KOREA NAZARENE UNIVERSITY, CHEONAN, KOREA March 29, 2012

Early on we did one load of wash. Please don’t laugh – when you’re traveling with only one suitcase, getting laundry done is a big deal! Our apartment is on the 9^th floor of a dorm that has men on one side, women on the other. At the end of our hall, there is a very cleverly set-up 2-room laundry facility – one room of washers and dryers for guys, one for gals. The super-sized washers turn on with a 500 won coin (about 50 cents) and wash for 38-45 minutes. The dryers turn on the same way, but don’t dry a full load in 45 minutes.

However, our devotions reminded us that Jesus says, “A thankful attitude opens the windows of heaven. Spiritual blessings fall freely onto you through those openings into eternity…Thankfulness is not some sort of magic formula…it rejoices in the Savior in the midst of trials and and tribulations.” We find this truth to be very powerful.

Here's what KNU looks like from our apartment:

The big deal of the day was our tour of Korea Nazarene University. Wow! KNU is impressive -- impressive in infrastructure, impressive in mission, impressive in energy. The young gentleman who set up the apartment for us on campus, Mr. Tenny Lee from the office of international affairs took us through the library, the department of support to special education students, and the special education school that has children from preschool through middle school. On the third floor the library is chock full of colorful books in Korean (!), research journals, and has a computer lab with 24 stations. The media lab had more computers, many dvds for entertainment and for class support.

KNU has won national awards for the Department of Support to Students with Disabilities. That occupies the first and second floor and has a corner dedicated to the printing of Braille texts, specialized computers for the blind to do their homework in Braille or orally. We saw other computers for the physically handicapped, including one that is operated by a pointer fixed on the head of the student. The radio studio records video instruction for distance ed and for the blind.

Seeing all these specialized adaptations made me want to visit such a campus in the States to compare.

The school for children with disabilities also has attractive, sophisticated equipment for the children of varying ages. The class sizes are very small (see the pictures). KNU students from the department of early childhood serve internships in the school.

Mr. Tenny arranged two more excellent items for us. He borrowed a router so that we can have internet in our apartment. And he took us to a very classy downtown restaurant for a full-course Korean meal – the kind where you sit with your legs down in a hole under the table and are served a meal with thirty small plates. What a treat.

Did I mention that the mattress was too firm for comfort? After lunch, I went scouting for a piece of foam to overlay it and found one to buy. Hurray!

We had one more very special time of table fellowship over supper with Peter and Amy Scott, who we knew in Quincy, MA schools and at ENC where their kids and our kids were together. We always kidded around about being “cousins”. They have been here in Korea for a year, teaching English in the KNU system. They are loving it and plan to stay longer. We ate “Vietnamese” and Jon and them got seafood rice served into a half of pineapple which is cut up for dessert after the rice is gone. We enjoyed so much catching up with the Scotts and their children. We hope to have another snatch of time with them to talk more before we leave here.

It was very nice to work on line for a while. I was grateful to figure out how to change my blog settings from Korean to English so now I can read the instructions, go back and post more pictures! We were happy to retire to our now-more-comfortable bed!