The true spirit of Christmas...

On Sunday, December 10, we spent our family worship time at the Village of Peace Orphanage, participating in a Christmas party planned by TCIS National Honour Society students. What a way to celebrate the true spirit of Christmas! The children were thrilled to see Santa, receive gifts, sing songs and eat treats. Once the children had opened their gifts, they carried them around as if they were treasure! As the angel says in Luke 2, "I bring good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Saviour has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord." The spirit of Christ's good news was flowing like a river during our Christmas celebration at the orphanage, and the best gifts we received were plentiful smiles and hugs from these beautiful children.

Amnesty is launched at TCIS!

On Wednesday we had our first meeting of the new student chapter of Amnesty International here at TCIS. I am the staff sponsor and organizer of the chapter and I am so excited to have a dozen students on board who are deeply concerned about human rights and social justice. We spent our lunch break writing letters to government officials in Vietnam and Iran about citizens affected by human rights abuses in those countries, and after lunch I promptly mailed the letters off. They are pictured here with one of the great ladies in our office, Chi Hee, who looks after all the mail. In Isaiah 58 the prophet writes: "Is this not the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter..." I think our students, through their work with Amnesty, will have an opportunity to participate in loosing some chains and breaking some yokes! (for more information about Amnesty International go to www.amnesty.org)

Let it snow...

On Saturday, December 2nd we had a snowfall here in Taejon! We were on our way to the first Christmas party of the year, one that featured a showing of Will Ferrell's movie Elf, and the snow was perfect. Rebecca was particulary excited by the flakes and romped around for awhile taking photos of leaves covered in snow. Alas, the snow didn't stay for more than about 8 hours, and it was a very small amount (a dusting, really), but it put us all in the festive spirit!