Connectionalism

Last night my husband and I picked up our guests for the next few days, a Korean Methodist pastor and his wife. YoungKwan and WonSuk will be with us till Sunday afternoon, when they'll go to a second host family until Annual Conference. They're part of a 9-person delegation from the South conference visiting this year.

I hosted two years ago when a delegation came from the same conference, and it was a challenging but great experience. My only hesitation this year was that I'd done it before and thought others should have the chance (sadly, they didn't have the problem of too many people offering to host).

Our day has started slowly so far...owing in large part to the fact that after 27 hours of travel, the jet lag has understandably hit them hard. We did venture to Panera this morning for breakfast and a meeting, then I showed them both my current church and the one I'll be at July 1 (so Jefferson and Calvary, respectively). But then we headed home, and they're resting now. We're off with my husband and brothers tonight to the Orioles game, though, so that should be fun. Tomorrow we're off to DC, and Saturday will mostly be a day around camp.

It's always so interesting to hear about how church "works" in other places, even when it's basically the same denomination/order. YoungKwan and WonSuk and their two children live in an apartment the floor below their rented church space. They have 20 or so children, and about as many adults. They started the church ten years ago. When we visited Calvary, and I explained it was built in the 1930s, and wasn't a terribly old church by US standards (Jefferson was built in 1828) they said it would be a very old church in Korea.

Having hosted before, I'm slightly better prepared, but each person is different, and it's also different hosting now with a husband to help (though he's busy with camp) rather than as a single woman (which the couple two years ago just couldn't get over! (in a humorous way)

But all of this is a cool reminder about how people on (literally mostly) opposite sides of the world can share in the same ministry, and even when there are major differences in how they do things and in their cultures, have a lot to learn from and share with each other.

I hear them waking up, so it's off to baseball soon...and a lot more learning...