Day 5

Day 5. It was an amazing day. As you know, our team went about an hour out into the Yellow Sea where we launched balloons carrying gospel tacks into North Korea. When we arrived at the dock, a car carrying twenty tanks of hydrogen drove up next to the boat. It was comforting to see that the driver was smoking a cigarette. As we neared the boat, we noticed a squad of policemen waiting for us. Our guides started rambling something about the launch with the policemen. During their discussion, the Korean launch crew began unloading the hydrogen from the car onto the deck. After several minutes, we started hearing shouting coming from the crew. We turned to look and found one of the Koreans shouting with the policemen. At first we weren't sure if we were going to be able to do the launch; however, Mr. Foley assured us that it is quite normal for Koreans to start shouting at each other. He said that in the Korean culture if someone shouts at you and you don't shout back, it means that you don't care about what the subject is about. Once we understood, the shouting didn't seem as much of a problem. About 10 minutes went by and the shouting had ceased, so most of the men began to load the hydrogen onto the boat. The tanks themselves were about 5 feet tall and didn't have a cap to protect the nozzle so we had to be careful not to drop them or else they could explode...obviously. Although, just because we are on a mission trip, things can obviously go wrong. There were about five tanks left and everything had been going smoothly until one of the crew members drop the tank. BANG! Everyone turned there heads towards the tank and froze. A small hissing sound could be heard coming from the hydrogen tank. Quickly, the crew members retightened the nozzel and by God's amazing grace the tank didn't explode and everyone was safe and happy. For the rest of the trip, everything went smoothly and God really provided good weather, safe travel, and no technical difficulties during the entire excursion.

After the balloon launch, we headed toward a theater to see Nanta. Nanta is a percussion comedy that involves cooking, dancing, and Young up on the stage going crazy for the red trying to make the most of who knows what in order to beat the blue team in a race against time. He, along with his teammate and the other two opponents, soon found themselves on stage alone without the " actors/actresses. Not knowing what to do, they continued to work on their "cooking" in order to win the competition. Finally, the actors/actresses came back on stage. They counted the dishes of "food" and congratulated Young and his teammate as the winners!!! Anyway, Nanta was really cool with all the excitement going on from beats to music to dancing to laughing to clapping to stopping to shouting. It was a great way to experience Korean culture that is known worldwide.

Lastly, after Nanta, we went to the SeoulUSA office and reviewed one of our praso lessons with the North Koreans.

It was an amazing day. God has been teaching each and everyone of our team members in different ways that will affect us for our entire lives. We will never look at North Korea or the North Koreans in the same way as we did when we arrived in South Korea. Thank you so much for your prayers and support! One thing that we have learned is how essential prayer is. The Koreans pray so much and shout out to the Lord so loudly that it is almost an embarrassment for Americans.

Hopefully that wasn't to choppy, but it is pretty late here and my brain doesn't function to well when I am tired.

God Bless,
Andrew S.