Sapshido!

Last week Riley and I participated in a mission trip to one of the small islands off the west coast of South Korea called Sapshido.  The trip was part of a larger mission that had a medical team, a hair salon, and a maintenance team.  We were part of the English ministry group that had an English Camp/Vacation Bible School.  It was only a three day mission trip, with the last day saved to explore the island.  Riley was in charge of the music and I was in charge of crafts.  We also had a English learning session.  Preparing for the trip was interesting due to the amount of "This little light of mine" being sung.  As for crafts, we were doing Noah's arc and the tower of Babel.  Noah was easy, we just made rainbows and chickens (see picture), but what can you do with the tower of Babel?  I thought we could do gumdrop and toothpick towers, but they don't have gumdrops in Korea.  So, we did marshmallows!   More on this later.

We left early in the morning and took a ferry to the island.  The ferry was pretty much the same as the ones in the Outer Banks, just more crowded.  Most people did not take their car.  The seagulls still followed the boat, and some were very good at catching shrimp fries (common Korean snack) in mid-air.

Once we got to Sapshido, we piled in the back of a very hot truck and rode across the island to the main town (it took about 15 mins).  It was almost like being on the mainland, there were rice fields and mountains.  The only difference was the sudden appearance of a beach if you looked in some directions.

Island life!

We ate a fishy lunch, then headed over to the local Elementary School to start our VBS.  This was a very nice tiny school.  There were only 24 kids in the whole school, and most of them were in our VBS as well.  The first day went alright.  One of the groups was a little sleepy, but they did good with crafts.  I now appreciate what my friends who teach have to deal with.  Preschoolers are really well behaved for some reason.

Some of the kids had never really seen foreigners before, at least not in person.  They didn't understand why we couldn't speak with them.  They seemed to have a good time, though.  They really liked singing "Making Melodies in My Heart."

Chickens and rainbows!

Coast of Sapshido (can you see China? Its past the islands.)

After we got back and had dinner (by the way, the church kitchen ladies came with us and cooked.  The fed us so full that I think I gained weight on the trip.  Kitchen ladies everywhere have the same goal, feed everyone until they can't move.)  Then we went to the beach to watch the sunset.  It was really pretty, none of my pictures did it justice, so I just included a picture of the beach.  The water was warm and there were cliffs as well as beaches.  It sort of reminded me of Maine, but with more beaches.

Then we got back, had some debriefing, and went to sleep.  The next morning was really nice.  All the farmers started work early before the heat set in.  We had a Korean breakfast (kimchi, rice, beef and vegetable soup, eggplant stuff) then went to the school to get started.  The second day was much nicer, I think the kids were more awake.  We found out the marshmallows were foreign to even the teachers on the island.  They had read about them, but never had any.  I just wish we could have made smores (side note, Korea does not have graham crackers).  Marshmallow towers do work, they just don't last very long.  This actually fit the tower of Babel story really well since they never finished their tower either.

After the main sessions we had recreation outside, i.e. GIANT WATER FIGHT!  Everyone got water guns and had fun just getting people wet, but then some of the boys figured out it was easier just to fill up a bucket of water and dump it on people.  Specifically the teachers.  It felt really good actually, it was really hot.

Side Story: Riley was unable to participate in the water fight due to falling on cement the day before and scraping up his leg.  One of the most entertaining parts of the trip was watching the majority of the medical team grouped around Riley's knee watching one of the doctors bandage it up and giving advice.  So instead of water, he played with bubbles.

After the water fight we went back and ate lunch (once again delicious) and get ready to paint a room.  I'm not sure what this building was used for, but the church had a large room with a small kitchen attached to it.  We just cleaned and painted the kitchen part.  Lots of scraping, lots of primer (walls here are mostly cement), then lots of paint.  It didn't take too long.  The inner door was filthy, so I started wiping some of the dirt off and it was a beautiful traditional Korean door with solid wood in a grid.  If someone just washed it and put some stain on it, it would have looked amazing.  We didn't have time to do much but just wipe the door off.  The room looked a lot better at least.

Then another delicious supper and off to bed.  One of our group got up for the 3:00am Korea vs Brazil soccer match, but most of us just watched some Greco-roman wrestling and went to bed.
In the morning we had "Western breakfast."  It ended up being potato salad sandwiches.  We knew they were trying, and it was better than kimchi, so we ate them without complaint.  Then we headed to the beach!  The tide was out when we got there, and there was a giant expanse of crabs!  Tiny crabs that hid when you walked by, but popped up again if you didn't move.  I also caught some hermit crabs, and investigated some type of jellyfish-like creature I still can't figure out.  Most of my time was spent watching the tiny crabs feed on sand.  Then people would come over to see what I was staring at and the crabs would all disappear and I would look a little crazy.

After the beach was time to go.  We had to finish off the rest of the potato salad sandwiches so they wouldn't spoil (they were much better in the afternoon), and then we took the ferry back and ate another meal of various species of seafood (crab, shrimp, whelk, clam, fish, and unknown). 

It was a great trip, we experienced new areas, foods, and people, and hopefully there are some preschoolers who now know the word rainbow!