Settling In

Hi,

I don’t think this is going to be a very long letter. I just wanted to let you all know how I’m doing, before too much more time passes. I’m sorry I haven’t been in touch before now. My life has been a little bit unsettled, and to be quite honest, I don’t like to write when I’m having a difficult time.

Coming back to Korea this time has been different from the others. Usually I’m thrust headlong into the fast lane, with hardly a chance to get my feet under me. This time, life recommenced at a much slower pace. The day after I flew in, snow began to fall. It continued to fall until the city shut down. It was the worst snow fall that Seoul has seen in 103 years, and it brought the city to an abrupt halt. Since transportation was in a deadlock, and since the house of the friend with whom I was camping out is near the top of a steep, icy mountain, I was pretty much confined to the indoors for the first week. In some ways that was nice; it was good to take it easy and give myself a chance to recover from jet lag. On the other hand, though, I wanted to be able to get out to look for a place to live. After nearly two weeks of inactivity, I’m getting stir crazy and beginning to feel a little down.

I’d really appreciate your prayers for me to be able to settle back into life here. It’s been hard to re-engage, because there’s no way for me to pick up where I left off. It’s been particularly difficult while I’ve been homeless, because I have no place to settle down in. I can’t unpack, I can’t go shopping (my diet was really limited the first week; it’s stretching the truth to say that I got two square meals a day), and for a while I couldn’t even get my cell phone re-registered, so I had no way to be in touch with friends here.

However, as of today, I finally have my phone, and my housing situation worked out. That’s a huge load off my shoulders. As it turns out, You can ignore my facebook status. I won’t be living in a 2x2 goshiwon. After finding that place, I came back to the house of the girl I was temporarily staying with to tell her that I would be moving out the next day. She was surprised that I’d found a place so soon, and apparently displeased to be losing her roommate. Long and short of it was that she asked me to continue to live with her, while I’m in Korea. That took us a couple of days to settle (I can’t begin to express how slowly things can sometimes take to solve themselves over here), and this afternoon the arrangements were finally sealed. I’ll be living with Becky for the next two and a half months.

So having passed those two mile markers, I feel a lot more optimistic about life. Honestly, though, coming back here this time has been a really hard transition. I was busy and happy at home, and really making a difference in the lives of my family. I had a finger in every pie, and had invested a lot in the younger girls particularly, but in others as well. I left at a really good time, where I was seeing a lot of fruit and answered prayer in the lives of the people around me, and came back to Korea where I feel I have nothing to give. I have a lot of friends, whom I mostly bum off of, but no one really needs me here, and my life is mostly idle and pointless, in contrast to what it was two weeks ago. So I ask myself why I’m here. And I have no answer.

I’m taking an online writing class, as well, which I really enjoy. It’s a little bit time consuming, but I’m learning a lot, and am glad that I signed up for it before heading over here.

Because of the ambiguous housing/phone situation, I haven’t been able to get together with any one for language exchange. Now, though, I should find myself some people to study with before long, and I’m sure that once I’m more regularly employed I’ll have better attitude about everything. Meanwhile, though, I’d really appreciate your prayers that God will bring someone or something my way for me to do.

And, again, thanks for your patience with my lack of communication. Like I said, it’s really hard for me to write when I’m down.

I miss you guys,

Elisabeth