the flip wouldn’t answer the call. You’d have to open, then press the receive button.

In fact, the flip was nothing more than a keypad cover. It was a flimsy bit of thin plastic that broke off very easily. I was heart-broken when this happened not long after I got the phone, but I found with use that this was more convenient.

Actually, I had this phone stolen after about 8 months, but found it again. I left it on my desk one time, and went away to do something. When I got back, my phone was gone. I checked everywhere, called it a few times, but nothing. I resigned myself to never seeing it again, and got out my old Nokia 2110 to use again.

A few weeks later, I got a call from Gosford Shopping Centre asking me if I was the owner of an Ericsson T-18. The thief had left it somewhere, and they’d tracked the owner back to me. So I was fortunate enough to find my stolen phone. J

Nokia 3210
But the T-18 wasn’t a very sturdy phone. Mind you, I was a bit of a rough user. I didn’t bother with a case, and just slipped it into my back pocket, which meant that every time I sat down, the poor phone was bearing a fair whack of my weight.

There was also a time where I tried to answer a call while walking down a flight of stairs and carrying quite a number of things. Needless to say, I dropped the phone, and to my horror, watched it tumble end-over-end down the whole flight of stairs.

Basically what I’m saying is that by 2000, it was pretty much dead. So I got the Nokia 3210 that had been released the year before. The Nokia 3210 was a no-frills phone that did what it had to do very well. In other words, it was functional and tough – VERY tough!

How tough, you ask? Well, one time I put the phone on top of my car as I was chatting face to face with someone before getting in to drive off. I totally forgot my phone was on the roof of my car and started to drive off. As I was slowly rolling away, I heard a slight crunch. About the same time, my friend yelled out for me to stop – but all too late.

I’d driven over my phone. I picked it up off the ground, and not surprisingly, it was no longer in very good nick. The case was cracked all over the place, and the screen had a jagged line diagonally across it. On one side, it was all dark where the liquid of the LCD had seeped out. As I was looking at my phone, just out of habit, I pressed the “on” button. To my great surprise, it turned on! And connected onto the network!

And while the whole screen wasn’t visible, I could still see enough to make and receive calls. So until I found a replacement (a 2^nd hand Nokia 3210), I used this battered, yet working phone. J

Palm m100
This was the time I got my first PDA. It was actually a prize for a competition I won. Palm Pilots had been around for a while, but the Palm m100 was the first that was at a price affordable enough for most people. And to celebrate, I think 10 were being given away by some computer magazine. I was fortunate enough to be one of the 10.

In using this device, I quickly realised two things.

Firstly, having a PDA isn’t an automatic quick-fix to getting your life organised!

Secondly, carrying a bulky PDA along with a mobile phone was a hassle.

So after carrying and using it for a while, I found that I worked more efficiently without it. I wanted it to fit in with the way I worked, but I found that I had to change my habits and patterns to be able to use it properly. So it was put off into early retirement.

NEC 808n
2003 marked my first taste of the new 3G network. To be honest, this first taste left a rather bitter taste in my mouth.

My previous experience with a PDA had left me wishing for some convergence device that wedded the PDA to a phone. I suppose I wasn’t the only person wishing for such a device, because a few started popping onto the market, most notably O2 with their XDA and Smartphone. However, these were way out of my league as I could not afford, let alone justify spending about $1500 for a PDA/phone.

But one that attracted my attention was this NEC 808n on the new 3 network. 3 had just started trading, and they were on an advertising blitz, trumpeting the advantages of the newer 3G network over the old GSM standard. The highlight of the new 3G service was video calling.

And 3 was offering a 2-for-1 special where you could get 2 handsets for the price of 1. The plan included $500 (I think) of free voice and video calls to other 3 handsets. One of the handsets on offer was the NEC 808n – a rather large flip phone that had a keyboard in place of a keypad.

So I opted for 2 of these – one for me and one for my wife.

Big mistake.

3 was just starting out, and their coverage was worse than anything I’d ever experienced in a mobile phone. I simply gave up trying to talk to people on the phone because the hassle of calling back again and again after dropped out calls and standing in and holding weird and unusual poses to maintain the connection was not something I particularly enjoyed.

To add to the problems of the network, the phone was no joy either.

Firstly, it was heavy and big! It was available in two colours – silver and black. The silver one looked more like a powder compact that a woman might have in her handbag than a phone. As for the black one…

Let me explain with a story. A high school student I knew at the time also got this phone. One day as he was holding up this big, black monstrosity to the side of his head while on a call, a friend came up to him and asked, “Why do you have your calculator against your ear?”

It was that big!

One advantage as that you could use it to protect yourself against thugs. It was heavy. It was big. It was a weapon.

And the USIM errors this thing would regularly throw up!

The phone would stall on this “USIM error” several times a day. And since it didn’t have a screen on the outside, I would be blissfully unaware that my phone was as good as off because of a USIM error. So I took it into a 3 store to ask about it. The guy behind the counter said he could fix it, which relieved me no end.

He then proceeded to do something that left me speechless and absolutely stunned.

He ripped a small bit of paper, then folded it a few times. Then he opened the back of the phone, and placed this folded strip of paper above the USIM card, then put the cover back on.

“All done!” he smiled at me.

When I could finally gibber out something intelligible, I asked what that did. Apparently, the USIM error happened because the USIM card would occasionally lose contact with the reading points in the phone. The strip of folded paper was a way of pushing down on the USIM card to keep it properly connected to the reading points.

O…K…

Put it this way, I left 3 before my contract was over. I’d rather pay out the penalty than put myself through further punishment for the sake of a phone!

Toshiba e400
The double-whammy of the NEC 808n – not only was it a hopeless phone, it was an even worse PDA. So I started to look for a PDA again. Actually, I tried to re-use the m100 I had, but got frustrated with it once more.

But thankfully, I won another competition that provided me with a Toshiba e400 along with an Infra-red keyboard. This Microsoft Pocket PC device was sleek, light, and had been reviewed very favourably by a lot of tech reviewers.

It came with a 128MB SD card for expanded storage. On that card, I installed Pocket e-Sword. For those of you interested, this is a free Bible program which is the equal to software you have to pay good money for. It comes with various translations of the Bible, including Korean if you install some Korean fonts, and public domain references like commentaries, Bible dictionaries and devotionals.

This was much more flexible than the m100 I had before, and I enjoyed using it. I even used it to type some notes during meetings where I didn’t want to pull out my notebook computer.

This was a great tool that I enjoyed using, and it convinced me that if I were going to get a convergence device in the future, it’d be a Pocket PC based one instead of the Symbian UIQ ones like the Sony Ericssons and Nokias.

Nokia 6610i
As mentioned before, I got so fed up with the NEC 808n on 3 that I ditched it about 4 months early. I didn’t even want to argue about keeping the number…I wanted a totally fresh start!

So I got this Nokia 6610i on the Optus $49 Cap in 2004. The phone was a bare-bones model without any fancy functions. But I didn’t care. I was just happy I had a phone I could make and receive calls with!

It was at this time that I had a closer look at the PocketPC phones that were being sold by companies such as O2 and i-Mate.

In July 2005, I finally decided to take the plunge and sell all my phones and the PDA, pool the money and buy myself a PDA Phone. I put up for sale my Nokia 6610i, Toshiba e400, and 2 NEC 808n’s.

To be honest, I didn’t expect anyone to want the NEC phones. The funny thing was that some guy in Perth bought both of these phones from me off eBay for what I thought was a ridiculous sum. Just goes to prove that one man’s trash is another’s treasure…

i-Mate JAM
And with the funds raised, I bought myself the i-Mate JAM with a 512MB SD card. Honestly, this was a fantastic device! I couldn’t believe how streamlined everything now was. I’d constantly used the Toshiba e400 so was used to that OS. But combining it with a phone in one small device meant that I had at my fingertips all my contact information, my emails, my detailed diary, and a Bible all in my phone which could connect to the internet through GPRS in an emergency. And it would synchronise seamlessly with Microsoft Outlook with was my main PIM (Personal Information Management) software.

The only thing missing was a Bluetooth headset. But a friend had a spare just laying around, so he passed it on to me to use.

i-Mate K-JAM
The i-Mate JAM was a great phone that I was very happy with. But I kept reading reports in online forums that many of these phones would die after about 12 months once the warranty had run out. I didn’t want that happening, so in February, I decided to sell this and buy a new one.

It was at this time that the i-Mate K-JAM was released. This was pretty similar to the i-Mate JAM, but had 2 major differences. It came with built-in wifi card (b/g) to access wireless networks, and it had a full slide out keyboard.

It was actually running on a slower processor, but the newer Windows Mobile 5 OS apparently meant that it could make do with a slower CPU. The added benefit was that battery life could be extended.

So I got myself a 2nd hand one of these and went about installing all the programs I had on my old JAM. This meant that I had to get a new card - a mini-SD which is about one third the size of a standard SD card.

This was a wonderful unit that in general terms was a great productivity tool. The slide out keyboard was great for SMSing, and I even used it to type up some prelim stuff for a sermon when I was out without my computer and found myself with a fair bit of spare time.

The wifi was also nice to use and worked well, but I found that I very rarely used it. Where I could connect to a wireless network, I usually had my computer so I could connect with that.

The one problem I did have was with the slow CPU. If I was running several things at once, it'd sometimes jam up. I mentioned this to someone, and they came back with a rather sad, but quite witty remark. "It's not an i-Mate K-JAM, it's a 'k mate, I jam.' " :P

If I can mention another not so good point, it was the built in camera. Rated at 1.3 megapixels, it was really terrible at taking photos. I guess you don't get a phone for the camera (usually), but this built-in camera was simply terrible.

But all in all, it was a great device that I was very happy with and used well.

So there you go...a stroll through the last 12 years of my mobile phone and PDA experience. Maybe I might do one for all the computers I've owned over the years... :P

Day 16-20: Re-union

Saturday was a day to catch up with the in-laws. For lunch, I had a nice Japanese buffet at some hotel, and then a Korean BBQ place in the evening. It was good to see my sister-in-law, her husband and 2 little girls, along with my father-in-law and mother-in-law. Living so far apart, we don't get to see each other very often, so it's very special when we do catch up. :)

The following day was Sunday, and I'd arranged to go worship together with a group of old Saesoon high-schoolers who were now in Korea for various reasons. We were to meet up at Kangnam around 10:30am for the 11am English service at Sarang Church.

The "we" included Graham Bae, Injung Park, Bora Nam, and Eunji Kim. Jae-Ho Kong was to join up with us in the afternoon. I was really excited to see these guys, some of whom I haven't seen in years! I was so excited, I got there an hour early! :P

So I went to a cafe and sat down and waited...hehe




First to arrive was Eunji! As we were saying how good it was to see each other, Graham and Injung walked up. Bora had called Graham the night before to say she unfortunately couldn't make it. We still had a bit of time before the service started, so we went to a cafe nearby (The Coffee Bean) and yacked away.




I still remember vividly the emphatic "I so want to get out of this country!" from Eunji! And Graham's vigorous nods in agreement could not be missed either! :P

I guess Eunji couldn't wait to get out because she wanted to get married ASAP! As for Graham...well, if you've read his xanga in the recent months, you'd know why he wanted to leave! hehe




The English service was interesting. I was surprised that they'd have several services each Sunday, each one being filled out with worshippers. While there were a quite a few overseas people, I think most were Koreans who were attending with a view to improving their English.

After the service, I was surprised when a girl came up to me and asked, "Are you Steve Oh from JAMA in Australia?"

JAMA Jr in 2005 had a group of New Zealanders attending, and she was a part of that group. She was in Korea studying for a year. It was good to meet someone randomly like that, and we had a bit of a chat. :)

As I was saying bye to Grace (the Kiwi girl), Mr Ball (my nickname for Jae-Ho...his surname is Kong...) walked up to us. He had the afternoon off, and wanted to hang out with us, which I was very happy about. I'd seen him for a bit this past April when he was in Australia, but I didn't really get to talk with him, so this would be a good chance to catch up. :)

So we went off to this Korean-Chinese Fusion place for lunch and had this yummy chicken for lunch. Whiel we were having lunch, Injung got a call from Jung-Hwa Kim, and she came over to join up with us. I hadn't seen this girl in years either, and she'd changed a heap in that time! While I hadn't seen Injung in about 5 years, I would still be able to recognise her if I passed her on the street. She looked pretty much the same, her face hadn't changed that much. But Jung-Hwa! No way would I have been able to recognise her!




After lunch we headed over to Starbucks for coffee and to just hang out. BTW, there are so many Starbucks in Seoul...it seems as though there's at least one every block!




Jung-Hwa couldn't stay with us for long, and she had to go after coffee. But the rest of us still wanted to hang out, so we hopped on the subway and made our way to Coex Centre. Why there? Well, Mr Ball wanted to buy some jacket, and since none of us had anywhere specific we wanted to go, we decided to tag along! :)




Jae couldn't find anything he wanted. But in the meantime, some of us were feeling a bit hungry. Only about 3 hours had passed since lunch, and the lunch was a pretty filling one. But all this chattering and excitement at seeing each other must've aided the digestion... :P




So we went to some random pizza place and ordered some pizzas, pasta and salad. To be honest, the food wasn't that great. In general, I don't like Korean pizzas because the cheese tastes "uncheesy". And the pizza here was no different. But hey, we weren't here to eat, and the company more than made up for the less than scintillating food. :)




After the pizza, it was time to get Graham back to Seoul Station so he could catch his train back down to Daegu (I think that's where he's staying...).

But when we got there, we still had 90 minutes before his train was due to depart. So we decided to have a walk around. Jae said he'd give us a tour, and then proceeded to lead us on a walk...a long walk.




On that walk, we passed by Nam-dae-mun and through to the markets. Suddenly, Jae said he was hungry, and asked if anyone else was. And surprisingly, some us, including me, were. So he said he'd take us to this lady who sold the best dduk-bok-ki. Apparently, she was always at the same spot. But when we got there, there was no lady and no dduk-bok-ki.

So we backtracked, looking for a place to eat. We stumbled on a random place and were looking at the menu posted on the outside. We were a bit hesitant to go in, because there was absolutely no one in there. As we were umm-ing and ahh-ing, the lady running the place came out and asked us to come in. She had the best and yummiest food, she insisted.

Well, time was running out, so we just decided to try it out. And boy! Was it good! :)

We had a veritable feast!




Afterwards, we trekked back to the station to bid farewell to Graham. It was sad to see him leave...as one day was far too short.

At that point we headed back to the subway system and also said our farewells and slowly and reluctantly went our separate ways.

The rest of my stay in Korea involved meeting up with various other people who were now living in Korea. Unfortunately, I didn't take my camera around with me, and so could not get shots with them.

On Monday, I caught up with Tim Byun (formerly youth pastor at KCPC) and had a nice chat with him in the morning. He's probably in America by now, starting at his new job. After that, I had a long lunch with Jae-Ho Kong, talking in depth about life in general. He will be back in Sydney late December for a holiday, so looking forward to that. :)

And most random of all, on Tuesday, when I was out buying gifts for people back home, I bumped into an old school friend! Yes! That's right! High school friend! He'd been in Korea for some 18 months, working for a company. We didn't have that much time together, as he was off to a meeting and I had to go back and pack for the flight home that evening. But we had a quick coffee together. :)

I then got back to my sister-in-law's place to finish packing, and headed off to the airport. I'd again booked a seat with power access for my computer. But when I got on the plane, I was told it was an older plane that didn't have the satellite equipment installed to access the in-air internet. And to top it all off, I got seated right in the middle of a group of old (and I mean OLD) Korean tourists heading over to Australia.

Since I couldn't change my seating, I decided to do what I could and helped out with the elderly couple sitting next to me. They'd never been on a plane before, so needed help from the seat belt to working the audio and to recling the seat. But I wasn't too fussed.

The flight was pretty stock standard, with nothing untoward. And so I arrived home...glad to be back and overjoyed to see my wife! :)

Day 10-15: Put to the Sword!

It's been a long time since my last update, so my apologies. Now that we've got that out of the way, let's get back to it. :)

I landed at Incheon airport at 6:30am on Monday morning. From there, I caught a shuttle bus to take me to Kang-nam station, which is about a block away from Sarang Church. Sarang Church was hosting the CAL Seminar, and they were providing a bus service from their church building to their retreat centre about an hour out from Seoul.




Because I arrived so early, I had quite a bit of time after I got to Sarang Church. So I asked the building supervisor to watch over my luggage, and I went and sat down at a cafe for a bit.

A bit was 3 hours, but that was fine because I had a book to read. :)

After that, I walked over to Sarang Church once more, and waited around with everyone else to get on the buses. As I was standing there, I was surprised to see Lee Kie-Sun mogsanim. This was one of the associate ministers from Saesoon, and a guy I studied at PTC with and was ordained with. I hadn't seen him in ages, so it was a nice surprise to bump into him here.




As we were chattering away catching up, another mogsanim I know from Sydney came up with the words, "Huh? What are you doing here?!" (Translated of course! :) )

It was Yoo Jong-Oh mogsanim.




As we were talking together, Lee Seung-Hak mogsanim from Ggumi-inun Church came along. I knew he'd be there. He's my partner minister in our co-operative church - Korean ministry with Ggumi-inun Church and English ministry with Sydney Living Hope Community Church. But more on that later. :)




12:30pm came along and we got on the bus together and made our way to the retreat centre. I was quite amazed by the place, as it was very well built with excellent facilities.

We went in to register, pick up our registration packs, and our room keys and made our way up to our rooms.

I was given a twin share room on the top floor, which I was to share with Bae Yong-Gi mogsanim who was also from Sydney, although I'd never met him before.




The quality of the room was astounding - about the standard of a good quality 3-4 star hotel!




After that, I made my way downstairs to the lobby cafeteria and sat with the others talking about this and that, waiting until for the conference to get underway at 4pm.

I was surprised to find out that not all the rooms were like the one I had. Lee Kie-Sun mogsanim was in a room with 6 other people where they were all sleeping on the floor. It seems that the quality of accommodation depends on whether you are a senior pastor of your own church, or an associate pastor.

Anyways, I was flicking through the timetable which was very very VERY packed! Seminars starting early in the morning and running until 10pm and no free time apart from meals!




I won't bore you with the details, but will point out some highlights. :)

I was shocked to find out that a part of the training was leading a Bible Study with one of Sarang Church's small groups at the end of the week. Leading a small group Bible study wasn't something I was too concerned about. What petrified me was leading a small group Bible study with just middle-aged ladies as members IN KOREAN!

But praise God, this went very well, and I was encouraged by their feedback. The group leader is meant to give a report with a mark and comments, which were all good. I didn't want to share my mark, but the other mogsanim's were really happy with their comments and marks and demanded I share mine. Surprisingly, mine was way better. Must've been a sympathy vote or something.

For that program, I was paired up with another mogsanim. He was an associate minister in a church in Seoul. And as we got to talking, we realised it was a place where one of the people I'd studied with at PTC had gone back to intern at. It's a small thing, I know...but when you're paired together among 450 others, it's quite amazing to find that even with such a random person you can find a link!




I also had an amusing incident in the lift. There were 450 pastors from around 50 different countries. And while the vast bulk of them were Korean, there were quite a few from other countries. One of these guys was a pastor from India.

Anyways, I was getting a lift to my room one time, and this Indian pastor got in the lift with me. I assumed that not too many people were speaking with him because he couldn't speak Korean and most of the Koreans couldn't speak English. So I struck up a conversation with him.

It turned out he was a pastor in Kolkata in India. At this point, I got really excited and started telling him how I'd been there on a short-term mission trip in partnership with a local church there.

He got excited too and asked about what I did there with my team. Finally, he asked me the name of the pastor for this church.

"Pastor Roy." I replied.

At this, a sudden look of confusion came about and he stammered out, "But...I'm Pastor Roy!"

Turned out he was the older brother of the Pastor Roy I knew!




Another unusual meeting...

I was waiting at the public phone to make a call back home. There was a guy already on the phone who was turned around staring directly at me.

I was kinda getting uncomfortable, and a little ticked off because he just kept staring. Finally, he ended his call, so I started to walk in to make my call.

But he asks, "Are you from Sydney?" (we all had to wear name tags with our church names on it, and my church name was "Sydney Living Hope")

I replied, "Yes."

Out of the blue, he asks, "Do you know Harold Oh mogsanim?"

At this, I'm floored, because that is my dad! Turns out, he was doing a Masters in the same department that my dad is currently doing his PhD at Queensland University!

It's a small, SMALL world!




Anyways, after the hectic 5 days, I stayed one extra night at the retreat centre and made my way back via the church bus to their church building in Kang-nam. I was to be picked up by my sister-in-law who I'd be staying with for a few days until heading back to Sydney.

As I was waiting, I see a very familiar face walk by.

I'm trying to match his face with a list of people in my head when it hits me, Pastor Charles Kim from JAMA Convention in 2005!

I called out his name, and he was as surprised as I was. His words, "Steve? What are you doing here?"

I'd actually contacted him several weeks ago via email to try and catch up in LA while I was there, but our schedules didn't match so we couldn't. So it definitely was a surprise to see him here in Korea.




He was apparently here quite regularly, doing consultation work for Sarang Church, Anyways, we had a nice little conversation, and then headed our separate ways.

Day 6-9: Say Good-bye to Hollywood...

edit: photos now added :)


(This post doesn't yet have photos...I forgot to upload the pics to my comp and I can't be bothered to get it out of the overhead luggage compartment...hehe)

Yes, I'm in a plane once more as I type this. I didn't have the time the last few days because of the convention, so I'm compressing it all into this one post.

On Day 6, I got to meet up with Dennis Kim again. Some of you may remember him as the pastor who came to speak for the PG1 & PG2 retreats this year.




We went to a local steakhouse and had a beautiful cut of meat cooked just right - not so rare that it's still dripping, but not too done so that the meat is a pale pink. Succulent and tasty! And the clam chowder we had as an entree was really good too!




Just as an aside, in America, they call the "main" an "entree". And the "entree" is called an "appetiser". Actually...it's appetizer with a "z"... :P

It was good to catch up with Pastor Dennis and hear about what he's been up to and where God is leading him in ministry.

Another random thing about USA...I don't think I want to live there.

Why?

Nothing bad, really. Most of you know I LOVE sports. Here in the States, there isn't a day that goes by when there's some form of sport that's on. With the start of the NBA season, I've had access to 4 games of basketball a night no TV, plus some repeats of NFL (Americna football) and also NHL (ice hockey).

If I lived here, I'd never get anything done because I'd be watching sports on TV all the time!



And so with Day 7, the NYWC 2006 began. The seminars were excellent! I got a lot out of them...deeply challenging and convicting. You got to choose out of a heap, so there's always something you can learn from.

But one thing I found disconcerting was the level of preparedness of many of the "youth pastors" who turned up. I'm not necessarily saying that strong academic foundations is vital for everyone, but there is still a need for some basics. A lot of the "youth pastors" were barely out of high school, and their grasp of Scripture and views of ministry were very uninformed to say the least. Very much a case of the "blind leading the blind".

Having passion is vital, and I don't deny that. But you also need training. It's not an either/or situation...you need both!

And some even revelled and gloried in their ignorance. One guy who'd been in youth ministry for ages boasted to me, "I've never been to Bible college or anything like that. I don't need it. What's systematic theology going to do for my youth?"

A great deal, was my answer.

But I did get to meet some wonderful people and learned a great deal. My eyes were opened to new things, and was encouraged greatly by God during my time there.




And so, I'm here on the plane...about an hour out from Incheon airport. I'm sure the next week is going to be a complete culture shock - from the laid-back, deliberately-trying-to-be-cool attitude of thousands of youth pastors, to a conference for and with several hundred Korean Senior Pastors who for the most part will be very conservative... Definitely going to be interesting!





Just as an aside...Korean Air recently updated their uniforms for flight attendants. To be honest, it's weird!




I'm all for avant garde fashion and cutting edge design...but these uniforms just make the flight attendants look like cosmetic counter girls in a department store...hehe

Day 5: Trick or Treat!

I had no idea Halloween was such a huge deal in America. Sure you know kids go around in costumes at night "trick or treat"-ing. But right from the morning, I saw fully grown adults walking around in various costumes! It was just too weird for me!

After I woke up, I went out for a bit of a walk. About a block away from my hotel, there's a strawberry patch and a small produce stall. It's really unusual because right in the middle of all this development, they have this farm!




Apparently, the owners of this block of land never bothered selling up. Great thinking because I cannot even begin to imagine how expensive this huge block of land right next to Disneyland would be now!!




Anyways, in the stall, they were selling bananas for 59c a pound - about $1 a kilo! With the price of bananas so steep in Australia, it's been a while since I've had some. So I couldn't resist! I bought a bit over a kilo's worth and ate one on the way back to my room. Yummy!




An odd thing happened on my way back though. A guy that looked like he was suffering from extreme effects of drug withdrawal ran up to me and said, "Excuse me sir. Could you spare 50c so I can buy some food?"

Since I had a bag full of bananas, I offered him some instead of the money. He refused and ran off.



I got back to my room and hung around for a while, waiting for Pastor Steve Choi to come pick me up. He was coming with a few EM-ers and we were going to go have lunch together.

They took me to this really nice place called Cheesecake Factory. It's a really nice restaurant chain.






We ordered 4 dishes which we were all going to share.

They were huge servings, and very nice! :)










We were so full after the meal that we had to walk it off. So we went around the mall and took some pics. :)







Afterwards, I got dropped back at my hotel. It was still mid afternoon, so I got on the bus and went sightseeing...here are some photos. :)




BTW, I stumbled across this emergency scene...I asked one of the security guards nearby and he said an old lady had been mugged. Not sure why the firetruck was there but...