A Busy Four-Day Week Leading to Our Lunar New Year Break!

This weekend Korea celebrates Lunar New Year (Seollal)!  It is one of the most significant traditional Korean holidays!  It is the holiday where traffic will be very heavy.  Last year it was estimated that some 36,000,000 traveled to visit their families during the Korean Lunar New Year celebration.  It is typically a family holiday.  I won't tell you a lot about it here since it is quite easy to look it up on a Google search.  Lots of family time!  Lots of delicious traditional Korean food!  Lots of Korean games! Lots of celebrations with families!  For ICS-P, it means that students and teachers will have a long weekend to refresh!  We had Friday off and will not return to school until Tuesday morning. Below are a few pictures (not mine) that show a little about this significant holiday for Koreans throughout the world.

Some of the family events during Seollal!

           Some of the traditional Korean foods during Seollal!

This is the Jegi Chagi game, one of the many games            

families enjoy during this festive time!                   

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Before I write anything else this week, I wanted to share the excellent news that we received from Ben Coyner this past Wednesday evening!  Please read his brief, but exciting, update!!  Join us in thanking the Lord for this!  I know Ben would continue to value your prayers.

Ben Coyner Update – January 25

"Praise God that after reviewing a recent MRI and performing a careful physical exam, my Cancer Surgeon could not find any traces of the cancer tumor in my tongue!

There is a possible small tumor remnant in one lymph node in my neck, so I will have a follow-up appointment in 2 months to see if it will disappear by then. This lymph node was very noticeable to the touch back in September, but now it's almost impossible to locate because it has shrunk so much.

Thank you for praying and encouraging me since the very beginning.

I'm truly blessed to know God's Grace."

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And I can't write anything else without sharing some more very exciting news from this past week! One of our strengths at ICS-P is the mentoring relationships that are built by all of our teachers with students throughout the entire school.  This past week our Kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Cho, came to my office.  She was so excited!  I knew she had some excellent news!  Mrs. Cho has been building a relationship with one of our high school students, Jessica, a ninth grader who has been bringing down other students in the MS and HS with her attitude.  Mrs. Cho had just spent some time talking with Jessica and near the close of their stimulating conversation, Jessica asked how she could come to experience God and Jesus Christ!  Mrs. Cho had the wonderful privilege of leading Jessica to accept Jesus Christ as her Saviour!  All of us are very excited about this and I hope you will join us in thanking the Lord as well as praying for Jessica as she seeks to follow the Lord.  Pray for Mrs. Cho and others as they seek to continue to mentor Jessica.

This is a photo of the ICS-P Staff taken back in October or November.  I just wanted to share again for that you can be praying for our staff.  I also want to identify Mrs. Cho.  She is in the second row.  Starting from the left, she is the second one in.

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During the week we had a number of families come to ICS-P to talk about possibly enrolling their children as students in our school!  We also added a few students this past week!  We continue to seek ways to share our school with the community.  On Tuesday, we had a visit from Mr. Joe Kim, the director of the Billy Graham Association office in South Korea!  Mr. Kim had called to arrange an appointment for two families who would be coming to South Korea to work with the Billy Graham Association.  These two families have seven children and were in South Korea to visit several schools to learn about the passion, vision, and atmosphere of these schools to determine where they would like to have their children in school.  We had a wonderful time with Mr. Kim and these parents.  They seemed genuinely interested, but they have not made any decision yet.  They had a couple more international schools to check out. We would be thrilled if it works out for them to enroll their children at ICS-P. Please pray as they make their decision! 

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Thursday was a very busy and productive day!  Most of the afternoon was spent in a meeting with the two principals at ICS-P!  I really enjoy the wisdom and input that comes from these two men, Tony Kuhn and Charlie Mooney.  We made some excellent progress in finalizing our School Calendar for 2017-18, our Parent-Student Handbook for 2017-18, our Faculty & Staff Handbook for 2017-18, our class schedule for next year, and a number of current matters!  It was very productive!  Please pray for us as we continue to work on issues for this year as well as prepare for next year. 

We still need the following positions for 2017-18: High School Science Teacher, Grade 5 Teacher, and we still need right now an ELD Coordinator/Teacher.  We do have a couple possibilities for a part-time approach to the ELD situation for this year, but it would be great to have a full-time person soon!  We decided that with our very tight budget we would not be seeking a K-12 Physical Education teacher for next year.  If you know anyone who might be interested in heading to South Korea and is able to teach any of these, especially HS Science, please put them in touch with me!

As you may remember, we had a number of families who had to leave suddenly because of a reassignment on November and December.  Our budget is extremely tight right now and unless we secure some additional gift income and/or new students, we will face a deficit in late April or May. We have decided not to let go of any teachers but have asked all staff to take a reduction in their salary, with the goal of reimbursing them once we are able to secure additional income.  This past Thursday was the first pay day where staff received the pay minus this reduction.  We have an amazing staff and their attitude has been great!  However, it is going to be tough for many, especially those with large families. Please join us in praying for all of our needs to be met as soon as possible.  

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Thursday is Elementary School Chapel day!  I always love attending these Chapels.  It is exciting to see the kids singing so wholeheartedly!  Our Grade 1 teacher, Ms. Hunter, does a great job leading our children with songs with motions and dances to open Chapel each week.  Mr. Song, our facilities manager, loves to be present for Elementary Chapel each week.  This week during the songs, Mr. Song decided to do the motions and dance!  The kids and teachers loved this!  We all LOVE Mr. Song and he is a great example to our students in so many ways.  Our Yearbook advisor, Ms. Lim, took some photographs of three bad men doing the motions while singing + dancing! :-) We had so much fun!  W didn't know she was capturing our "moves" on camera.  Below is a photo collection of Thursday morning's "Old Men Worship Dance." :-)  Enjoy!

Elementary Chapel on Thursday!  Top left and bottom right show three bad boys (Mr. Song is on the far right next to Mr. Kuhn). doing the motions and attempting to dance! :-)  Bottom Left shows our Grade 3 teacher, Mrs. Jacobo, teaching in Chapel this past Thursday.

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Some of you have been praying for Chris Haynes, an alum of ICS-P who has accepted the Lord and is now studying at Appalachia Bible College.  He has been emailing me each week and thanks all of you who have been praying.  He is doing well.  Chris asked specifically if I would pray for his exhaustion  He is tired with all of the reading assignments, but loving them.  He has been able to make some friends and is becoming more social!  I know he values your prayers for him and I would ask you to continue to pray for him as he seeks to follow the Lord.

A prayer reminder picture of Chris for you!

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As always, I want to thank you for your love, care, encouragement, emails, regular mail, prayers, and support.  You are such a great encouragement to me!  Please enjoy a great February!

Love, Gregg