Namhan River :)

Today was one of the best days I've had in South Korea so far! I went whitewater rafting down Namhan River with a group of my church friends. :) We met in Gangnam, right outside the church, New Harvest. It takes an hour to get to church from my house in Suwon, so I slept over with Shannon on Friday night. Reuel, Shannon, and I had signed up for the rafting trip together, so we all met this morning to take the bus to church.

We met at 9am and loaded up on a charter bus. There were about 40 people total, I think. Our main pastor, Pastor Doug, and our worship pastor, Pastor Bobby, came along for the trip. We drove for about two hours until we got to the rafting place. It was up in the mountains, and it was BEAUTIFUL! We ate lunch, buffet-style, at the rafting place. They served SPICY soup, SPICY kimchi, SPICY pork, and SPICY veggies. The whole meal was just plain SPICY!! It was delicious though. :)

After lunch, we changed for rafting, got back on the bus, and drove for about ten minutes to get all our gear. They split us into boat groups (GROUP B REPRESENT!), and we went on our way. Pastor Doug, Shannon, Reuel, and I were all in a raft together, along with a French guy, a Canadian guy, a South African guy, and a few Korean girls. We were a big mix of different people, but it was the best boat group. Our guide only spoke Korean, except for the occasional "one, two!" which told us to paddle. Other than that, he wanted us to call out the numbers in Korean. :)

We went down the river and stopped about five times along the way to swim. At one point, we stopped and climbed a big rock, AND JUMPED OFF!! It was the craziest feeling! It really wasn't very high up, but when I was falling, I had time to wonder if the water was going to be there when I landed....

Early-on in the ride down the river, we realized we were really in for some crazy adventures. Our raft guide dumped three people out of the boat, including Shannon, on this really crazy rapid! Then, somewhere about halfway through the trip, the guide decided to start shoving people out of the boat. He got into a wrestling match at one point with one of the Korean girls, so that was pretty hilarious to watch. Near the end, the guide told us to put all our paddles at one end of the boat. We passed our paddles up, and they stacked them together. Then, the guide told us to all slide to the back of the boat and grab the lifejacket of the person in front of us. I was all the way at the back and could feel the guide holding my lifejacket. We had no idea what he was going to do.....All of a sudden, he yanked my lifejacket really hard, and I fell out of the boat, pulling everyone along with me. It. was. awesome.

We finished rafting, changed, and took the bus back home. We got stuck in Saturday night, downtown traffic, so it took forever to get back to the church! A group of people asked to be let off the bus early so they could grab some food at a Mexican restaurant close-by. It didn't make sense for them to sit in traffic for half an hour back to the church, and then turn around and fight the traffic back the other way. After we let them off, there were a lot of empty seats. We spread out and took a few seats each. :) The rest of the trip, I just had really good conversations with people that I met today. Finding this church has been such a blessing, and I never imagined I would find a home here in South Korea. Little did I know that God had bigger plans for me. I know good things are going to be happening at New Harvest, and I can't wait to get more involved with the other activities and small groups they have.

Saturday=Success!