Part 50 Writing from Korea

Hey hi everyone,  :-) I am hoping that all of you have had a great week.  Things have been good...er um...interesting...here.  And next week will be enlightening also.  You see this coming week is national SAT test day - Thursday.  This is the MOST important day in the entire year for Korea.  This is the day when all the students are writing the test that will determine their future - which university they will be told to attend, and what career they must choose.  This is so important in Korea that on this day no airplanes are allowed to fly, all streets near schools are blocked off, and no one except the testers are allowed near the schools.  No argument from me, I volunteered to stay home very quickly. :-)  I am told that literally the whole country shuts down so that these students writing the tests have no distractions whatsoever.  Should be very interesting.  But some of the traditions associated with it have already started.  On Friday, all the parents at the high school were invited to come pray to the pig-god.  Hundreds of parents and their children showed up and in small groups were led before the pig-god, put money into its mouth, and then prayed to it for the success of their child on the test.  Even though I found it bewildering on one level because most these parents are Christian, on another level I found it so profoundly sad that these people were willing to put their hard earned money into the mouth of a pig's head and pray to it, all for the belief that it would help them.  Apparently the day after this test is the highest suicide day.  Watching them I kept thinking that one of the best benefits of serving Jehovah is how knowing what the Bible REALLY says frees a person from practises that really cause them financial and emotional hardship.  I was thinking after too though that maybe this is not that much different than people in the West that still practice Christmas - they want to please God obviously but are being held in bondage by beliefs that aren't in the Bible, and as a result put out lots of money and emotion out because of it.....   My camera doesn't pick it up too well but you will see that in the middle of table is a HUGE pig's head with many envelopes of money in the mouth. I was out hiking through the trees again on the mountain on Saturday - actually took a wad of mags with me and placed them with12 people along the way so that worked out nicely too.  But as you can  see the Fall colours are absolutely gorgeous right now.  The trailhead is just up the road here. I thought I would show you what a big sport badminton is here.  Walking down the street a person will notice many badminton stores with high end equipment. Well I better run and walk the doggies.  It is VERY cold out right now.  Friday afternoon it started feeling pretty icy in the air, so it is bundle up time.  Hope all of you stay warm too, and have a wonderful week. Love you lots, d  :-)