The boxes had rice and several side dishes plus a medicated patch for arthritis. We also put in cookies with labels saying "We love you, from the Dillon mission group"
Here we are with the cutest little lady ever!! I just grinned ear to ear when she opened the door. Imagine her surprise when 3 giant American women were standing there :) I swear she was 3.5 feet tall. She was thrilled and shook our hands and patted us.
The community center also focuses on job training for elders. Here they are training the ladies to cut and perm hair.
And, a coffee shop with older women who are licensed barristas!
My mother, Abby, and I then helped some teachers prepare food for an after school program. Abby made fried Tempura shrimp.
We made Halloween crafts with the children in the after school program. The teachers said they were having a Halloween party Friday, even though it is not a widely celebrated day here. They tried to speak English with us.
Other services offered were speech and physical therapy for delayed children(I was really excited to see that, but no children were there during the day), job training for adults who are cognitively impaired(I had a cute boyfriend in there who kept grinning and waving at me). They offer yoga for elders, day care for little kids, and they have a cafeteria for low-income people to get a free meal everyday.
After spending all day at the center we headed to a theater to watch Nanta Cooking. It was kind of like Stomp but in a Korean kitchen setting. The show was fantastic and hilarious. I've seriously never ever heard Abby giggle and laugh so hard. She has corny Korean humor!
To end our day, we had a dinner at a Chinese restaurant(I'm so ready to eat plain sandwiches!). Each person shared what they learned or what touched them most. Here is what I've learned and stay with me here.....
One of the really neat things about this trip is that Abby has spent 8 days with other Korean adoptees (including one woman who is 30 and met her birth family on this trip). She is generally stoic and closed about her birth situation and doesn't like to talk about adoption. This week she has been forced to reflect and realize that there was great loss in her birth family situation. However, there is also great joy and hope. I think that at the cusp of becoming a teenager, this experience will benefit her enormously in terms of being comfortable with her identity.
Personally, I don't think we "helped" anybody on this trip. For the first few days I really struggled with frustration because we weren't busy serving and I'm a driven, type A worker. There was no tangible accomplishment. We did a lot of smiling, bowing, hugging, talking, and sitting in ceremonies, and rocking babies. Then, it hit me! Really, what impact did I expect to have in a few short days? It would be extremely arrogant and ethnocentric to think that this group of Americans could change the situation of parentless children in Korea. My pastor believes in supporting indigenous leaders working in their own country. I think that is what this trip accomplished. If we encouraged the local people at Eastern Social Welfare Society, who are working so diligently every day for 40 years, then it is worth it. They are the ones leading true change and improvement. They are the ones who need to see that what they do has a lasting impact. I'm honored to have spent 8 days demonstrating gratitude and appreciation for all the people here. The people at Eastern are truly expressing pure religion:
James 1:27 Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.
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