Oops

    I've been church shopping, and I found my church -- St. Francisco International Catholic Church. I went to a few traditional Catholic churches, including the stunning Cathedral in Myeongdong, but it really just felt like a bunch of tourists, plus a few Koreans hoping to practice their English. St. Francisco felt like a tight community. They realized I was new to the group pretty easily, and so at the end when they were making their announcements they asked (looking right at me) if there was anyone new who wanted to introduce themselves. So of course, I love using a microphone, I stood up and introduced myself. Afterwards over punch and cookies I met everyone else. Good people all around. They are mostly American families here for various reasons; military wives and children, families working for international companies, traveling gypsy souls, and the most incredible family who adopted a Korean baby 15 years ago, and then moved back here for a few years to explore and appreciate her roots together.

    The story of how I found my church is a little perilous, but mostly hilarious. Last week I looked at their website, and according to their directions they were about a 15 minute walk from a metro stop called Hannam. Looking at my metro map, Hannam was ages away from where I live, so I gave myself an hour to get there. I had to change lines twice, and then once I got to Hannam I thought it was going to be pretty simple. The instructions said to exit and walk straight, I'd pass Dogok University on my right and then the church would be about a block down. Welp, I walked for about 83 miles. I asked about 32 people (in my idiotic Korean and in English) and people kept telling me I was walking correctly, and to just keep going it was only a little further. I think they must have been teasing me, because well after the service had ended, I was still wandering the neighborhood, frustrated and very very hot. However, I was still determined to find the freaking church. I had left my house at 9:45am and at noon I was still walking around trying to locate the church. I began to think it was a mirage and that only the worthy were allowed to find it. Exhausted, sweaty and very hungry I gave up, went to Starbucks and then hailed a cab home.

    This week I left with a different plan of attack. Take the metro to the correct stop and then get straight into a cab and show him the address written in Korean that I had painstakingly copied down. It took me about 15 minutes to walk to the metro, and then another 40 once on the metro. At Hannom I got into a cab and he knew the address! About 10 minutes later I was there. Yessss. After leaving my delightful service I walked outside and looked around. This place looked kinda familiar.... Right smack dab in front of the church I noticed a bus stop. It was the 420.. which happens to go right by my apartment building ... I got on, and three blocks later I was standing right in front of my apartment building. What had taken me over an hour that morning, and endless headache last week, took me less than 10 minutes to reverse.

    I am not overly religious, but I kinda took it as God's way of saying, stick with me and I'll show you the right way. I laughed at myself a little, and realized I am entitled to make a few mistakes. In fact, I'm probably going to make a million mistakes here, but correcting them and laughing at myself is so much better than getting frustrated and annoyed at myself. I guess I wouldn't have come here in the first place if I was scared of making mistakes!
   
    Hope your Sunday was just as entertaining as mine! :)

xx, Sarah


PS -- HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MICHAEL!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I love you.