An Update

Steve is gone tonight at an ICS Student Lock In and Caleb fell asleep surprisingly fast so I thought I'd take a few minutes before heading to bed early  myself and do a little blog catching up.  Now the question is, can I remember what exactly we have been up to.....?

Steve is winding up his first full year of ministry.  He has really enjoyed it and grown a lot this year.  He had an end of year/goal setting for next year with his boss and he had some positive things to say to him about how he did this year, which felt nice to hear.  The youth group has really grown in size and consistency this past year, we have a wonderful group of young adults who are around  A LOT, which is great to see.  Steve has had some great opportunities to mentor some young men one-on-one this year and spend time investing in their lives (which he loves doing).  For me, it has been really neat to see how much Steve has grown and matured himself this past year.  I tease him sometimes that "Fun Steve" is gone but there really isn't much of his goof-ball college self left.  He is still fun (don't get me wrong) but he has a weight to him and a passionate burden he carries for the students, for us (his family), for our small group, our friends, our family back home and our church.  He has a purpose in front of him and he's bound and determined towards the goal ahead of him. It has been a cool transformation and growth to be a part of.  Since you mostly get to hear updates from me, I feel like maybe you don't get the up close view of change that I do but he has grown a lot this year and learned a lot, it's been fun to be a part of.

Caleb of course is still changing on a daily basis.  I can't believe that kid, he cracks me up.  It seems every day, multiple times a day, he says or does something totally witty.  I feel like he has mastered most of his motor skills.....once they learn to jump and run, use a fork and spoon, what else is there? I suppose he hasn't skipped yet.  He does gallop.  But on the vocabulary front, the landscape is ever changing.  We struggle with trying not to laugh when he says something out of the blue that really is naughty (but the first time is kind of funny).  Here are some recent conversations:

- C walks up to me randomly and says "How do you do Kang-a-roo?"  Me:  "Fine, thank you?"  What do you say to that and where does he come up with it?

- Very matter of fact:  "Mom.  Please stop talking right now. Just stop."

- In a slightly annoyed voice "Mom, are you ready to listen to me now?"

- He kept talking about "Sacrifice" so Steve asked him today, "Caleb, do you know what a sacrifice is?"  Caleb replied, "Jesus!"

- Caleb loves to pray (he also loves to boss and say, "stop! close your eyes and pray"), he says things like "Fadder GOD, please bless ________(whoever is on his mind that day), be with them, know them. Amen? AMEN."  Or he says things like "Fadder GOD, you know Thomas the Train?  Bless him, Fadder.  Amen? AMEN!"

- He loves to sing and recently learned "Away in the Manger" He sings Away in the Manger like this, "Away in a manger, no crib for a bed, the little Lord Jesus lays down his SLEEPY head....the stars in the sky look down where he lay, the little Lord Jesus AWAKE on the hay!"

- I was sitting on the couch on Steve's lap the other day and Caleb wanted to sit on his lap and read a book. He kept trying to squeeze in and scoot me off Steve's lap but it didn't work so finally he looked up at me and said quite seriously, "Mom!  Get down from there! It is DANGEROUS way up high like that!"  Nice try, Bud.

- He has recently started calling Steve "Apa" which is Korean for "Daddy."  It's like his little term of endearment and it is quite heart-melting.

As for me, I finished up my online Child Birth Doula certification and am now fully certified through Childbirth International.  You can check out my website at www.morningcalmdoulas.com  I convinced my friend Gail to do it with me and she is currently working through her certification as well.  Really excited about it.  We just finished up our first Childbirth Education/Natural Birth skills class and that was a lot of fun.  We are doing a larger scale one hopefully in January/February.  We ran into a little bit of a road block because we can't easily get the correct Visa to be running our own business in Korea so we'll have to do it for free, as a volunteer service to women in the area.  It is a little disappointing since the other two main doulas in Korea are able to make a nice income off of it and we could certainly use the income but we are still excited about it, even if it is just a volunteer basis.  There is certainly a big need for it here in Korea and it will be a good ministry to moms in our area.  I hope to do between 1-2 births a month (ideally) and then Childbirth Ed every few months.  It's been a fun outlet for me and something I really enjoy.  Next up, I am hoping to work towards a lactation consultant but that  might be down the road a bit, since it is quite expensive.

Well, that's a bit of an update on the Houser Household front and some of what we've been up to besides small group, working with the nursery, helping with women's ministry, teaching English, exploring Korea and hanging out with other moms and kiddos!  And I worried about being bored in Korea - ha!

We're still around

We're still around, we still live in Korea, we are still a family of 3 and we still miss family at Christmas!

I'm sorry I haven't been blogging much and it has been increasingly slowing down.  I feel bad every time I think of one of my faithful blog readers (aka parents and grandparents) sitting down and checking just to find the same blog post waiting for you, with no updates.  I am sorry.

It's been a long few weeks, in a short and busy kind of way.  Mostly an exhausting, busy, full, gone-from-the-house-too-much kind of weeks where doing the dishes and catching some sleep and prepping food needs to come before blogging.  I'm sorry for that.  Hopefully after the Christmas season, we'll get back into the swing of things, be home a little more, get back on a nap schedule and have some time for blogs.

For now, just know that we are doing okay, we miss you, your boxes that arrived meant more than you can ever know and we've been loving the few Christmas cards that have straggled in.  It really is so fun to have little bits of "home" in our mailbox - if you have ever lived overseas, I'm sure you can relate.  If not, you have no idea how much it means or how it makes our days, weeks and month so special.  It really spells L-O-V-E in a special way to us and fills us with encouragement.  Thank you for thinking of us and remembering us!

Decorating for Christmas

Someone absolutely loved decorating the tree this year!

7am

This is how we roll at 7am in the Houser House....pull out the "mic-a-phone" and make a little wake up music!

Good MOR-nin' Daddy!

Steve Houser, Kimchi Extraordinaire

Ever thought Steve would be interviewed for his Kimchi expertise?

Last week I posted about our annual Kimchi Making event at church.  We had several volunteers from the Air force come to help and below is the news clip that covered the event.  I thought you might enjoy it.

Kimchi Making, take 2

You all know that song, "It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas....."  Right?  I'm sure it's playing in your heads a lot these days, with Thanksgiving done and over and Christmas screaming from every store.

Well over on this side of the world, it goes something more like this:  "It's beginning to smell a lot like Kimchi, everywhere you go....."

This time of year is kimchi making season and the smell of fermenting cabbage, onions, garlic and red chili peppers is permeating the air.  Not exactly peppermint and pine, I know.

Remember this?  We had our all-church, 2 day kimchi making for the needy in the community again this year.  We had a good time, check out the pictures below and you can do your own comparison from last year!

Since I somewhat knew what to expect this year and I wasn't reeling at the sight of more cabbage and raddishes than I ever knew to exist in one place at one time and since I knew more of the people this year, I actually gleaned a lot more information on kimchi making than I did last year.  I'll impart my new found wisdom, in case there are any aspiring kimchi-makers reading.

Piles of cabbages stacked high outside the church, each needing to be washed, chopped and salted.

The red container is full of salt, salt is added as a preservative to help as it ferments.

This is Josh, one of the youth.  His dad is a pastor on the Korean side but he spend the first ten years of his life in the States while his dad attended seminary.  In many ways, he is American although his citizenship is Korean.  Now he is back in Korea, figuring out the whole TCK thing. Many of the young adults Steve works with are in a TCK (Third Culture Kid) type situation, where they are partly Korean or partly American or partly both in some way or another and/or they've moved around most there life and feel they are really from "nowhere." It's a tough place to be, I can certainly relate to that.  Anyway, during Kimchi making he played several key roles, one of which included sitting on top of the kimchi pile (yes it was high enough to climb up and sit on) and throwing lightly tossing the cabbages down to the ladies below who were chopping.

Above, ladies peeling and cleaning green onions.

That's a lot of raddishes, folks!

"Uh, mom.....lots of onions!"

"I need to step outside and take a break to process all that green stuff....."

Fish soup for lunch break.

And "Pop" (Korean for rice)

That's red pepper, not blood, no worries.

Above you can see the bags of veggies waiting to be mixed with the pepper fish sauce

Mixing the ingredients (above) that will be stuffed into the cabbages (below)

Pictured above is Rock.  You can pray a thousand blessings on Rock's head.  He has been truly so kind and so good and so patient and so gracious with us.  He has been the one person from the church who has seriously helped us do about everything - from setting up our internet, to getting bank accounts, to getting phones, figuring out what our bills and mail mean, calling our landlord, running us around to do visa things etc etc etc.  He is so patient!!  Bless him, we are thankful for him!

Then the kimchi is portioned off and placed in bags and then packaged into boxes (where it ferments)

And is delivered by cute delivery boys.

Christmas & July

No, not Christmas IN July.

Christmas AND July.

A sweet Christmas Tree frame from Mom Houser and a sweet memory from our trip home in July - Caleb getting down to play with Sammy.