Celebrating Life

Hey Guys and Gals,

We went to a couple of life celebrations in the past month.  One was for a couple of Korean baby boys celebrating their 100 days.  Another was for an American baby girl celebrating her 1 year old birthday in a mixed culture sort of way.  In Korean culture you are considered 1 at your birth and your 1st birthday is actually your 2nd birthday to them (and each new year you are a year older... that part gets super confusing so I'm not going into detail because I don't fully get it).  It's weird because we aren't used to it but I actually have grown to like the piece of being 1 year old at your birth.  I love that they believe that life starts at conception not only at birth.  So if you ask a Korean how old they are they will ask if you mean their "Korean age" or not.  An example would be if someone had the birth date February 21, 1983 we would say that person is 34 but their Korean age is 36. They are 35 because of the new year and then 36 when their birthday comes.

In Korean culture they traditionally celebrate a baby turning 100 days old because that was a good sign that the baby was strong enough and would live.  It's sort of a bittersweet thing, historically.  Now a days it is common for babies in Korea to live past 100 days of course but people continue to celebrate this milestone.  At our church there are currently 3 families in the process of adopting some Korean baby boys and 2 of them are around the same age.  They had a 100 day celebration and we were invited to attend.  Now, it was not the traditional way that Korean's celebrate given that it was non-Korean families doing the celebration but it was still interesting to attend.  We had desserts, fruits and other small foods.  You are welcome to look up information on this tradition, there is plenty of information and pictures out there to do it more justice than this little blip.

The 1-year old birthday party we attended was for an American little girl who is in a family that has adopted a Korean little boy.  Her party was mostly American (eating a piece of cake) however there was a Korean piece brought into the mix.  She was placed in her hanbok dress and positioned crawling distance from a plethora of objects.  In this tradition the baby crawls towards and grabs an item and whatever they grab it means they are going to do something with that career.  For example her options were: an apple to resemble a teacher (which is what she picked), a whisk to resemble a chef, a tambourine to resemble a musician, a ball to resemble an athlete, and a stethoscope to resemble a doctor.  Obviously, her parents know she will go into whatever career field she wants when she gets older, it's just them trying to incorporate the culture of their adopted son and current residents into their home.

Gabriel with Mrs. Okamoto who is actually Japanese.

The birthday girl in her hanbok.

The birthday girl choosing the apple.

Here she is looking at her decorations as we sang "Happy Birthday."

Deuteronomy 10:17-19

For the Lord your God is the God of gods and the Lord of lords.  He is the great God, the mighty and awesome God, who shows no partiality and cannot be bribed.  He ensures that orphans and widows receive justice.  He shows love to the foreigners living among you and gives them food and clothing.  So you, too, must show love to foreigners, for you yourselves were once foreigners in the land of Egypt.

Love,

Camille