Hello all!

First of all, I'm really sorry about waiting so long to blog. Life here has been completely crazy! I've been busier than I ever thought I was going to be, which I really love.
This past week was the first week of the school year for the students, which has meant my first week teaching. I don't know if I've talked about this already, but apparently I'm a legit teacher now. The past two summers I "taught" English, meaning I helped some students with their English homework and maybe went into a classroom once or twice a week and played a game with them. When I got here, I wasn't sure if that's the way it was going to be this time around. At first I thought it was, until I was told that I needed to come up with teaching proposals, curriculum, lesson plans, textbooks, assignments, and grades. That came as a bit of a surprise, but one that I have thoroughly enjoyed and am so happy to have. It has been slightly overwhelming at times because most people go to school for 4 years to learn to do the things that I'm just having to wing. By the grace of God, I'm getting by so far!
I'm also doing some private lessons for teachers and students, as well as teaching a group of university students everyday for 2 hours and a few other things. My typical week will consist of teaching 9 classes, 2-4 private lessons, teaching a group of middle school kids on Saturday mornings at a church, helping plan for the team that's coming from the States this summer (the one I was on the past two years), and helping plan for a big camp that always happens at the end of summer that promotes unification between North and South Koreans. Think a camp that's comparable to Centrifuge or M-Fuge in the states...it's a pretty big deal. There's a lot to do, a lot of work, a lot of busyness, not much sleep, and I love it. I completely love the students I get to teach and hang out with. I love the staff I get to work with. I love the job I get to do. All of it. A few days ago, I was talking with some students about what their dream jobs are. Everyone went around and said what they wanted to do, and then they asked me. I thought for a few minutes and realized that I'm doing my dream job right now. It's so strange because as a kid, teenager, and college student, I was always looking to the next thing, thinking that there was this big goal to work towards, a job, a career, something like that. Now, I feel like it's finally here. I feel like instead of having to continuously work through different steps to get to yet another step in an effort to get to the end goal, I'm at that goal now, finally. That's not to say that I don't have things I want to achieve and accomplish later, but I have this indescribable sense of contentment and peace that I've never really had before. I know God has me right where I'm supposed to be. Please don't think that I think any of this is of me though. I feel insanely humbled that God has me where I am and feeling the way I am. It is all because of the Lord that any of this is happening and I am so unworthy of it all.
Through all of this, God has been teaching me a lot about losing myself to Him. God is showing me more and more that things aren't about me. I'm learning that first, everything is completely and totally about him. It doesn't matter if circumstances or situations inconvenience me or if I don't like everything that happens. It matters if God wants something to happen. It matters if it helps Him, not me. It matters if it furthers His Kingdom, not mine. From all of this, I've also learned that serving God means serving people. The way to love God and to worship Him is to give up yourself and to serve the way God wants us to. God is very specific about the way He wants us to serve Him. Not to be cliche, but The Great Commission sums it all up. We are to go and make disciples. We are to make the name of Jesus known. We are to draw people to Jesus. That is the only job we as Christians are given. God has entrusted this one thing to us. It's not an option to do it. We are commanded by God, and His commands are not to be ignored. A verse that I keep coming back to is Romans 12:1: " Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God-this is your spiritual act of worship." The sacrifice God asks us to give is our entire being, and the service that it requires is to love, serve, and obey God by serving His creation. This has made me realize that my life not only belongs to God, but by extension, it belongs to these students. They are the people I am called to and they are the people I must serve.
Last week at church the pastor talked about this kind of stuff and talked about how every single Christian is called to be a pastor. That doesn't mean we all need to go to seminary and stand in a pulpit every Sunday. No, that means that God has given each and every one of us a flock to tend to. We are given a group of people to minster to, to serve, to love, to share the Gospel with, to disciple, no matter what we do. Whether you're a teacher, a doctor, a plumber, a salesman, a waitress, you have a flock to pastor. God has sent you to the places you work to look after the people you see everyday. That is your pulpit. And just like a traditional pastor would not neglect and ignore his congregation, so it is that we are not to neglect or ignore the congregation God has given us. Please do not think that you need to be "called in the ministry" to work for the Lord. God has called you to have influence in whatever job you're in. In Genesis, God gave Adam and Eve dominion over the world. That call to dominion has not been revoked. It still stands. Now this does not mean, in my opinion, anything about politics or government or boycotting things we don't like or don't agree with, or signing petitions to do things like reinstating prayer in schools. Those aren't wrong, but I believe dominion means having influence in every arena the world has. Having Godly "pastors" who are working in everyday jobs, influencing people day to day, sharing the Gospel everywhere that you are. In the end, I really believe that has much, much, much more impact than starting with the things I just mentioned. Those kinds of dominance will come later when we are obedient to what God has for us, wherever we are.
Anyway, my original point in all of this is that I'm learning that I am not my own. I am God's first, then second, I belong to the students that He has called me to. I am still figuring out what that means and I expect it to be a long road!
As for prayer requests, please continue praying for my students. Pray that God will open them up to Him and that they will experience Him and want to know Him. Please pray that I will not let busyness get in the way of ministering to the students. I am a little scared that this will happen. I don't want to let doing work get in the way of them.
Thank you all so much for your love, support, and prayers.
I love you all!

P.S. I will be posting some pictures on here soon. If you have Facebook, I already have a lot on there, so check 'em out!