In desperate need...

We are in desperate need of updating this blog and filling everyone in on the last 2 years! Ha. It has been a while. There has been much going on in our lives. We are also long overdue for a Christmas card, we'll be doing that as well in the next few days... maybe have it done by the new year!!! Terrible.

luke

We are coming home soon.

Okay, okay, okay... so we are a few months behind on our updates. I promise some more will come. But, I wanted to let you know that we are coming home. We have our tickets purchased and are going to be back by the 27th of August.

So, as we come home PRAY FOR US!!! We are trying to find jobs and all the things that we need to re-start life in America.

Prayer Requests:

1. Direction (Where we should go back to...)

2. Jobs (At this point we are looking for any good jobs we can find)

3. Places to stay when we get back (We are hoping to find someone who might be going on vacation, or has a back house that is free or cheap)

4. A cheap apartment to rent (near our new jobs...I hope).

5. Cheap Health insurance and all the small things that we all forget about when you come back with nothing.

If you know anyone who is looking for good employees, or renters, or someone who is looking for a housesitter. Please let us know! But, most of all we need your prayers. We know that God has the most connections of all. :)

Also: If you know any churches that are looking for a worship leader let me know and shoot me an E-mail. baumgartner.luke@gmail.com or tell them about me and point them to my blog lukebaumgartner.blogspot.com

korea can be fun too!

this post is dedicated to my mother. she lovingly sends me photos of her and my family having fun without me in effort to get me to come home because she misses me. so, i thought i'd take some pictures of how much fun i was having in korea the same day i was not having fun with my family in yosemite.

loosely translated: korea is fun too! (han-guk-do ja-mi-is-a-yo!)

enjoying some afternoon instant hot chocolate with my co-teacher and friend, HeeJeon.

having fun practicing my so-ye (서예)- korean calligraphy. i'm taking a class at school.

studying korean.

that day i received my first "red card" essay! when my students are disobeying the rules i give them a yellow card (like soccer) and when they disobey the rules again they get a red card. and this red card means they have to write me an essay in korean about how they will follow the rules better next time. it's pretty funny that it's in korean though because i can't exactly read it.

studying a children's korean-english dictionary i stole from our school library.

see now, i wouldn't have been able to do all those wonderful things if i had been on vacation with my family in yosemite. i for sure missed out, but, hey- look at all the cool stuff they're missing out on not being in korea.

malaysia fail.

Luke and I went to Malaysia during our winter break...without doing any research. We flew into Kuala Lumpur looking for a good beach to discover it was nothing but a bustling metropolis. whoops. let me just go ahead and list all the bad/ridiculous/hilarious things that happened to us.

1. I lost my beloved iTouch 5 minutes after entering the country.

2. We decided to fix our non-beach mishap by driving 5 hours in a rented car to the "renowned" island of Penang to discover it was nothing but a small, polluted island with 1.5 million people living on it and about twice as many motorcycles and three times as much trash. As, of course, with out a single nice beach.

3. Because we had booked our hotel through the internet, we couldn't get a refund. So we decided for the one night we went to Penang to just have two hotels (hey, if this madness would result in us sitting on a beach warming our bodies from the long Korean winter, we didn't care!).

4. After driving 5 hours to the hotel, we were told the beach was still 40 minutes away and that the beaches outside our hotel window weren't really beaches, but harbors!

5. They drive on the opposite side of the rode and this proved to be harder than we had imagined. The island traffic was one lane each way- which was really cars parked on both sides making it only wide enough for a car a half, and yet still functioning as a two way street AND motorcycles on both sides of the car. Luke did a great job...but still managed to hit two things. I can't be mad because I would have probably hit about 20 things. (so, hearing that the beach was 40 minutes away in island traffic was basically a death sentence.)

6. After checking out countless beaches and turning around from our hike to "monkey beach" (the name was a bit frightening to me), we found a decent beach and started having a great time for about 20 minutes. We decided to get in the water. 30 seconds after being in the water, I was stung by a jellyfish! That's when we decided to drive back to Kuala Lumpur- after they treated my leg. (We found out when we got home that I could have died. Apparently people die quite frequently from jellyfish stings on THAT beach!)

7. The GPS was programmed wrong and took us an hour and a half out of the way.

8. When Luke went to return the rental car in the morning, the worker didn't show up. Luke hung out with the 7-11 employee next door for an hour and a half before getting a hold of him only to find out he wouldn't be showing up ever. Why? He was in Penang! PENANG! The awful island that is 5 hours away! In the end Luke left the keys and car with the 7-11 man.

9. We tried to buy some shakes from a shake place and the man ended up yelling at us and kicking us out because he thought we had ordered when we actually hadn't. He just started serving us random shakes when we were still deciding what we wanted. (We ended up a Starbucks- because they are not allowed to yell at you).

10. The doozy. We arrived at the airport to discover that my ticket was for that day and Luke's ticket was for the day before. Awesome! He had unknowingly missed his flight by exactly 24 hours. Luckily they were able to get us both to Beijing. However, they informed us that when we got to Beijing we would have to exit customs, collect our baggage, and go to to the ticket counter to attempt to fly standby...with no visa. Now, Luke and I told them we had no visa (knowing this would be an issue), but they assured us we would be fine. So, with nothing but a half sheet of paper with scribbled, hopeful, flight numbers, Luke and I entered Communist China with no visa. Not easy, my friends. We endured many lines, many repeated explanations, and many laughs.

Luke, me, and a mosque.

Malaysia is a Muslim country and our hotel room came with a complimentary Mecca arrow!

In front of a big, new mall. We were just happy to not be wearing our winter coats.

Luke and I found a whole hall of Korean pop music paraphernalia. Wonder Girls, Girls Generation, 2NE1- they had it all! Way to get out there, Korea!

Our first time trying Dragon Fruit. Tastes like a big, semi-bland kiwi. What it lacks in taste it makes up for in its color.

Still getting used to the sun.

The best looking beach in Penang that we discovered when the sun was going down...

Eating some very hard to find local food.

Me and my jellyfish sting. This picture doesn't do it justice. You can't tell how red it really was.

Dinner at our hotel in Kuala Lumpur. Some real Italian food- nothing like the kimchi inspired pasta I get in Daejeon.

Luke and the ridiculous looking paper that somehow got us through Chinese customs. Check out this paper! It's got the perforated edges from 1990's and everything. Imagine handing this paper to a very serious looking immigration officer when they ask for your official boarding pass!

We get to go home and don't have to live in China!

First-Class!

The best part of this story is that we did get on the flight (we prayed hard). In fact, we rode first class home! We have decided that it was by far the worst vacation ever and nicknamed it "stress-cation"- but, it has been making a fantastic story ever since.

fun stuff we did.

When we were in Seoul with Luke's parents we got to go to an old, famous palace. It was freezing at the time, but still really cool to see.

Us in front of the entrance.

I think we make pretty good warriors.

That's how cold it was. In the back- that look and painting is how all old

Korean architecture looks. It's really intricate and cool looking.

We also got to go to the DMZ. The DMZ is the demilitarized zone in between North and South Korea. Basically it acts as a buffer and nobody is allowed to cross it. It's about 2.5 miles wide. So we got to stand on the South Korean side and look out to the North. We couldn't really see much because it's always foggy in that area, but still pretty cool. We also got to walk down into the tunnels that the North Koreans built after/during the war which were originally intended to be used for North Korean troops to invade the South. Good thing they discovered those, right? Anyway, there is no photography allowed down there, so we couldn't get any pictures.

Koreans have one dream- to see their country united. This is a kind of monument outside the DMZ representing the hope they have that one day they will be reunited.

a visit from the parentals.

Right after Christmas, we got a visit from Luke's parents! They came to Korea for two weeks to hang out with us and see our lives out here. It was great because Luke and I got a chance to show them our mad Korean skills and our washing machine that's in the kitchen, and prove that people really do stare at you ALL the time. Before we moved to Korea we lived with them on Kauai, so it was great to see them because we were missing them a lot. We stayed local in Daejeon for a week and a half and then went to Seoul for the last 3-4 days.

Us in downtown in Eunhang-dong. The whole place was decorated with lights for Christmas.

Luke and Dad got to lead worship together at our church!

Our reaction after a series of failed plans. The picture is taken on the top of a dark mountain where an observatory is. Unfortunately, after the taxi had left and we climbed the rest of the way up the deserted mountain, we discovered it was closed.

I wish I could say I beat her...

One of the stands at the outdoor market next to Luke's old school. Yummy!

We did a lot of this! We actually had a tournament going the entire time. Let's just say it resulted in Luke and I getting free steak dinners at Outback...

Avatar! or should I say A-ba-ta!

Mom standing outside our apartment.

Luke and Dad built a snowman outside the door to apartment. After about a day and a half, his head somehow ended up about 20 feet from his body. It was fun while it lasted.

Us in Seoul in front of a famous palace. In person, it's huge!

When you come to Korea, you become a little Korean. This normally results in you speaking broken English and doing this pose with one you love.

Us in front of our hotel in Seoul right before they left. We were sad to see them go!

our korean christmas

We're a little late on the updates here...

We had a great Christmas in Korea- here's some pictures.

Our little Korean, incredible fake Christmas tree and beautiful,

empty present boxes from Costco!

The traditional "present on Christmas Eve" of pajamas sent from America!

Like a good photographer's daughter, I had to take the Christmas breakfast picture.

Our friends came over for the dinner to celebrate Christmas. These wonderful

people are like family to us here.

It got wild after our gift exchange when someone got a basketball hoop. This entertained the boys for about as long as it took the girls to make the meal.

And, us girls, like good little wives preparing the meal!