Christians and Taekwondo

I didn’t think anything at all about my children’s involved in Taekwondo until last week when someone said that I should look into from a Christian point of view to see if it was still o.k. for my children to be doing it.  This person had been involved in Karate and he had to repent of it because of aspects of Eastern mysticism in it.  Before this I didn’t even realise that a Christian’s involvement in martial arts was even a controversial issue.

I did a google search “Christian response to Taekwondo” and was able to get an idea of some of the issues.  There is an element of meditation in Taekwondo which could possibly be a problem.  It would depend on what the teachers are asking them to do when they meditating.  

There are Korean missionaries in Lampang teaching Taekwondo for what it’s worth.  So obviously they don’t see a problem in it.

Taekwondo seems to be the least problematic for Christians in terms of its links to Eastern mysticism.  From my very brief reading, I’m o.k with sending my children to Taekwondo, though I’ll be listening much more carefully next time they are asked to sit still and mediate.

Does any one have any thoughts?

Buddhist House Warming Ceremory

Couple of weeks ago we were invited to our friend's new house ceremony.  The invitation said that the ceremony would start at 9:09am.  There were 9 monks at the ceremony. Have you guessed that "9" is an important number?

It was the first time for us to go to such a ceremony.  Many of the parents I know from our son's Taekwondo were there which made it fun.  The food was very tasty and lots of it too!  It wouldn't be a Thai event without ear piercingly loud music (and some dancers too).

It was a good cultural experience for us.

New school term

 Our oldest son's new classroom.  1st day at school

 Our middle son's 1st day at new school

Our daughter and son at the new school.  Our daughter must be the only child to cry when she has to go home.

The boys have started a new school year. Our middle school changed schools (again) but it has been a good change. It suits him much better than his old school. We wanted to enroll him in this school last year but we arrived back in Thailand 1 week too late and they wouldn’t accept him. There is a lot more play based learning and much less sitting behind a desk which we love. The teachers seem caring and nice. He is not in uniform right now because it is their summer program. Each morning at the school he is greeted by two ladies, one who puts antibacterial cream on his hands and the other who measure his temperature (so he doesn’t have a fever). He is still clingy in the mornings and yesterday I had to leave him crying and being held back by 3 teachers but when I picked him up in the afternoon he was happy and the teacher said he stopped crying pretty soon after.

Our oldest son has entered P.1 which is the equivalent to 1st grade. It is the same school as he went to last year but things have changed dramatically. His timetable starts at 7:30am with Chinese and he has another 8 periods of 50 minutes before he ends the day at 4:10pm. He has two 10 min breaks and 40 minutes for lunch. We received two notes in the last week, advising of additional classes now on Saturday 10-12noon for additional Thai and homework class from 4:10-5:00pm. We need to supplement his Thai schooling with homeschooling so that he doesn’t fall too far behind in his English to fit back into an Australian school some time in the future. We think his timetable is far to much for a 6 y.o. So we take him to school at bit late most mornings (around 8:15am) apart from two homeschool mornings where we send him at 10am. We pick him up early on two afternoons when he has English as his last period.

At the moment he seems to be coping though he’s pretty tired by the day and in the mornings. He hasn’t complained too much about school yet which is good.