Forever Family in Korea and 2nd meeting with Andrew

After the day of shopping in Insadong on Wednesday

we had dinner with our exchange student's family.

We truly feel we have forever family in Korea with both our current exchange student's family and our student's family from 3 years ago.

They took us to Outback Steakhouse for dinner.

The food was great and actually nice to have a little bit of home!

We had great dinner conversation and learned so much more about them.

Below when I asked them if I could take a picture this is what they did so we did the same!

Famous Korean pose.

Later we took the subway to a market and then had coffee in a coffee house.

It was a very special evening

Our second meeting with Andrew was so great!

It was Thursday afternoon.

We were sitting in the little lobby of the agency waiting for our appointment when foster mom and Andrew walked in.

She immediately started talking to him in Korean and saying "Omma, Appa" and pointing toward us for him to come and see us.

Omma is Mom and Appa is Dad.

He came over and looked at us and I started going through my bag to see what toys I had that he would like. I pulled out a little firetruck and pushed it on the floor.

He chased after it.

We had given him some snacks the day before so she had brought those again and she gave them to him and told him to feed Appa. He walked to Steve and put it in his mouth.

It was so sweet.

We just had so much fun interacting with him while waiting for our "official" appointment.

He is giving his appa high fives!

This is one of our cutest pictures I think.

I love his little pants.

Foster mom brought a bag to give us.

Below is what she brought.

A spoon and chopstick set for Andrew,

Pororo sketch pad and markers.

She says he loves to write and use anything that marks on paper.

Also she brought 2 Korean board books.

The social worker read them to me so I can read them to him.

The little phone in the picture is his favorite toy she said so she wanted to send it.

Then in the bottom of the bag was a photo album of pictures of him since she first started to care for him in June 2009.

I started to cry.

To have those sweet pictures is a treasure to us.

The picture that it is opened to in this photo is the day he came into her care.

There are pictures with foster dad, Andrew's birthdays, times he was in hospital when he was one and several others.

Also, she returned the monkey lovey that we sent to him.

On Thursday evening Hayoung's family took us to see many sites and then to dinner.

Her father is a pastor so they took us to see his church.

It is not like American churches which are spread out on large amounts of land.

The church was in a tall building on the 6th floor.

We went in and Seungho, her brother, played the piano and we sand some hymns together.

This is a photo with him.

The took us to see the Olympic Park.

Liked this cafe's name.

After seeing some different sights we met some of their friends for dinner at a family style restaurant. It was very much American buffet style.

We had steak and so many other yummy things.

Even thought it was like American restaurant there were great Korean foods on the buffet.

I loved the green tea yogurt!!

After dinner they asked if we would like to see Korean apartment.

I think Hayoung told them I did.

It is just awesome to see how their culture lives.

So we went to the apartment of the family that was having dinner with us.

They lived on the 12th floor.

I was wonderful to have so many experiences here.

Photo with the family and Hayoung's family.

Their father was unable to meet us.

I told the family if they ever want to be exchange student,

they have us as a family in the USA.

At the church.

This is Steve, I just wanted to add that this experience has been the greatest journey that God has ever taken us on. We have laughed,cried, and prayed many times during our stay. The families of YooJin and HaYoung are the most amazing and kind people. We truly have family here in Korea!! Also, I have been so fortunate to have been on this life journey with my absolutely amazing wife.

Thank you all for your prayers!! Everyone of you have helped us navigate our way.

Most importantly, Thank You Jesus.