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

Our friends

Okay. So, we want you to meet a few of our friends. You met the Callaways, kinda, last post. But, I want you to see who we are hanging out with over here... They are awesome by the way. (and guys if you are reading this.... none of it is fake.)

As you saw in our last post, orientation was a blast. We had a great time and it was the perfect way to start off our time here in Korea. While we where there we got to know a bunch of people that are also teaching in Daejeon. We met two young married couples in particular that we love. We thought we had fun at orientation, but getting to know these guys outside of the "college-life-like" scene has been amazing. We have been able to hang out with them individually and all together. We are all Christians, young, married, internationally minded, and wanting to be like Jesus and not the 'church.' Oh, and we all teach english to kids who don't understand anything we say (which makes for some funny conversations.)

Anyway, let's meet them.

The Mullen Family

So, since you have already seen the callaways in our last post, I'll start with the Mullen Family. This first one is Matt, me and Linds at EXPO park. (Jenn was the photographer). Without too much detail, Expo park was made for the '93 international science expo. There is a lot of cool stuff, but most of it was outdated, still great 'spacey' architecture and a fun day. Matt and Jenn are from Wyoming and are super cool people with a lot of great stories. It is crazy to see some of the pictures that they have, they love to hike, camp, fish, hunt, raft, and pretty much anything outdoors from what I can tell. Matt was an art major in college... we have yet to see his portfolio, but if it is anything like the rest of his life I'm sure I will be in awe.

This second photo is Jenn. Like I said, she had the camera most, so this is the solo shot of her. I love this picture cause it shows a lot about her fun personality. They both are the type of people who are going to have fun, no matter what the situation. (We have a lot to learn from them). Ha. I have to comment about the... sheep/cow??? that she is riding. They are part of the 'outdated' expo stuff. 1000 won for a ride around the big courtyard. They have an assortment of animals you can chose from... as you see in the back, I'm checking out a giraffe and thinking about you Mom. ....Jenn is a 'jane of all trades' (including baking) and a coffee connoisseur.

The Callaway Family

The Callaways are so cool. They are the people that you try to hang out with to tell everyone else that you are 'in.' Although they would never see themselves as that. Kolt and Holly are from Oregon/California. Long story short, they went to College at APU and met there. They have so many similar things in their story as Linds and I. It was crazy our first conversations with them, it was pretty much like we should have known each other before. We even know some of the same people. They love to do international 'love' work. Kolt has some really interesting stories about working with an org who does work with Human trafficking women and helps them start new. Pretty heavy stuff. Anyway, we share many interests and passions

with them.

This first picture is from orientation of Lindsey and Holly. I know that Linds is pretty stoked to have Holly in her life. Holly has an honest quality about her that is hard to find. I think that is why linds loves to talk with her so much. Anyway, this picture was a orientation (no they don't dress the same all the time), from our field trip day. This is some nice Traditional Korean art... aka creepy smile stick.

This other picture is of me, Linds, and Kolt. Well, all of us were there but we are the ones in this pic, so, yeah. This was from the night we all toured around to see each other's apartments. We stopped at a place by our apartment to eat some Korean food. It was awesome... You know it will be a good time when you have to remove your shoes, and sit on the floor to eat. This is a Korean type meal. Everyone sits on the floor, no shoes, and eats a meal out of a common tray. In this case, they cook the food right there so, it is even cooler. This was so much fun and pretty cheap too!

So, I'll finish it off with some more pics. Most of them are Expo park, but yeah... enjoy.

EXPO Park

Those are some big arms...

Art Museum

So, this is outside the Art Museum. Pretty sweet and funny art stuff. Ha. Good times.

Love you all so much!

Luke and Lindsey

Epik Orientation / First week in Korea

An young haseyo, (hello)

Ok, so we are finally updating you and filling you in on our new lives here in Korea. We want to start at the beginning with our first week in Korea. As you know, we came to Korea to teach english, as you also may know, we were not teachers before. - ha - But, as English teachers with our program, EPIK, we were sent to a college campus for 10 days to learn everything we could possibly cram in about Teaching and Korea. Things like classroom management, Lesson planning, task-based learning, Prezi (my favorite), the Korean school system, Korean culture, Korean History, and just about anything else you could think of!

I want to share a few photos to help you take part in our adventure. So, let's do this.

Ok, our 10 day training, lovingly called "Orientation," took place at Jeon-ju University. It is a beautiful campus and we had a great time getting to know this area. The slogan of the University is classic: 'The Place for Superstars." This is, as we have begun to realize, a common Korean trend. Stealing old phrases from english and plastering them everywhere. A lot of

commercials/ads, songs, businesses, people, and yes... universities use cheesy English phrases. It is comical. We just laugh and thank God that we can read something without a Korean-english dictionary.

Ok, so as I said before, we don't have a reliable camera, so there are some shots of us (borrowed from our friends - thanks guys) but not many. So use your imagination a little.

Here is a picture of the dorm that we stayed in on campus for Orientation. Like I said, beautiful campus. We even got to watch some famous Korean movies on the rooftops of one of the buildings. A kind of open air theatre with subtitles in English. We actually loved the movies and are looking forward to getting a DVD player so we can't rent more Korean movies.

During our time at orientation we also got to visit a traditional and historical town Jeon-Ju

Traditional Village. We got to see a lot of cool things and learn a lot about Korean history. I think we went to 3-4 museum type places that was rich with tradition and history. Really interesting stuff.

Jeon Ju is famous for their Bibimbap. Bibimbap is mixed vegetables, with chili sauce, sesame seed oil and some ground beef, all on top of rice. It is usually served cold, as a refreshing lunchtime meal. Korea is famous for it's communal eating. Most meals are shared. Something my family has been doing for years... except that this is a whole new level.

Anyway, I love Bibimbap. This is how you make it for a group of 600 people. Stir it in a huge pot with wooden spoons that look like Ores for a boat.

This was one of the museums that we saw. It has some really cool architecture. One of those things that you have to see in person. But, a picture does help. We were in that group somewhere...

This is at a Buddhist Temple near the traditional village. This was a unique experience. It is crazy to see how their culture has been so much effected by religions. In this picture we are with our friends Colt and Holly. They are from Oregon, but kinda from California too. They both went to APU which is really close to both BIOLA and CBU. One of the other major Christian Universities in So Cal. They are super cool and share a lot of interests... including Settlers of Catan.

Anyway, that is it for now. I need sleep. But, we will be sharing about some other things sometime this week so stay posted.

We love you all and miss you greatly.

Luke and Lindsey

Welcome to Korea!

Oops... we forgot to post this a month ago. I just found it right now. I guess you might want to hear our first moments in the country. Here it is... or was... you know what I mean.

Incheon Airport in Seoul, South Korea on August 19th, 2009:

We have arrived! Right now we are sitting in the airport using free wifi drinking drinks from The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf (ahh globalization). We are waiting for our shuttle bus which will take us to the university we are staying at for the first 10 days.

So far so good. On the plane ride they ran out of beef meals and I got stuck eating....Bibimbap something or other. Naturally, Luke loved it and just spent 15 minutes shuffling it around on my plate. Ha ha. It actually wasn't that bad, but you know me- I really could have gone for some pizza.