Friends

I've been looking through previous posts of our time in Korea and I realized that I haven't really shared much about the friend situation while being here. I hope you don't mind me taking a bit of space to share.
This morning I began a Beth Moore bible study with some girls whom I have really grown to love while being here. Blake and I weren't really sure what to expect for friends when we embarked on this journey, but God has definitely brought some amazing people into our lives who have encouraged and strengthened us.
The study I have started is called Living Beyond Yourself and is all about the fruit of the Spirit. For those who don't know me well, I'm a huge fan of the ministry of Beth Moore and have grown so much under her teaching.
As I sat there this morning surrounded by friends listening to the sermon, I was really struck by how random it is for all us girls to be sitting together, desiring to grow in knowledge and love for God...in South Korea. Each one of us came to Korea for our different reasons, yet God has orchestrated the situation so that we could come together, far from home to learn and be encouraged by one another.
One of the closest friends I have here is Beth. She is teaching at a Christian International school and is finishing up her second year. Our schedules are completely opposite so we don't see her much throughout the week, but we hang on weekends when we have the chance. Beth has some strangely similar tendencies to my mom and Blake especially sees Beth as a younger version of Sue Covert. Now I know that saying someone has similarities to a mother-in-law isn't always a positive thing, but Blake absolutely loves my mom so it's a good thing. Over Christmas we were feeling very homesick and really wanting to have some reminders of home. Beth made us some cookies as a Christmas present and we almost cried when we opened them because they were the same ginger crinkles that my mom always makes. Definitely a taste of home! This picture is from when we went to the Jinju Lantern Festival together. I am directly behind Beth and the other girls are close friends- both named Heather.

Blake has been extremely blessed by a solid group of guys as well, but I'll save that for a future post...or maybe he'll post it for himself. Here are some photos of us hanging with some of our favourite people in Korea.