Sunday, October 10, 2010

Korea revisited

I didn't get around to posting yesterday, but here I am today with another Korea flashback post!

I've actually been sitting here for the past hour reading my blog posts from last October. It brings back fantastic memories, I'm so glad I wrote so much down. It was really fun to go back and read about our first couple of weeks at home with Clarissa and see how far we've come. Life has changed a lot over the past year!

A year ago today we went to church in Korea with Jin-Ha, we visited the border of North and South Korea (called the DMZ) and we visited a dairy farm in the cutest little rural town in Korea. I think that was probably my very favorite day in Korea.

One of my favorite experiences was visiting the DMZ. I never in my life thought that I would be standing at the border of South Korea, staring into North Korea. You hear so much about North Korea in the news and I never thought that I'd actually be looking at it! It might be a boring thing to visit for some people but I'm fascinated by the history of North and South Korea, so to me it was super interesting. You can't see much of it from the border, the area around the border is hilly and wooded, but it was still interesting.

One thing we were extremely lucky to do in Korea was to spend so much time with Clarissa and her foster mother. Most people only meet the foster mother at the adoption agency and only see their baby once at the agency before they go pick them up for good and take them home. We were extremely lucky that Jin-Ha (my friend in Korea, for those of you who weren't here last year) met the foster mother before we went to Korea (in a secret meeting that I wasn't really allowed to talk about at the time!!!) and they became friends, so we got to spend most of our week in Korea with Clarissa, her foster mother and Jin-Ha. We got to visit the foster mothers home and get to know her, and I'm really grateful for that. We've actually kept in touch since we've come home. I e-mail her photos about once a month and we've even Skyped with webcams a couple of times so that she could see Clarissa. I'm grateful for that relationship. It has worked out wonderfully for everyone.

So today I thought I'd share some photos that I never got around to posting last year. I took a bunch of great photos of Korea and then I got so busy with Clarissa when we got home that I never had time to post them and I eventually kind of forgot about it. I will try to get back tomorrow and post some more if I get a chance.

Enjoy! (by the way, that's North Korea behind Clarissa in the first picture.)





















2 comments:

My5Blessings said...

South Korea looks like such a beautiful place! What a blessing for Clarissa that you will have so much to share with her about where she came from. It's too bad that South Korea is closing the doors to adoption.

Beckest of the BECKS said...

I can't believe that it has been a year since I sat here on the computer refreshing your blog over and over and over again :) You are such a blessing to Clarissa as well as she is a blessing to you. The whole thing is amazing! I remember breaking down in tears when you first posted the pics of you holding Clarissa for the first time. You are an amazing mom and I love that you shared such an amazing blessing with us all!