mexican mosquito bites

several weeks ago i was on a mission trip in mexico. during that trip the mosquitos feasted on my legs. i counted over 30 bites on my left leg alone. unlike american mosquito bites, they remained small. but many of them bled & formed scabs. i never experienced that before, strange mosquitos.

on the sunday morning i got back from the trip, one of our church elders asked me about the trip. he said that it didn't look like i suffered. so i pulled up my pants & showed him my fresh bites. he gave me a look of approval & said something like, "Oh, you did a great job Pastor Chu!"

last night i was fulfilling my fatherly duties by taking gideon to his gymboree session. i noticed that some of the parents kept staring at my legs. then i realized that my numerous mosquito bites turned into dark purple scab marks. those poor parents were probably worried that i would spread some kind of strange skin disease to their little children. social stigma...

lindsay lohan & paparazzi

yesterday my mom watched gideon so that suhee & i could have some alone time together. i guess you can call it a date. so we spent the day in the city. we got to see lindsay lohan & her girlfriend in soho. they closed down the chanel store so that lindsay lohan could have a private shopping session. so a bunch of spectators & paparazzi gathered to watch lindsay go shopping.

i was more interested in watching the paparazzi. i noticed that they all knew each other; they all drove pretty nice cars; they all wore lowepro backpacks; & they all used flash brackets. i saw one of them get into his car & upload pictures onto his labtop. he was editing & sending the pictures on the spot.

suhee's family visit

suhee's whole immediate family visited w/us last week. we had a chance to go up to newport, rhode island.

el toro (a restaurant in mexico)

at the end of our mission trip we spent a night in progreso, a city on the beach. our missions pastor (andres yi) told me that i must eat at el toro in progreso. he said that the fish there was the best meal of his life. all the touristy restaurants were on the beach & were very clean & "touristy". but el toro was in a back-alley road and had that "local vibe". no english menus & no english-speaking waiters. their specialty was fresh grouper ($10 per kilogram). you get to pick your fish out of a bucket & they fry it up for you. they converted some old steel garbage cans to be their makeshift frying machines. i did wonder how often they changed the frying-oil, but i tried not to think about it. the fish was so tasty & so good.

mission trip: yucatan peninsula, mexico

last sunday we returned from our mission trip. our church supports a missionary (Pastor Won) in the Yucatan peninsula in mexico. he has a strong relationship & network w/the local churches. our main focus was to lead an english camp for the jovenes (15-18 year olds) from the local churches. 19 jovenes stayed w/us at the mission center. we basically ran the camp like a retreat. every single one of the jovenes was so precious and awesome. many of them had strong leadership gifts. among them were future pastors, missionaries & church leaders.

more pics at: share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=0AbtWrNu5bsmLCug

jama conference

i spent the past few days at the jama conference. over 7,000 people (mostly korean) gathered in philadelphia. great speakers like john piper & francis chan. great musicians like delirious & dave crowder band. but my favorite band was the main worship band led by danny oertli. he was gracious enough to work w/musicians & singers from local korean churches. my official title was "point leader" for this worship team. so i did all the logistics & ran all the errands for the team. three of the singers were from my church. the whole team stepped up bigtime. none of them ever played an event this big, but they pulled it all together last-minute & did an awesome job.

when i was running an errand backstage in the "green room", francis chan was hanging out back there. i didn't want to act like a "groupie" so i didn't go up to him. but then someone introduced me to him & asked me to give him a summary of john piper's sermon. it was such a cool opportunity to talk to francis chan.

john piper said something interesting in his seminar. this is a paraphrase, "your faces (korean) are more welcome around the world than my face (caucasian). your faces will not cause the same negative reactions/emotions that my face will cause." he went on to say that korea has been blessed w/the gospel more than other asian countries (for example, japan). & there is a reason for this blessing. he believes strongly that koreans & korean-americans have a special calling to world missions.

more pics of the worship team can be found at... share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=0AbtWrNu5bsmLCmA