Happy New Year!

Traditionally, I would be spending New Years with my family since New Years is the BIGGEST Korean Holiday. On New Years morning, the whole family would get together with LOTS of food and the little ones would do a traditional bow to their elders and get lots of CASH from them. Once when a college student from UofO came home with me for New Years, my parents even gave her money for doing the bow. :)

But, today, I'm off to Portland, yes, that wonderful city that plan to move to one day. First I'm driving to Batttle Ground to spend the afternoon with Daniela, Brian, EJ, and little baby in stomach Byers, as well as the whole Emery family. Then off to Portland to attend the Campus Crusade Winter Conference, not as a student, or a staff, but as a GUEST. Yes, I have graduated to the esteemed Guest status. I will be attending a fundraiser dinner for people in the Portland community. The speakers, Greg and Charmaine Lillistrand, the National Directors of our ministry in Italy. They are AMAZING people and I'm really looking forward to seeing them and hearing from them. Charmaine tried to recruit me to go with them to Europe when I was still up in the air about my future with Crusade. It would have been really wonderful to work with them but, alas, my calling was elsewhere, in Bonney Lake. :)

What I'm looking forward to most is just hanging out at the conference and seeing all my old friends on Crusade staff. Yes, it's kind of like going back to high school to see your old teachers but what do you do when you're homesick for the old days. I'll try to get some fun pictures of my time there. Have a Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to you and your family! I hope the season continues be to one filled with joy and blessings. We still have New Years to come, the festivities aren't over yet!

My Christmas started out a bit bland. I went to my sister's house on Sat night after work and awaited my parents to come over for Christmas eve. They ended up not coming over because we were all under the weather. We sat around all day until we finally decided to head out to the Supermall to get some wintergear for our big snow outing the next day. I was sad I wasn't able to go over to Carolyn's place to see her family, which is a little traditional. Sad I didn't get to see Carolyn, her mom, her hubby, and our friend Michael, like I did on Thanksgiving.

But Christmas day ended up being wonderful. My parents came over and we all opened presents. Now, my parents don't really celebrate Christmas. Their house looks EXACTLY the same all year long, not even a wreath. So, it's up to my sister and I to make it fun. This year, my sister decorated her house quit a bit, but I was the one filled with Christmas spirit when it came to gifts this year. I loved being able to get fun gifts for my family. My sister got the G5 George Forman Grill which has 5 different inserts to make everything from Grilled steaks to panini sandwiches and waffles. My brother in law got a set of FireStorm tools including a drill (just like the one I have) and a circular saw and flashlight.

After presents, we had a nice meal at home and then headed to Snoqualmie for snow tubing. It was realy fun, altough my sister was too scared to go down the tubing run. My parents didn't even attempt it, they just went driving around with the dog. We had a great time. Here's a picture of my sister, my bro in law, and Mindy. :) FUN!

Bibles Replacing Beer On College Campuses

This is why I love Campus Crusade. Check out this report on CBS EVENING NEWS. You can watch the broadcast by clicking on the link on the right of the CBS page called "Praying, not Partying." It's encouraging to see college students turning to spirituality.

Wind Storm in the Northwest

Headlines read : "Storm leaves six dead, thousands searching for warmth"

How funny that I escaped the hurricanes in Florida only to face crazy wind storms in Washington! All my Oregon & Washington friends know what I mean by the crazy wind storms. I hope you all have your power back and are safe and sound.

On Thurs night, the lights at my parents house went out, along with the half of Bonney Lake. So, I decided to take comfort by going to my sister's house in Federal Way, but after only 3 hours, the power went out there also. I had flashbacks to the power outages my roommate, Tanya, and I endured in Orlando after the hurricane. (My favorite memory being how we toasted marshmellows for smores over candles.) But that was summertime in Florida so we didn't have to worry about freezing to death. :)

We have a fireplace at my sister's place and my brother in law had prepared us for winter by stacking up firewood. Thank goodness for that or we would have been in serious trouble. The first night was brutal because I woke up almost every hour to put more wood on the fire since we slept huddled next to the fireplace. My parents have a gas fireplace so I wasn't concerned about them. We didn't suffer at all compare to the poor folks who didn't have fireplaces.

It's Sunday now and my sister's house and the WOK now both have power. But my parent's house in Bonney Lake is still without power and my dad stubbornly refuses to leave the house. He's choosing to hunker down with our dog and brave the cold. So, the women in the OH family are having a slumber party again for the 4th night. Fun!

Church Member Giving Rate: 2.56% of income

This stat is from a report published in Oct 2006 called "The State of Church Giving through 2004." I first heard about this report in Joe Jr's blog. It's pretty amazing. The study states that if Christians had given the traditional 10 percent tithe of their income to their churches in 2004, instead of the 2.56 percent that they actually gave, there would have been an additional $164 billion available.

"The study estimates the cost of global evangelization—helping to stop global childhood death, providing primary education for all children worldwide and addressing poverty in the U.S.—would cost $15 billion annually, or 28 cents per American Christian per day."

The study also found more than 85% of contributions to churches funded the general operations of the local congregation, while about 15% went toward the broader mission of the church, beyond the local congregation, only 1-2% actually going to supporting missionaries around the world.

Sylvia Ronsvalle, co-author of the reports writes, "Has the church lost its vision? Is the church turning into a club, or does the church see itself as salt?"

Very interesting.

Busting out the new tunes

I finally entered this decade in the area of music technology in my car. I've had an old tape deck in my car for all these years. I finally decided to catch up and get a CD player for my car. I know, very extravegant. :) It's also IPOD ready so I'm so cool now. Mike suggested I order it from Crutchfield.com. I got a great deal and was looking forward to installing it myself since I like being handy. The website had a very simple video of how it's done so I thought, no problem! Well, I got my new Pioneer stereo and the very next day, I got to work on it right away. I disconnect the car batter and began to read the directions on how to take out my old tape deck. Well, I found out that for my car, I had to practically disassemble the whole dash. I took out like 3 panels in my car, including the glove compartment to get to the stereo. And once I opened it up, I realized that my old Sony wouldn't be compatible with my new stereo. So, I had to completely rewire the whole stereo (all 12 wires!). But, it was a snap. It only took THREE DAYS! and trips to Napa Auto, Home Depot, AND Radio Shack to get the right parts. The hardest part was using the butt connectors for the wires. No jokes on that one, Daniela. :) Alas, I have a wonderful sounding stereo system that looks awesome. I'm in my own decade at least now. :)

Bistro Thyme is going out of business!

I am so sad that my favorite restaurant in Bonney Lake is going out of business. A mother and daughter bought this restaurant and just reopened when I moved to BL. It's a cute little soup and sandwich shop. It has healthy food and it's one of the few independently owned non-chain restaurants. I ate there alot. As a matter of fact, it was the place that carried my photo cards. So, Dot (one of the owners) called me today and ask if I would be interested in buying some of their inventory. It was so unexpected. They were doing well but a lease dispute was what drove them out of business. So sad. Anyway, I just decided to buy practically everything they had, even things we don't need because I just want to help them. I don't know what I'm gonna do with a case of 24oz Pepsi cups. My heart goes out to them. I wish them the best in whatever they will be moving on to.

Facebook

Wow, what a wonderful world Facebook has opened up to me. I got signed up because Wendy Chen sent me an invite. Once I finally created a profile page, fun old friends have linked me as their friend. So fun to get in touch with friends from the past. (Stephanie Ahn-on my goodness!) It's divine that I signed up on Facebook because I was really missing my old Crusade friends this month. I guess, the novalty of my new life is begining to wear off and I miss the community I had in Crusade. Well, at least we have Facebook. :)

So, if you are wondering what I've been up to since I left Crusade staff in March 2006, you've come to the right place. I started a Bubble Tea shop inside my family's restaurant. I've enjoyed being closer to family and having a slower pace of life. Here's more of the story and some picture of my shop in April's Archive. Thanks for reading. Love you all!