becka lippy

Just a quick note before I head to bed- HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! I will be posting again soon... so stay tuned!

For Christmas break (I have the week off from work) I am chilling at home. I'm really looking forward to the rest since January is going to be an intense work month. Anyways, I thought maybe I would let you all in on some of my doings around my house. You see, as each year passes I find I am getting more and more of a nesting complex. I want to make a home, to create a space that is comfortable and where people feel warm and loved. Ugh. Anyways, this means that instead of spending my money on other things, I am spending it on pretty lamps and other decorations. My bed, my Christmas lights, my teddy bear (named Dorothy after one of my favorite theologians wife- right, I DO get nerdier by the year), and my humidifer since the cold+my heater= very very very dry air. Here is my little work space. I got this very pretty lamp (but not before walking for over an hour around this HUGE shopping center looking for the best deal!). I really love my apartment. I feel so confortable here and I

Well it's the day after Christmas, but is it ever too late to post Christmas photos? Here are Sunyoung and I at lunch on Christmas day before we went to church. We went to an area of Seoul that I have never been to before (which is bound to happen in an urban area of 20 million people!). We had pork cutlets (seems like a popular dish here in Korea) and then headed to a church service for all the English churches in Seoul. Very cool. So let me share something with you about my friend Sunyoung. She LOVES the color purple. She always wears purple and whenever we go anywhere she points out everything in the stores that is purple. So our church has a purple Christmas tree in the coffee shop and Sunyoung and I had to take advantage of such an awesome thing as a purple tree. So here she is posing with her tree. Sunyoung introduced me to one of her English students named Joy. Joy is just beginning to learn English, so she took the opportunity to practice on me. She was very sweet though an

별이 That's right folks, 별이 (Pyeo-lee) is my Korean name. In honor of the blog template change, and it being Christmas Eve, I though this might be a cool time to tell you my readers about my Korean name. I've had it for a few months now but have only really started to identify with it (or honestly remember how to say it) for the last few weeks. I like the name though. I asked some Korean friends to give a Korean name since all my students get English names (most of my students go by Sally, Harry, or some other generic name). I told my friends that I wanted the name to start with a "b" sound so it would be similar to Becka. There aren't many names that start with the "ㅂ" (which is the b or p sound). So they gave me the name which means "star" in Korean. 별이. Sounds about right. Anyways, I'm thinking of all of you, my friends and family as I work till 9:15pm on Christmas Eve. May this be a good holiday for you, may you enjoy the company of your

One of the more popular things for young (and old) Koreans to do is called Norae-Bong. It is like Kareoke but so much better since only your friends see you make a fool out of yourself. After the Christmas party, a bunch of us headed over to partake in this great Korean tradition. For about $2 each, we got a room for an hour. There were thousands of songs in English, Korean, and Japanese to choose from. You choose a bunch of songs, and as the night progresses you keep updating the song list. When the song comes on, you grab the mic and you belt it out. And I mean, you BELT IT OUT. We were screaming our lungs out to Brittany Spears, Mariah Carey and of course, the Beatles! In good Kareoke fashion, the words are on the screen, but there are no music videos to go with the songs. Well, no American music videos. Instead, all the songs are played along with a Korean music video from another song. Which means most of the time, the Korean music video's story made NO sense with the English

Here is a little video, totally prime blackmailing material.

At the Christmas party I ended up sitting next to the owner of my school, Daniel (Sarah's husbund). Now in Korean culture, when your boss offers you something (especially alcohol) there is no saying no. So how could I refuse his very LARGE shot of soju? Cheers maybe a little hesitation... \ and bottoms up!

Sally and me Erin picking a white elephant gift Maggie excited about her white elephant gift, note the plastic flower attached. The spread of food for our party- everything from chinese and korean food to fried chicken and pizza. THe fried chicken, which LOOKED like KFC stuff, actually came with kimchi. I kid you not. THe center piece of the meal was this turkey which I heard cost over $100.

I first dyed my hair in 7th grade. I remember I found a box of hair dye in the mess of things in the closet area under the stairs. I don't remember if my mom put up any argument against the idea of me dying my hair. But I do remember it being fun. We did it together and it became kinda our thing (along with watching sappy movies and me giving her pedicures). I would continue to dye my hair for the next 15 years. I think the longest I have gone without dying my hair has been 6 months. That first time I colored my hair strawberry blonde. I had always wanted to be a red head. As the years progressed, the color remained red, but the shades got darker. Around my freshman year in high school it was a dark strawberry blonde. Then light auburn. And finally when I hit my senior year in high school I started dying it really dark auburn. It almost looks black in some photos. Since then, I've kept it some shade of auburn. I like it. People always think I am naturally a red head and I'm

No, not real hiking. Often times, people describe their relationship with the Lord as a "walk". Well, my walk has become more of a hike these past few months. When I am just walking with the Lord, there may be a small incline somedays, but its no more than a few steps uphill before I get to enjoy the few downhill steps. Usually, the Lord teaches me things slowly (or maybe I am just slow in learning them!). Usually I learn one lesson, or am confronted by one sin, maybe once every other week or so. But these past few months, and especially weeks, have been FULL of the Lord's dealing with me. I feel like every day is another steep step. The Lord has been working through so many things in my life that I am overwhelmed when I try to take inventory. It's like turning around and looking at how high up you have climbed. Last night I was tired of climbing. I prayed that the hike would be over soon. I wanted to reach the top of the hill to enjoy the view already. But God didn&#

Here are the fine ladies of SEA, chilling on my bed with my awesome hanukkah latkehs and wine. We never made it to watching a movie, but we sure did talk a lot. It was definitly a girls' night!

You may have noticed that recently I have been working through some of my views on marriage as it pertains to my life. I've been praying (as in my last post) that I would find joy in the place the Lord has me. When I was younger I prayed for contentment. But I think that is only half a prayer. Sure Paul says he has learned to be content in whatever situation he is in, but the Lord commands us to be joyful always. So that is my prayer. That I may truly relish the places the Lord has me. Even when they aren't what I had planned on. So last night after all the girls left my apartment, I realized something. And it gave me great joy. My friends say that I was created to be a wife. I think the qualities that bring them to make that kind of statement (besides my incredibly attractive body! haha) are my love for hospitality and my deep desire to love people. I agree that these are qualities that would serve fairly well in a marriage, but it hit me last night: they serve VERY well in si

I wrestled with God today. Or really, I wrestled with myself. When I was in high school I made a commitment to wait until marriage for sex. My dad gave me a ring and we had a small party where the elders in my life exhorted me to stay pure. Why did I do it? Well, honestly, part of it was just a trend for young Christian girls my age. But there was definitely a part of me that had thought through things. I knew that I wanted to get married, I assumed I would. The question was, would I do it God’s way, or my way? Would I go through life making my own decisions about love and marriage or would I trust God to pick out my guy for me. And even to my sixteen year old mind, I knew that God would choose better than I would. I realized today as I reflected on that decision that I viewed God as some yenta who would marry me off if I gave Him the chance. It made so much sense to me then. Give my heart to God and He would give it to a winner, saving me the pain of the losers. So why did I spend my

Jubilee Church is in the process of finding a new building. We are being kicked out of our old place and have been searching for a new building for quite some time now. If I heard correctly, we have to be out by March. This isn't the first church I have been to that had to move. And to be honest, I like it. Most people in the church are stressed or upset during the moves, but I love it when a church has to move. First, I think moving is a time that cements the people in the church together and the people realize that all the weight of the church cannot fall on only the pastor. It is a time for people to take responsibility for their church community. Second, its a time of paring down what the church owns. Often a move (even a personal move to another house) means you take time to do inventory on what you have, what you need, and what you don't need. I think when we are honest with ourselves, there is a lot more of what we don't need. Churches should share their belongings w

As I wrote earlier, it's been a week of reflection. I wish I could quantitatively judge how much I have changed over the past 6 months. Between graduating from seminary, going through the break and the valley that followed, and moving to Korea, I think it is safe to say that a lot has changed. But I have no one here who knew me before to judge. I will say that many of my regular conversations with God, about the desires and fears of my heart, have changed. While the subject matter remains the same, my prayers have changed. THe truth is, I do and always have desired marriage. I have wanted to be a wife since I was a little girl who dreamed of marrying Daniel Goldstein. I've wanted to be a mom since I was 3 and pretended to be mom to my dolls. But as much as my desire to be a wife and mom is ever present, my experience over the last year has taught me a radical trust in the Lord's goodness. My prayers have begun to reflect this new theology. As I have mentioned in previous po

In this video, Harry repeats something he told me in class ("me is smart") and I try to get some footage of one of my favorite students Yoonwha. He is my little monkey boy and as much as he is a total distraction in class, I adore him. Sadly, he is camera shy, so he hid under the table. You can hear Sulley in the background saying, "Yoonwha, you on movie". So cute!

Tomorrow marks the end of the longest six months of my life. Or were they the shortest. I feel like I was dead for so long, and now I've woken up and found myself in Korea. I don't really know how I got here. I think I was sleepwalking. It's been an interesting week. I knew that this 6 month mark was coming up and I felt my heart beginning to think about those days. I wanted to read what I had written in my journal those few weeks immediately following the break up, but by God's grace, that journal is safely buried in my dad's attic in California. I wanted to cry. And I did. All four times that I watched New Moon. That's right folks. I saw the movie four times and cried each time. But really folks, I am ok. I look back on the last half of a year and am overwhelmed by God's grace. Even in the darkest moments in the Valley, He stood with me. I never stumbled beyond His reach, but was securely fastened to His side as we walked this dark path together. I am so g

This is one of the first Starbucks I've seen that has its sign in Korean. Most are in English. Rosanna and I weren't sure, but these looked like bugs they were serving as street food. So I took a picture and asked a friend. Sure enough- they were silk worms. No thanks! So Rosanna and I went for the chicken skewers instead. This street vendor guy was really nice and friendly so we stood and watched his presentation of making this candy. And then of course, we bought some!

Here are some photos from Thanksgiving: Maggie and I at TGIFridays We went to TGIF because it was the most American thing we could think of, but even TGIF had its own Koreanization of the menu. We all laughed when we saw the Kimchi Pilaf on the menu. We were all American (about 10 of us) except one Austrailian who was silly enough to actually order the kinchi pilaf. Then we all REALLY laughed.