South Korea 101

Heard an interesting talk this evening about mission work in South Korea.  To my delight it was preceded by a Korean dinner.  The ladies of our Korean congregtion really outdid themselves.  I apologize if spellings aren't accurate here but we had pulgoge, kimche, pot stickers, sticky rice, spicy meat balls and, for dessert, chocolate chip cookies.  I'm not sure how Korean the cookies were but that's ok.  Some interesting things I learned.  South Koreans arean't really anxious to reunite with North Korea.  It would be an economic disaster that would take a generation to come back from.  The average annual income in SK is $27,000.  In NK it's less than $500 per year, which interestingly, is what the annual income was in SK before WWII.  In South Korea about thirty percent of people are Christians.  In NK it's about three percent.  The Christians in SK credit Christians missionaries with the early beginnings of much of their current prosperity.  Among other things, the early missionaries (mostly Catholic and Presbyterian) promoted education for boys and girls.  One of the Korean ladies in our group said that she had been educated in the best girls' high school in South Korea.  She said it was only for the best students, then was very embarrassed, because that sounded like she was bragging. She went on to tell about her mother, who, at 10 years old, learned to play a pump organ at a small mission church and went on from there to become a classical musician and professor of music at a South Korean university.  All in all, a very interesting evening.