Korean Cribs and a pretty cool story

I finally have some pictures to post of my flat, or the "tuna can" as I prefer to call it, so that you can all get some kind of idea of what the living arrangements are like over here. The first time I walked in here, I'm not gonna lie, I was pretty bummed...actually depressed. Instantly. But I soon realized that I'm an incredibly spoiled person and that this is quite the norm over here. Plus, it makes a huge difference just to have a few pictures up and your own stuff everywhere. I took a short video at first instead of taking pictures but decided after actually watching it that I really dislike the sound of my voice when I hear it on a recording...and that always happens! I really don't like my voice and I'm not sure if that's a common thing, actually I know it's not and I sound like a loon right now, but ya...definitely not a fan of my own voice.

This is my entry way...also known as the kitchen


This is what you see when you first walk in my door. I know I kind of overdid it with the colorful random quotes on the wall but I had to cover up some pretty ugly outlets. Also, I brought with me my favorite Younglife blanket and bought a new white comforter because while I was thankful for all of their awesome efforts, the bed set that my school bought me looks like a flower barfed on it.






The bathroom that also turns into a shower with the turn of a knob...


Took a while to figure this one out...

So, the cool story. I was telling this to my friend Beth over email the other day and it's definitely one for the books. We were talking about our good friend Nellie who I know most of you have probably heard of even if you have never met him because he was a pretty amazing man. Actually, a lot of you I know were super close with him but either way you'll enjoy this story. Nellie was from Singapore originally and had a disease called Arthrogryposis which basically meant that his joints from the neck down were frozen so he was in a wheelchair. He went to PLU and then was brought on by Frosty Westering as an assistant football coach after he graduated and was an amazing mentor to athletes and students for years. Ok, so now that you have the background info I'll get to the real story...

So the first week of school I made this power point to show the kids where Arizona and Washington are located as well as some pics of my family and friends. The three things that they had a MILLION questions about were my brother Christian, the PLU volleyball team, and Nellie. I was telling Beth it was really cool because they genuinely were interested in why he was in a wheelchair and thought it was so neat that he was a football coach. If you read back a couple of weeks ago about the girl that speaks amazing English and wants to go to school in America...and made me cry...well the next day after she made me feel like a complete ninny I went up to my office after school and she was there waiting for me. So we started talking and I moved the mouse on the computer and a picture of some friends including Nellie came up on my background. She asked if I would tell her more about my friends and pointed to him so I told her more and then told her that he had just recently passed away, which I hadn't told to any of my classes. She got kind of quiet and then said "He is a beautiful man. I bet you miss him." And I was floored. All I said was "Yep. A lot." because I never imagined that a little girl on the other side of the world who had never even met him would say such an awesome thing. Then Beth nailed it when she said that people knew he was different and not just by the way that he looked but by the way that he lived. He wasn't afraid of standing up for what he believed in and shared his faith without shame or doubt.

So, there you have it. Definitely something I'll never forget that's for sure.