Leaving (again) on a jet plane...

First, a day late: HAPPY BIRTHDAY JILL!!!!
I tried to post this so you'd get it on your birthday, but couldn't get online.
And this is a Starbucks, but the insignia doesn't show up...

So sorry I didn't get to post yesterday. I tried and the internet wouldn't connect. But yesterday we went to the largest church in the world - the Youido Full Gospel Church here in Seoul. It has over 850,00 members! (and they said over 700 pastors and a few thousand elders and deacons - I guess you'd need that many!). It was amazing, such an experience. The main sanctuary held 12,000 with others nearby that telecast the service. There's 5(?) services on Wednesday, 2 on Saturday, and and 7 on Sunday (at 7, 9, 11, 1, 3, 5, and 7). And so after a service gets done you see thousands of people stream out of the sanctuary and then thousands flood in - and there really aren't any empty seats. It was awesome. We meant to go to the 9:00 service and left at 8, but we were told to get out at the wrong stop and got there at 9:30. So we waited around 'til 10:30 to go in for the next service.

We came back and ate and changed and went to a sketchy market - didn't like it very much. I had intended to go to a different one but got the name wrong. Today we left at 9 to go to the Korea National Museum (6th largest museum in the world). 1 hour and 45 minutes later, we ended up at the market that I had wanted to yesterday. Really, the subway is super easy to use, but again there were 2 words that were similar and so we went in the wrong direction for awhile and had to turn around, and by then we didn't have much to time to go to the museum.

At 3 we had an appointment to see Liv today!!! Um, she was a little more hesitant today. The foster mother had to wake her from her nap to bring her, and we tried to hold her a few times but she just started crying. So, if you could pray for us tomorrow (we leave with her at 8:30 tomorrow morning, 6:30 pm on Monday your time), and then our flight leaves 3 1/2 hours later at noon our time. I know it's going to take some time, and I'm prepared for that. But I just feel so bad for her cause it's just going to be hard. Her foster mother is just wonderful and takes such good care of her and knows her so well and shares those things with us. So if you could pray that Aaron and I will do okay with her, no lost paperwork (have to get her into the country :), safe travels, and for strength for Liv we'd appreciate it a bunch.

I'll post pictures when we get home, which we'll come into Minneapolis somewhere around 3 on Wed.

Also, a couple funny things that I at least want to post to remember from the trip:

• Cindy is the hungriest in the middle of the day. So we have first and second lunch - usually a pretty decent snack and meal for the mamma-to-be.
• $10 worth of showers - they have fitness center here called "fitna". Aaron and Cory checked it out a few days ago and went into the "spa" part of it. They thought it was a 50 cent charge. There's a few different whirlpools, a sauna, a shower, and shaving materials. So they think this is great and were living it up. They went back again this morning and found out it's actually a $5 charge. So each of them now have had $10 worth of bathing/showers.
• Cook your own Korean style - last night we went to this little restaurant that had a little grill in the middle of your table. We got beef (the menu was entirely in Korean, and we really didn't want to end up ordering squid). They also gave us large chunks of garlic, raw onion, and some lettuce leaves to put the grilled things on to eat. It was a little adventure. We got good "footage" as Aaron refers to anything he wants to videotape.

Okay, so I'm really tired (at a whopping 8:30 pm) and am going to go finish organizing and go to bed. Tomorrow will be a long, good, challenging day!

Can't wait to come home!!!