Well, it was a busy but enjoyable Christmas and New Years.

God blessed us exceedingly, and we had a wonderful time both at home and church.

It's been a while since I put up some pictures, so here's some (with Laura's new Christmas camera).



Holly, quite pleased with her new Christmas present.




Melody, Amy, and I playing a game that they got for Christmas.




Grandma and the girls.




Clara, who is solidly Daddy's girl now.




Laura with the ladies from the church at a New Year's get together.

I think Christmas vacation is here, but sometimes it doesn't seem that way - with how busy the season becomes. I'm excited, of course - it's my favorite time of the year (except for the hated cold; I'm sure Heaven will be a nice 75 degrees).

Yesterday I went with the youth group to play a bit of paint ball. I forgot how absolutely fun paintball is; if it wasn't for the high cost of playing, it would be the most fun sport in existence. Besides, it gave me a chance to shoot up the kids, and more importantly - everyone got a chance to shoot the pastor! I have a few welts on my legs (being tall means you get shot quite a bit on the lower half), but it was worth every bruise - a tremendously fun time.

My goal is to write thirty reviews over Christmas vacation. I doubt that will happen, but I got two done anyway!

Violet is still smiling, Clara is still poddy training and running out the door when we leave it open, and the other kids are enjoying vacation. Everyone is excited about Christmas approaching, although I'm continually seeking to curve their attention to the real reason we celebrate Christmas - our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

At my site Joy of my Salvation, I've put up episode # 4. I missed a few weeks due to my voice and some technical problems, but I think all is well.

As for everything else, we're extremely busy, but things are going tremendously here. I'm pretty happy about Thanksgiving coming up, as it's easily one of my favorite holidays.

Clara is being a BEAR to potty train. She can sit in the thing for hours straight, having a grand old time laughing, talking, and reading, until we finally get her into her diaper, at which point she finally goes. Every kid is different, and this is the hardest one to potty train so far! And she runs like the wind! I turned my back on her yesterday for two minutes, and she was out the door and running outside - I couldn't believe how far she had gotten! Fortunately, there are very few cards in our area.

Violet is in the "I'm so cute, look at me" stage. She just sits there and smiles at everyone.

Melody and Amy are doing fine in school.

And I found out my brother and his wife are having another daughter! That's the seventh grandaughter for my parents. I think the Vasel name is doomed for extinction!

I've started a new podcast, called the Joy of my Salvation. You can find more about it here.

It's basically my Sunday Morning message, condensed and modified to fit into a podcast form, without any visual effects or expressions that I might make in person.

I'm going to attempt to post it weekly, but we'll have to wait and see!

Well, it's been an exciting and exhausting week after having Violet. A few things that we've noticed...

1.) Five kids aren't that much more work than four.

2.) Crying affects you a LOT less the fifth time around.

3.) Maybe we picked a hard name to remember? Violet is constantly getting called "Clara", and the other kids names are also getting mixed up. Are our memories really that bad?

4.) When the kids get older, they get to do the neverending laundry.


Anyway, it was my birthday on the 8th, and while it was extremely low key, someone brought me a cake, and the kids and I celebrated happily. Here we are, with me wearing our traditional birthday hat.


Of course, now I have to insert the obligatory Violet pictures:






Clara has been rather good with the new baby - she doesn't act jealous at all. Here she is giving me a high five (we're bonding quite well with Laura taking care of Violet)



And she's still sleeping on the floor.



Things are slowly returning to normal (as normal as things get with six females in one house). I was forced to deal with a malicious lobster in our fish tank that was taking out everything else in the tank, and I saw a three foot snake near our house. Fun times!

And here is Violet Charity!

At 12:07 PM, on September 5, 2007 - Violet Charity Vasel was born. She weighed eight pounds and ten ounces.

Both she and Laura are doing great! The labor went fairly well, Laura said it wasn't as bad as the others (although she said it was no picnic!)

The other kids all oohed and ahed at their new "baby doll" sister.

Five girls! May the Lord have mercy on my soul!

Violet is already bigger than any other baby (8 pounds and three ounces two weeks ago!) that we've had, so the doctor said that if the baby didn't come on Labor Day (ironic, huh?), then they would induce at 10PM on September 4th.

Ah, that's today, and it's 8:37 as I type this, and so the time is almost here. Laura isn't very keen on the inducing part, but what can you do?

So pray for us, and let's see what happens. The kids are all excited (although Melody is constantly moping about how it's not a boy), and Laura's parents wonderfully are keeping Clara for a week - out of our hair.

I'm excited, and so is Laura. But we aren't there yet.

I'll post the news as it happens. Let's get a move on, Violet Charity Vasel!

My apologies for not posting in a while, but I had put the blog on low priority.

Let's summarize what's going on.

1.) Baby Violet is getting closer and closer to coming - September 3rd is the due date. We look very much forward to her arrival!

2.) Recently had the chance to travel to America and visit my family - had an enjoyable time, but was also very glad to come back to Korea.

3.) Amy is about to start kindergarten, and Holly about to start preschool in a Korean school. I hope they are ready for her!

4.) Clara still isn't talking, but manages to run and jump. I do think her first word may be "shoe".

5.) I really need to update this more often! Look for some more comprehensive stuff (maybe!) in the future!

I see I'm doing a horrendous job of updating this blog - but can I use the excuse that I'm doing two full time jobs at the same time?

Anyway, we've raised $600 for the van, which is wonderful! Only $4400 to go!

Also, it's May 15th, which not only means that it's Teacher's day in Korea, but that Laura and I have been married eight years. And so I thought I would come on here and say something wonderful about the woman who has made my life so tremendous. She's always there beside me, and manages to keep me from going completely bonkers.

Laura, I love you.

And readers, I haven't forgotten about you. Look for a new prayer letter shortly.

Baptized four people this last Sunday! I'll try to post some pictures later...

Hello once again from Korea!

Since my last email, things have been moving at a very frenetic pace! I will be teaching full time at International Christian School until the beginning of June, and this – combined with my new responsibilities at Uijongbu Baptist Church – will keep me rather busy. Fortunately, next week is the school’s spring break, which will give me a full week to help facilitate much of what is changing at church.

If you missed my previous email, as of last week, I am pastor of Uijongbu Baptist Church. This past Sunday night was an ordination service, in which both I and Murrell Francis were ordained. Pastor Rick Kelley preached a challenging commissioning message, and we had a wonderful time of fellowship both in the service and afterwards.

I wanted to get this letter out, though, because I have several prayer requests that I’d like all of you to pray for.

1.) Pray for Pastor Rick Kelley and his wife Joy as they transition and prepare to go back to America. He will spend the next year visiting all of his supporting churches, preaching the entire time.
2.) Pray for my transition into the pastorate of the church. There are a lot of administrative and paperwork details that I have to take care of over the next couple weeks. I started moving all of my stuff into the office at church, and was surprised at how few books I actually owned. Pastor Kelley gave me several of his books, though, so my library is underway!
3.) Pray for the spiritual transition of the church. For many of them, they have to adjust to the fact that I am now the pastor as opposed to just a member of the church. This isn’t going to be easy for them or me, but we need unity in the church. Most importantly, we need to follow Jesus Christ together. Pray that we stay focused.
4.) I’ll have a lot more responsibilities, including counseling, preaching, and more. Pray for me that I stay focused, humble, and constantly in the service of my King.

Finally, we have a major prayer request. For the entire time that I’ve lived in Korea, I’ve been able to travel using the public transportation service. However, as pastor, I’m certainly going to need my own vehicle – to go back and forth to church, visit the hospital, etc. A member of our church has found me a van that costs $5000, which is $2000 of the list price. This is a good deal, but I need to raise the funds as quickly as possible. This will greatly enhance my ministry, and I would like to ask all of you to prayerfully consider giving towards this end.

If you would be interested in this, you can either send money via PayPal to tomvasel@gmail.com, or send a check to

NICS
PO Box 1260
Southaven, MS
38671
ID # is 001615

And above all, don’t forget to pray for us!

Tom, Laura, Melody, Amy, Holly, Clara (and Violet) Vasel

Psalm 51:10
“10: Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.
11: Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy holy spirit from me.
12: Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit.
13: Then will I teach transgressors thy ways; and sinners shall be converted unto thee.”

P.S. It’s been a while since I talked about a fun fact in Korea. One interesting game the children play here is “Paper – Rock – Scissors” (Kawi-Balli-Bo). Of course this is played all over the world, but it’s taken to an extreme level here – with many people playing at one time and many intricate rules to the game. The loser often has his arm whipped with two fingers from all of the other players. I participated in this once (only losing, of course), and my arm was extremely red afterwards! Yet the kids absolutely love this game, and I see them playing it in the subways, buses, streets, etc. If you ever come to Korea, you need to be ready to play! (Oh, and always start with Scissors).

As of tonight, I have been elected Pastor of Uijongbu Baptist Church. This may come as a surprise to many readers, as I haven't really talked about it much over the past couple of months - preferring to wait until I had more details.

To read more about it, go to my "Prayer Letter" link above, in which I give more details.

There's a lot more I want to say now, but this is certainly big news, to say the least. I will be ordained next Sunday, and fully take up my duties on the 16th of April.

I am in need of a LOT of prayer at this point, so I would really appreciate it.

God Bless!

Tom

Just to clarify what I posted yesterday - we found out that we are GOING TO have another girl.

The new baby (Violet Charity Vasel), isn't due until September 3rd.

Sorry for the miscommunication...

Hmmm, you all can start making the jokes now. Five girls.

I'm very thankful to God for this, of course.

But...

Five girls.

I'm outnumbered!

Well, so much for me updating while my wife was gone, as the next five days simply went by in a blur. A few things happened of note.

Amy's Korean school had a graduation ceremony, something I didn't think much about until I found out we had to pay fifty dollars for it. Fifty dollars for a kindergarten graduation! I thought seriously about just not paying and having her skip it - since she's only four, after all - but Laura persuaded me otherwise.

Laura, of course, was in the States, so I packed up the kids on the graduation night and went to the building were the graduation was being held. The large balloon castle outside made me wonder if this was bigger than I might have thought. Inside the fairly small room (for a presentation, anyway), we waited for ten minutes - being conspicuously the only Americans in the room. Eventually, the show got under way - and I suddenly realized where that $50 went. Amy change costumes SIX times over the course of the hour, from a cowboy outfit to a ballerina dress to a traditional Korean Hanbuk. She did a wonderful job, which had me grinning from ear to ear, and the MC often referred to her by name (again - the only blond girl singing in Korean).

To celebrate, I bought a cookie house from the local bakery. I had been eying it for a while, and simply needed an excuse to pick it up. We brought it home and set it up, and then devoured it eagerly.

Then the next day.

And the next day.

It was a LOT of cookie. In fact, there are still pieces of it laying around somewhere. It was certainly worth the money!

Anyway, Laura came home last Monday, and happiness ensued all around. (Although Holly did pick back up her thumb-sucking habit while she was gone). The upcoming baby is doing healthy, and all is well here. I'm preaching quite a bit more in church, and even now am getting tomorrow's message ready.

On Thursday I am going on a trip to the DMZ. It's the first time I've ever been there, which is strange for an American who lives that close to it! It is fitting, and is a good way to celebrate six years in Korea.

Six years! Did you notice? Do you miss us? It seems to have gone by in a flash! Melody and Clara celebrate their double birthday this coming Saturday - Clara turning one, and Melody seven. My family continues to grow.

So what other news? I got Tide of Iron, a World War II game that weighs more than a couple of my kids, and I've typed up a few more reviews in the past days. And I might have bigger news for you all in a couple weeks - stay tuned!