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New Year's Eve was probably my favorite NYE ever. A couple of friends and I were going to go dancing, then one of them was like, "Hey, there's a NYE service at our favorite church in Seoul. Wanna do that instead?" And we were all like "YES PLEASE" and so that's what we did! (That favorite church is New Harvest Ministry at Sarang Community Church. "Sarang" means Love in Korean. Every time I'm in Seoul for Sunday mornings, I try to make my way there cause they have this AMAAAAZING contemporary English worship service that just... ahh... it's authentic and beautiful and connects you to the Father and fills you up with Truth. I love it.)
Can I say that there is no better way I've ever rung in a new year? What better way to let go of the old year and bring in a new one than by worshiping the God who created time? I'd like to do that every year, forever. I'm so blessed to have friends who enjoy going to church to worship as much as (or more than) going dancing. What a unique, sweet life! Blessed beyond what I deserve.
[By the way, New Harvest Sarang is crazy-difficult to find cause it's in the basement of this random building in Gangnam (and I've gotten lost about every time I've been), but it's SO WORTH IT to try to find. Here's the page with directions to the service. Side note: Gangnam, as in Gangnam Style, is a district in Seoul. It's be like Wall Street mixed with 5th Avenue in NYC. Gangnam is pronounced "gahng-nahm," not "gayng-naam." Make your A's more of an "ahh" than an "ay" and you've got it!]
After church, we wandered back through Gangnam and saw these giant 2013 balloons floating up along the streets! We had stopped to sign one while we walked to church before midnight, so then after midnight our names were up there floating above Seoul! How cool, right? They were beautiful! There was also this huge concert-party going on that we got to see, so we got the Times Square feeling for New Year's, too!! It was, in a word, perfect.
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There is this New Year's Day tradition in Korea to watch the sun rise the morning of January 1. The boys and I woke up flippin' early and joined in on the tradition! We waited with a huge crowd on Namsan, the mountain in Seoul that N Seoul Tower sits on. It was snowing and windy and we waited and froze and saw Seoul go from black-darkness-of-night to white-snowy-dreariness-of-a-cloudy-day... so in theory, we saw the sun "rise," but only inasmuch as we saw it get light. We didn't exactly see the sun. BUT. We can say we did it! YAY! Check that off the Cool Stuff To Do In Korea list!
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RESOLUTIONS:
So my main resolution has to do more with obedience to God than anything, but that's not a quantifiable goal, so I made some of those too.
I decided that I want to run a 5K again this spring, so my goal is to run a 5K by June. I haven't run 5K in a few years (yikes, I now), so this should be fun!
I also decided to read 12 books that I have put off for years or that have intimidated me over the years. I've started with Left Behind (cause I missed that trend in the 90's) and I'll go on from there. I want to read Les Miserables and LOTR along the way, for sure! I'm pretty sure I can do 12 solid books in a year. I mean, I read each Harry Potter in 2-3 days, so if I neglect everything else I'm supposed to do, really focus, I can do this.
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New Year's Day
2013
HAPPY NEW YEAR
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