So on the second Sunday of November the church celebrated a Thanksgiving Day. The church was decorated with balloons in the shapes of different fruits and at the front of the church
were baskets full of fruits and a few vegetables.
This is the pastor preaching the special Thanksgiving Day sermon. As you can see the front of the stage is decorated with baskets (full or fruit). The little house like structure is supposed to be a traditional Korean house.
After first service and lunch there were some games that were played. One of the games was a traditional Korean game were you have four sticks (one rounded side and one flat side) and you throw them up and see which way that they fall. The way that they land, flat or rounded side up, determines how far you get to move around the board. The object of the game is to get your pieces past all the bases. If someone lands on you, you have to start that piece all over again (kind of like the game Sorry or Frustration). I was told before that this is a traditional game
that is usually played on the Korean New Year holiday with family and usually it is the women who play it, but men play it also.
This a group of people playing the game.
Another game that was played was kind of like hacky-sack. The same rules apply to the game as hacky-sack, you can't touch it with your hands. The thing that they used as the hacky-sack was what looked like a badminton birdy because of the feathers on the top. The bottom was a flat metal piece and it was weighted a
little. It was played as a single player and you try to keep the birdy from dropping with only your feet. It was counted how many times the birdy was kicked before it fell to the ground. The person who kept the birdy up for the most kicks was the winner. The men were the ones who played this game. It was very interesting to see the elders and pastors playing this game and really getting competative.
This is one of the elders in the church playing the hacky-sack game.
There was also a game where people were given some arrows (like those in archery) and they had to try and throw them into a large bucket from a certian distance away. The person who got the most arrows in the bucket won.
There was also jump rope, which is also played on Korean New Year. The women and girls usually play this game. They have a large rope and three or four people jump the rope to see how long they can go before someone messes up and stops t
he rope.
After the games it was time for second service. Second service consisted of worship, a short message, and different groups doing short performances. The performances were done by peope of different ages. The first group were the youngest children, ages 4 and 5. They did a traditional Korean dance of a newly married couple. It was so adorable.
Here are 2 of the children doing their traditional dance.
After they danced they also said a memory verse over and over again, kind of like a chant. It was interesting.
After that some elemetary children did a dance to the English version of the song 'God is Great' by Hillsongs. At first they had a little video and then it led into the song/dance. It was really good, though the
sound people were having a terrible time with some feedback in the speakers that they couldn't get rid of.
This is the group of elementry cildren doing their dance.
After the elementry children there were middle school aged girls who performed a dance to Korean music. It was a hip hop song. They did really good and the camera guy put a really cool effect on so that it was a little slower. The dance was really good. After the middle school girls there was a short play done by a group of high school aged boys and girls. It was supposed to be a mock of a Korean comedy movie that came out. I haven't seen the movie as of yet, but after seeing the short play I
will have to see it to understand all that was in the play. It was funny to watch all the same, even if I didn't understand it.
This is a scene with armies from oposing sides holding each other at gun point and there are two girls stuck in the middle trying to get each side to not shoot each other.
After the high school aged group there were 2 singing groups of adults. After the 2 adult groups the church gave away the baskets of fruit from the front, to people in the church who do different jobs or those who have retired and are much older, kind of a thanks to them. It was very nice.
After the baskets were given out the service was over. It was a nice way to celebrate Thanksgiving, even if it came almost a month later. Though I did miss not having a large dinner without Korean food.
