Saturday, November 11, 2017

A Wonderful Week Culminating with our Fantastic Fall Festival Friday!

What a week!  Yes, it was a very full and eventful week for our first full week of November!  As already read in my email announcing this post, I have made a difficult decision to return to the USA at the close of the current school year (2017-18).  On Monday, after writing to inform parents of my decision, I took about 10 minutes in both the MS Chapel and HS Chapel to share my decision with the MS and HS students.  Since then, I have had some very enjoyable and meaningful conversations with students and parents.  They are not happy to see me go, but they understand and have been very encouraging.  Your continued prayers for me as I desire to finish well at ICS-P with a community of teachers, staff, students, and parents I love very deeply.

It was also a week of gaining a new student in Kindergarten and possibly four or five more students in the next week or two.  That would be great, bringing our enrollment up to the number for which we budgeted.  Thanks for joining us in prayer for these possible new students as well as other families who have expressed an interest in visiting and checking out our school.

One of our elementary students, Cyrus, arrived at school on Monday following his participation in the awards' ceremony that Korean Air had at its headquarters for a number of students who had entered its art competition.  Cyrus is always smiling and he is the student who came in one morning the other week and as I said "Good Morning" to him, he asked me, "Can we have Chapel two times a week instead of one?"  He is a gifted young man full of love, energy, and encouragement and we were so pleased that he was one of the recipients of this special Art competition by Korean Air. Thanks to our great art teacher, Ms. Lee, for her input into his life and encouraging him in his artistic ability.


This is the artwork of Cyrus that earned him a special award from Korean Air!


Her is Cyrus and his Dad at the Korean Air Award Ceremony.  (Cyrus even got this new haircut for the ceremony!)  :-)
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Tuesday evening, after an exhausting day for me as I shared with MS and HS Chapels my difficult decision, Ricky and Hannah Hannings, two of our wonderful teachers invited me to their apartment for a very delicious dinner, some fantastic fellowship, and some very special time with their delightful doggie, Macy!  I love Macy and she gets very excited every time she sees me.  I see her often in the area around the Blen Heim apartments.  Both the Hannings and I, along with a few other ICS-P teachers live in the Blen Heim complex.  Often when I am out walking, I see Macy with either Ricky or Hannah on her frisky walk!


Hannah and Ricky Hannings playing with Macy during our dinner and fellowship!


I almost forgot to take a picture of the yummy food Hannah had prepared!  So good!


GGG with Macy relaxing and playing following dinner!
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My dear friend from SYME days, Gunmo Kim, contacted me earlier in the week to see if we could have dinner together on Wednesday.  The times I spend with Gunmo are very special times.  Gunmo was one of the first SYME students I met.  We have shared much together and I was honored to have a part in the wedding ceremony when he and his beautiful wife, Sujin were married.  We had an awesome time together at one of our favorite Chinese restaurants in the Pyeongtaek area.  We enjoyed some yummy food, fantastic fellowship, lots of laughter, and just plain good old sharing. On Saturday, Sujin took the Korean Teachers' Exam.  Gunmo said she has been studying so hard all year for this major exam that will decide if she is permitted to teach in the Korean kindergarten classes. She must wait until December 12th to find out her score.  It is a very subjective exam and her score will depend on the person selected to be her scorer.  Thank you for praying.


Gunmo and GGG preparing to enjoy our tasty Chinese feast and some excellent conversation and laughter!


         My Chinese Black Noodles!!  So delicious!


We shared this dish of Sweet and Sour Pork with Veggies!


Gunmo enjoyed the Seafood Noodles!  Also very tasty!
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Our CFO, Mrs. Haselman, also teaches a Cooking Elective class at ICS-P.  Recently, she came up with the idea of having the class make very special cupcakes with awesome decorations that parents could but for the birthday party of their son or daughter at ICS-P.  She then has the "Singing Junior Chefs" (the middle school students in her class) go to the classroom to deliver the cupcakes and sing "Happy Birthday" to the birthday person!  The parents and kids love it!  Here are the Junior Chefs singing to one of our newest students in Grade 4!


The Birthday Girl with her birthday cupcakes!


The Singing Junior Chefs Singing "Happy Birthday" and playing their instruments for the Birthday Girl.  The rest of the class sang a little but they were too curious about the Singing Junior Chefs! :-)


Grade 4 with their teacher, Ms. Johnson, with the Junior Chefs and the Birthday Girl!
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Friday was a half day for students!  In the afternoon, teachers and some of the MS and HS students who are on the Student Council finished preparing their classrooms with the game activities they would have for the students and their families and friends who would come back to the school between 4:30 and 7:30 PM on Friday for our annual Fall Festival.  The organization and most of the preparation is under the leadership of Ms. Gaul, our HS Math teacher and Student Council Advisor. She does a super job of organizing the Student Council reps and is very good at delegating a lot of the leadership to the Student Council President, JoonHa.  Students can come in a costume on Friday and then for the Festival.  They purchase game tickets as they enter at 4:30 and then go throughout the building to various classrooms for various fun activities that are run by teachers and student council members.  There is lots of food as well.  Students can earn prize tickets and then go to the Prize Room to cash in their prize tickets for prizes of all sorts.  One of the biggest prize attractions is the raffle for three teachers to have a pie-in-the-face at the closing ceremonies in the Gym!  This seems to always be a big hit!  It was such a fun day and evening!  I am going to divide the pictures into several categories:  Costumes, Activities, and Pie Smearing! :-)  First, here is the announcement that was on our website and facebook for the Fall Festival:



Some of the Costumes









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A Sampling of the Activities


The Harry Potter Room was popular!


Grade 5 had several activities 
happening!               


Ms. Hunter's Grade 1 Balloons with wooden darts!  I did very well with this one! :-)


Some basketball hoop action in
               this MS room.


A couple more activities!      


No comment! :-)



Our Art Teacher had this activity and was using one of her students to assist.  I decided to get my face painted by her assistant, Chris!  Lots of fun!


Chris beginning his masterpiece!


Continuing to work on the old man's face! :-)       


Joseph, brother of Chris, stopped by to beg me to come up to the one MS room to squirt another student and Joseph with the water rifle.


  Finished product!  Chris did a great job!  In fact, several saw his
         creation on my face and went to get one on their faces.


Ryan in Grade 1 was one of them!    


And Cyrus was another.  There were two others and I wasn't able to get their pictures! :-(
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The Pie-in-the Face Event!


   4th Grader Joshua had his name drawn to smear the pie in Ms. 
                                          Hunter's face!


Ms. Hunter is laughing with her thrown back after getting smeared!
She was very brave, especially with her beautiful long hair!       


This young MS student, Danny, was sooo excited to be selected in the raffle to pie our Guidance Counselor, Mr. Coyner!  He even took the pie plate with the leftover whipped cream in it and placed it upside down on Mr. Coyner's head!  Here he is giving a thumbs-up for his great job! :-)


A very quiet and shy Lucy in Grade 4 was selected to pie GGG! I
thought I could talk her out of it, but she would not hear of it!  She
                                   loved every minute of it!


Here is Lucy standing back admiring her great piece of pie smearing!


The final piece of work by Lucy!! :-)


This young man in MS and I are developing a great relationship.  He always loves to talk with me.  At the Fall Festival, he was so helpful and was very eager to take some pictures for me on my cell phone camera.  Joseph is one of those students at ICS-P I am going to miss!  Here he is after the pie smearing and I had a little time to clean up my face, but not all of my whipped cream hair! :-)
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Oh, it was also Pepero Day in Korea on Friday - at least at ICS-P.  Pepero Day is actually on November 11 (11/11).  Here is a little about the day:

"The day takes place on November 11. Students at school, coworkers at companies, and 
even proselytizers pass out boxes of the chocolate-covered, crunchy snacks (sticks). Giving them out is similar to handing pit a Valentine as it can be a platonic gesture or to handing or have romantic overtones. "

Well, at ICS-P the Student Council also does a Pepero Day and students, teachers, administrators, etc. can order a box of Pepero Sticks for a friend, classmate, teacher, etc. with a note attached.  They are delivered by Student Council Members to the individuals.  I bought a box for each of the staff members without giving my name as the giver.  I was pleasantly surprised with a few boxes I also received from some teachers and students.


Some of my Pepero gifts and notes on Friday!
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Thank you very much for your faithful love, care, encouragement, emails, mail, prayers, and gifts.  I really would value your prayers as I seek to finish well and that I will have opportunities to share Jesus Christ with those students who have not placed their faith in Him.  I would also appreciate your prayers for this next week.  The VP for Leadership Development for our NICS school, Dr. Duane Jobe, will be visiting ICS-P on Monday through Wednesday of this coming week.  We will be having many meetings along with the normal ICS-P activities.  Thanks so much.

Love, Gregg




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