Easter in Korea

He is risen!

Erika is heavily involved in music, especially this weekend, and we have had a very busy day. We were at the Dragon Hill hotel at 6 AM to prepare for the sunrise service.

Our pre-dawn brass prelude

One member of her singing group got called into work this morning, so they had to scramble. They were great. I intended to video, but I must have bumped something almost immediately and turned it off. I held the camera carefully the entire song (which, believe me, isn't easy to do when they are singing "O Happy Day!") and had exactly 1 second of recording.

Erika's praise team leads the traditional Easter hymns

After the service we had just enough time to grab a plate from the fellowship buffet before Erika had to head to the chapel to rehearse for the ROCK service. (ROCK stands for Relying on Christ in Korea, which I think is pretty cool for the contemporary service.

Leftover sushi for lunch. (Our household eats pizza every Saturday night; Erika's household eats sushi. Who is more sophisticated?)

At two we headed to the high school for a security check before we could get into the chapel for the afternoon service. The reason for the extra security was our guest--Vice President Mike Pence, his wife Karen and two daughters. I have never had the experience of virtually the entire audience for a concert sitting through the entire dress rehearsal. The church was full by the time we finished going through the congregational songs, choir anthem and final Halelujah Chorus, and then we went through them all again with the high school orchestra supplemented with army brass. After nearly an hour and a half of practice, they announced that the VP had arrived and we would begin the service a half hour before the scheduled time. I presume the reason was that everyone was already there, so why wait? I don't know how many were turned away, but if you came on time for the service--or even an hour and a half early--you didn't get in.

It was pretty cool to get to sing for the VP, but what I enjoyed most was singing goose-bump-inducing praise music with organ, drums and orchestra full volume. The Pence's sang along on the congregational songs. "They are real Christians," the choir director had told us, and I guess, they requested the opportunity to worship with us.

There was also a dinner afterwards. Sort of a combination of Korean and American food. There were enough of us that we ate in several rooms, but the Pence's made the rounds and shook a lot of hands. Not ours. We weren't supposed to get out of our seats, and they didn't quite make our corner. Sigh. We weren't allowed to take pictures during the worship service, but I did get a shot while he said a few words to our room in thanks for the service of the military families.

Here is an article about the visit. It even includes a tweet from the VP account with a picture of the choir. Our heads are approximately 0.5 mm high, so I don't expect you to pick out Erika or me.