Joined choir!

Last week Ruthie, who works in the Academic Office, e-mailed Jonathan and asked him if he and I would like to join the church choir. Recently they've been announcing in church that they are looking for new choir and orchestra members. We thought the orchestra looked like fun, but since we don't have our instruments here, we aren't exactly able to join. And as for choir, all the songs are in Korean so we never really considered joining it. But Ruthie said that she didn't read Korean very well either and the choir members wrote out the sounds in English letters so she could sing along. She had joined the week before and now was actively recruiting other foreign members so she wouldn't be the only one. We decided to take the plunge and Jonathan picked up two copies of the choir songbook halfway through the week. On Friday night after vespers we went to the practice and were happy to find out that Ruthie had convinced another foreign teacher, Sandra, to join as well. So that made four of us foreigners. All the choir members were so kind and helpful, even though some of them knew very little English. The ones who did, sat beside us, helped us write the sounds in our music, and translated with the director was saying. Ruthie, it turned out, was being very, very modest. She actually reads Korean quite well and didn't even need to write the sounds in her music to feel confident enough to sing for church. The other three of us, though, were very glad for the assistance. But we're all planning to study up on Korean and try to be self-sufficient in the near future. Here's a little look at our music and Korean lyrics.

Choir songbook for this quarter

The special music song for March 31, Communion Sabbath

Korean and English details

Korean snowman hidden in our music (it's pronounced 'hung')

Hymn in Korean with a cheat sheet - The choir sang this for passing out the wine

And, for your viewing pleasure, you can feast your eyes and ears on these two videos taken in church last week. The first is the theme song we've been singing at the end of song service time during the month of March. I believe the theme song will change for April, so I wanted to get a video of it before we stopped singing it. It's called "We Will Keep Our Faith Alive" and is a song I'd never heard until we first sang it in March, but it's definitely one that I want to keep in my repertoire. It's so beautiful and uplifting! Another foreign teacher said, during a song service practice, that it sounded like a Christian anthem. I agree. Apparently it's very popular with Korean Adventists, and now it's popular with me, too!

The second video is of our special music song with the choir, "I Could Not Do Without Thy Grace."

*Both videos were taken by an All-Day Club student, Jennifer, since Jonathan and I were both in the choir. I neglected to tell her how to focus the camera in the few seconds I had between the end of our practice and the start of the church service, so it's my fault the videos aren't focused. But you can still hear the pretty songs! (And also, sorry the musicians are overpowering the singers in the choir special music. I'm sure it didn't sound like that from a little farther back in the church.) Thanks, Jennifer, for taking these videos for us!*

So that's the recent news from our part of the world. We're leaving tomorrow morning for a four-day teacher's retreat with all the teachers, directors, and administrators in the SDA Language Institute system. We'll be back sometime on Monday, so I'm sure we'll have something to post from our time at the Yangpyeong English Village when we return. Stay tuned!