Chusok

It sounds like a Vulcan holiday or religious rite, but it is as I have been told the greatest holiday in Korea. It is a time for families to gather and celebrate family. We have a formal three day weekend starting on Friday, though I am planning to work at least 1/2 day Friday to be out with one of my units and will be pulling duty as the on call chaplain for the week. I was thinking of taking a tour out into the countryside, but this turned out to be a good weekend to pull duty as the travel office cancelled all tours. Supposedly the traffic here for this weekend would rival anything DC has to offer.

I'll have to see if anything pops up locally for celebration.

Kiddies

Yesterday we loaded up a bus full of volunteer airmen and headed to a local orphanage for some outreach to children in our local community. The trip afforded me, and most of those with us, a first time opportunity to view another area of the local countryside as we got off the main route known as Highway 1 and headed out into the countryside, though not too far from base.

Unfortunately, I didn't take my camera.

We did a bit of fall cleaning at the orphanage and then spent a few hours playing games with the kids. I lucked up that my bus driver played soccer for 12 years as a goalie. Soccer is a big game here. The kids had a blast trying to get past him. He was pretty good.

One of the young ladies with me was walking by with a little girl leading her by the hand. My airman looked over her shoulder and said, "I don't know where she is taking me". When she came back her eyes were wide and she said, "she showed me the most ginormous spider I've ever seen".

The language barrier didn't prove to be so ginormous.

It was a good way to spend a Saturday afternoon.

POW/MIA Dedication

Yesterday we dedicated a memorial in honor of all who have been or currently remain Prisioners' of War or Missing in Action

I had the honor of doing the invocation for the ceremony. This ceremony has in the past years been very personal and moving for me. Since coming into the Air Force, I've met a number of men who have been held prisoner of war. At Arlington, I did a number of memorial services for those whose remains had not yet been found, but whose families wanted to bring closure. I also did a number of service for repatriations, where those who lost their lives years ago have finally been brought home. Last year at the Air Force Memorial in DC, I met a woman a few years older than myself who had the experience of growing up not knowing the status of her father until much later in life.

Yesterday, as I prayed and stood tall during the ceremony, I was remembering one of the greatest men I know. I got to know him during my time at Andrews. He is Colonel (ret.) Norman McDaniel, USAF. He was shot down and held for six years in Vietnam for 2,399 days. He endured a meager diet, but beyond this torture, interrogation, and isolation. He came home on February 12, 1973 during Operation Homecoming. I also have gotten to know his wife, a tremendous woman of strength and courage herself. Colonel McDaniel would write five years into his captivity, "I am still a man though I am badly bent. I will hope and strive until my life is spent."

For his dedication and faithfulness to our nation he earned the Silver Star.

His Silver Star Citation reads:

For the period 20 July 1966: This officer distinguished himself by gallantry and intrepidity in action in connection with military operations against an opposing armed force during the above period while a Prisoner of War in North Vietnam. Ignoring international agreements on treatment of prisoners of war, the enemy resorted to mental and physical cruelties to obtain information, confessions and propaganda materials. This American resisted their demands by calling upon his deepest inner strengths in a manner which reflected his devotion to duty and great credit upon himself and the United States Air Force.

As I reflected upon on 9/11, there is a huge price often paid for the liberty our citizens enjoy. We cannot afford to forget. I read somewhere a quote that has stuck in my mind, "real life is not sugar coated".

There are still wives and children, even comrades and friends -- still waiting to know what has happened to their loved one. Don't forget them.

I was visiting a blog from Boone North Carolina, near where I grew up, and enjoying the photos of the author's golden lab.

There is true value in the companionship of one's four legged friends.

Dachshunds are great animals. My mother has one that basically adopted my wife years ago and convinced my wife that she might tolerate a dog in the house if it were a little black wiener dog.

The dog belongs to her by the way. Me and the kids get to borrow her from time to time, but that dog and my wife - well - you know. She is a family dog though. She had me trained well before I came to Osan. She'd stand at the top of the stairs from the den and bark until I'd come up and fill her water bowl, let her outside, or sometimes she just wanted chicken out of the fridge.

Yep -- I miss the dog too. Lots of missing going on these days.

But lots of good ministry too. Yesterday was a day for getting lots accomplished. Met all my First Sgts, the Commander of the OSI unit I am serving (only one of my units) as well as many of his folks, and some counseling and so forth. Good day.

I was deeply moved, tried to hide it, but seeing a memorial picture in the OSI hallway of one of the men I buried brought back images of his small children sitting on chairs beside his young wife at Arlington.

We have to win. There is evil out there. We cannot afford to quit or fail. Liberty is a mighty powerful force for life but in too many ways it is also, because of human nature, a fragile thing and costly. Freedom is not free. Like anything worth anything in life, it take effort and sacrifice.

I miss my family, very much, but then I remember young men like this and his wife and children who I am sure would like to have him home too.

Then I remember why I'm here. Why we are all here.

Maybe one day, when work is done, I'll retire to Boone and have me another Dachshund and a cabin and maybe even a Golden Lab, but today - I've got work to do.

But if you want to visit a great blog site: here it is: Come enjoy the flavor of the mountains.

Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul-John Muir

September 11

I will never forget.

Miss home

Watching the sun rise over the Smokey's by webcam isn't quite the same as watching it from the deck of a cabin at altitude, but given I'm half way around the world - I am thankful for the technology that allows me to do so.

It does make me miss home and my family though. I truly love my job and the challenge of each unique day serving the incredible men and women who for our Air Force. But I miss the quiet simplicity of life in the mountains.

LABOR Day Weekend

This weekend certainly lived up to the name "Labor Day". I'm bushed. We had a large Protestant service this past Sunday. Saturday I thought I would give my brother chaplain a hand with food preparation. I wound up in a freak accident with a bean can lid which swiped my leg and left me with four stitches. (I was the first person this particular tech had ever sown -- she had someone teaching her.) Sunday was a very long day by the time setup, service, and clean up were done. Hardly any of the blasted beans were eaten. We poured them in a trash bag and put them on the back of the truck, where they promptly fell to the ground with a large splat when the driver popped the clutch. I won't be dissapointed if I don't see another baked bean while I'm here.

Which is entirely possible.

Monday my boss invited me to come along to go eat Shabu Shabu. Its a bit hard to describe. It turned out to be a cook your own meal which consisted of very thin sliced beef, so thin it instantly cooked in the boiling beef broth, a mound of bean sprouts and other assorted green lettuce leaves, hot pepper and teryiaki sauce (still haven't figured out how to spell that yet), and rice balls in some lettuce.

The drive to the restaurant was an adventure. The boss's GPS speaks Korean. The boss doesn't. Traffic is like a constant game of chicken in some places and thread the needle in others. I picked up my Korean driver's license today. I hope I don't have the opportunity to utilize it.

We were visiting the city of Suwon, which was a mixture of poverty and age as well as brand new modernity. I saw a place where someone was growing mellons and curing peppers on their tin roof and in a few moments saw brand new high rises going up.

After dinner, which was quite good in-spite of two large raw shrimp that kept staring at me (not my thing), we visited the fortress wall that surrounds the old city. Quite a interesting and lovely hike even if it was threatening a bit of rain.















After dinner we walked a bit. Stopped at a bakery. On the street I bought some cinnamon like waffle circles - quite good and very cheep. Big bag for about 75 cents. Then we bought a bag of little yogurts (great frozen) from a "yogurt lady" again a dozen for about 75 cents. Dinner itself was only about eight dollars, and the restaurant and its service was outstanding.

Saturday there was a ribs and blues festival which also featured native Korean dancing, which was a new experience.

Miss home

From the creation of the world, God's invisible qualities, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly observed in what he made. Rom 1:20

I just hit a webcam that looks out from the Smokeys. This is the sunrise going on right now back home.

I tell people there is a reason that Tennesseans were known as hillbillies who did not wear shoes. When the first European settlers came across the Appalachian mountains from the colonies into what was at that time the western wilderness area of Tennessee (from the Cherokee name Tanasi), they saw the smoke on the mountains and stopped to pray. God spoke to them through the clouds (you may recall how God went as a pillar of fire by night and a pillar of cloud by day when He lead the Israelites out of Egypt). God spoke and said, "take off your shoes, you are on holy ground". So from that time forth, Tennessee hillbillies have not worn shoes.

On a serious note, I have always felt close to God in these mountains. Perhaps these pictures can convey to some small degree the incredible testimony of the mountains to the glory of God.

Moving In Day

My household goods caught up with me finally. There is no predicting how long it will take things to get to Korea from the US. For example, my wife mailed me some cookies and a few other things just a few days after I left and they didn't arrive until Sept 1st. She mailed me a uniform on a Friday and it was here the following Monday.

My household goods arrived 3 weeks ahead of schedule, due in a large part I believe to the diligence of the person who was managing my account. She kept pinging the shipping folks asking when my stuff was going to get airlift out of Travis. And it sped through customs, which is unusual, but perhaps they were tired of getting her email. Anyway, have all my cold weather gear, my books, and my computer equipment that I need for ministry here. My room now has a few of the comforts of home, minus my family of course.

Had some computer issues today that kept me from Skyping my family on video. Vista updated to my laptop and disabled my sound driver. Had to do a re-install, which proved a bit challenging since Vista kept wanting to install a generic driver that would not activate my built in microphone, but finally got it up. My computer has not been the only one quirky. Have worked on 2 of my fellow chaplains computers.

We have a four day weekend, but we are not really off. We are preparing for a big worship service on Sunday. Tomorrow I am going to help a brother chaplain and some volunteers prepare a bit of food. To be honest, I'd rather have something to do than just sit around anyway -- so not having much off time hasn't been that bad. I've been here a month and it has flown by.

Had dinner with my supervising chaplain last night in one of the new apartment towers on base, 7th floor. You can really see the countryside from up there. Beautiful. Watched the sunset. I wish I had had my camera up there. It was incredible.

Cooking

My wife can cook. She can cook circles around me. No doubts. But she ain't here.

So guess who's cooking tonight?

I made my own terrioke marinade. (ok I have no idea, and the spell check isn't helping with terriyake) Anyway... used some vinegar, soy sauce, red pepper spice sauce (a Korean thing), splenda, pepper, salt, garlic, and bit of tomato paste. Marrinated some steak. Boy is it good. That with some spiced up veggies and a 1/2 glass of Sam Adams and dinner ain't too bad tonight.

Anyway, wanted to post this because I know my wife read this and this way she'll know I'm not starving.

But I have lost 7 pounds since hitting the ground here.

Catching a Train

A brother chaplain described your first weeks here at Osan as "trying to catch a moving freight train". I have to concur. We are spinning up our Protestant ministries, so I am on a fast moving steep learning curve about how we do things here.

I am responsible for AWANA which has a great leader already thank goodness. Also for PYOC (Protestant Youth of the Chapel) which we are restarting from scratch, but I have the help of a couple of dedicated local missionaries. I am coordinating outreach efforts, with the assistance of a local Korean who helps us with language and liaison items, for local orphanages. I am taking point on the Traditional Service which likely means that I will also be primarily caring for the Liturgical Service as well. Then I have a couple of Groups (a component of the Air Force) each composed of several squadrons as well as a few cats and dogs here and there to watch over. I also find that having my office at the chapel, I get a number of walk in counselings that are often crisis related. I'm also point on a number of projects for our chapel.

It is all work I enjoy doing. I enjoy coordinating events and counseling folks and the worship services I am watching over fit with my preferences traditionally. And I like staying busy, for if I can't be with my family, I'd rather be working than sitting in my room staring at the walls.

I only hope that my efforts can somehow make a difference in the lives of the people I serve. Already I've had several serious occassions to offer support to folks, most individual cases, but there has been one death that lead me to engage with an entire group of folks from the leadership down to the airmen, all grieving the tragic accidental loss of a friend. I also had the challenging privilege of supporting the notification of his wife, a local Korean woman, who spoke little English. Notifications of death is perhaps the hardest thing that we do as chaplains, for here there is no arguing with the reality of our life situation. We die. We offer what comfort can be offered in these occassions, not forcing our religious views on people, but if they share the hope that I share, then I seek to console them with that hope.

I'll have the Memorial Service later this week. My experience at Arlington is invaluable for putting together such an event for it happens quickly. I wish at Arlington that the waiting list was somehow less long, especially for active duty death, but even at 30 funerals a day, which is about the most that can be done without crawling all over one another, there is probably little that can be done to shorten the waiting list. But I do wish we could somehow get the service men and women lost in the line of duty in quicker. I was surprised at how fast Sen. Kennedy's service was taking place. I can only imagine how much work the staff in my former office is engaged in to bring such an important event together. But I also know that for them, each funeral is treated with the same level of respect and care -- each family has lost their loved one and deserves the best and receives the best that the Air Force, Navy, Marine, Coast Guard, and Army staff can offer. I miss Arlington and especially miss my family, but the ministry here has already demonstrated itself as potent and necessary.

Spiders

Korea has some big spiders. And lots of them. We had a burger burn for one of my units last week and this big fat spider about the size of a walnut in his body has a web running between two buildings. And then in the corner where these little yellow and black stripped spindly spiders that stretched out about the size of one's palm. Gives me the willies.

I have finally moved into my permanent quarters on base, fairly comfortable. It is a two room efficiency type apartment. I am pleased to have a kitchen and my internet service back so I can communicate with my family back home. These past two weeks have flown by. It is hard to think that shortly I will have been here three weeks already.

Tomorrow one of the civilians who has been working for the chapel for many years will receive the prestigious Spirit of the 4 Chaplains award. This is a huge award and only given once annually. It says a lot about the civilian staff we have. They are a great bunch of folks.

I am starting to get to know folks and the program here and make some connections with others around. Always lots to do to get connected and spinned up so one can get the mission done. This is a fast paced place.

Now I'm headed for bed as I am up 0 dark thirty for PT. Actually looking forward to it.

First Sunday Services

I led my first services here at Osan today, the early liturgical service and the morning traditional service. I was pleased to learn that there are a number of Lutheran folks in both congregations. The musical director has done an outstanding job. She has a voice like an angel and leads a small but dedicated and skilled choir. A good bunch of folks in general. I enjoyed being back in the saddle again.

Visited the commissary here for the first time yesterday. I'm not going to starve by any means. Very nice. I started to order some items from Walmart for my digs figuring they might be here about the time to move in, but when I saw the shipping cost was more than the items combined I decided to go without. The BX here is ok. I've never been terribly impressed with the selections offered by base BXs but for a situation like here it is fairly good and is tax and shipping free so that part is good. There is a Starbucks here but it is pricey. I'm looking forward to getting my household goods so I can make my own frappucinos.

Making my way through inprocessing. Got most of the big rocks out of the way. Tomorrow I plan to tackle organizing and cleaning out up my office. I also have an invocation for a dedication of a refurbed dormitory here on base.

It has been very hot and humid but at least the monsoon rains have not slammed us like they often do this time of year. We had some rain with the remnants of the typhoon that past through, but it wasn't too bad.