New Life: Korea Lantinga Family: The power of pretty nails

A local (gigantic) Korean church has a ministry to teach disadvantaged foreign women a skill and allow them to make a little money. Joyful Church reaches out to women from China, Vietnam, and other eastern countries who are in Korea, often brought here as brides for farmers and other men at the manual labor end of the status pool. Some of these women are neglected or abused; most struggle to learn the language (Korean or English), to find a source of income, etc. One aspect of this ministry is nail polish. What a cool idea.

Reneea, a beloved ex-pat from Alabama, invited me to get my nails done with her: for just $7 each, we could get our toes painted and some fancy bling-y things put on. This sounded like a fun trip with a sweet woman for a very good cause.

By the time Friday arrived, Reneea had also asked several other women to come along, so off we went: Reneea, Susan (California), Jeanine (Wisconsin), Grace (Pennsylvania), me (Michigan) and a 5-month-old Korean baby that Susan was babysitting. Amber met us there a little later.

First we had lunch in the church's cafeteria, which is apparently open to the public. The $3.50 buffet (buy a ticket in one line, then give it up a meter away in the buffet food line) offered a variety of Korean foods plus rice and bean sprout soup. I took spoonfuls of items depending on how well I thought I could manage them with chopsticks (I ruled out the soup given my previous pathetic experiences). I did pretty well in eating the spicy veggies and rice and enjoyed the food more than I expected (Korean food always, always, always tastes better than it looks). About halfway to feeling full, though, I noticed something unusual about one veggie mix on my plate. My reading glasses, which I casually donned during the table talk and cooing over the baby, confirmed what I had feared: there were feet in my food. Specifically, baby octopus tentacles. On my plate. And.. that's a wrap. All done eating.

Then to the nail ministry room, where we chose colors and sat chatting together while the young women painted our nails. Reneea's deep southern accent makes her Korean sound particularly funny to Koreans; when a man stopped by the room, her drawl drew out the polite term for hello so far that the young workers and the man burst out with delighted laughter. I learned later that Reneea had been having a very hard week, with a loved one dying quickly in the US, so far away. She later commented about the joy of our group's time together: the healing powers of women's laughter, the roar of a baby's cry, and bright nail polish. This is a great ministry indeed.

Reneea ~~overseeing~~ helping Jeanine choose polish colors;
the shy Chinese-Korean woman avoided the camera.

A Vietnamese woman (married to a Korean man) became impatient with my indecisive color selection and chose a vibrant blue for me. Well, why not.

Nothing fancy about this place--our feet rested on vinyl, backless seats like you might find at an airport.

And the white toe-between-foam things? They had 2. So when your toes were done, the foam
thing was whisked away to the next person's food. I mean feet. I tried hard to trust my friends and all the women who'd been here before us to have clean feet.