Where's home?

hello from Korea again

Happy New Year from Korea, dear readers.

The realization that I’ve only written here a scant six times since I left Korea two and a half years ago, makes me wonder where to begin with this first of a new era post. Reading my last essay from six months ago makes me marvel how a future I saw so dimly was so clear to our God above.

December 2025, an old, favorite place of mine, just down the road

I’m sitting at a table in a sunlit room, the second floor of a two-story building. Sliding double-layer glass doors lead on to a narrow veranda. Usually in winter I would keep both the clear and the frosted glass doors tight shut, but the warmth of the sun and the view is enough reason to slide aside the first door. I need more than blurry light for a view. I need to see the bare-branched trees, waving in the January wind, each twig catching the afternoon sunlight on one side. The silver-gold highlights stand out against a gray-green-brown backdrop. It’s the mountain that effectively prevents the sun from reaching us until eleven o’clock each morning. In summer, it’s more like nine o’clock, if I remember right, and it’s a blessing to have a few hours to get garden work done before the day becomes unbearably hot.

Last week’s bright full moon 보름달

But it’s January now. The leftover snow from yesterday’s dramatic weather, seems to have stuck to the slopes of every northeast-facing mountain. If you’ve been to Korea, you’ll know that mountains are an inescapable part of the landscape. (At least I think so—if I ever travel to a part of Korea where there is not a mountain in sight, I’ll be sure to let you know). The mountainsides boast a thick layer of trees which today are subject to driving wind and so stand bare and brave, as if guarding the last dusting of snow beneath them. It’s beautiful—ruggedly so.

Yeongwol Bruderhof (영월 브루더호프) community, where I live, is on the inside curve of a bend in the Pyeongchang River (평창강). (Yes, it’s near Pyeongchang, where winter olympics were held in 2018). The mountain facing my house is higher than I remembered it being. Also closer—close enough that one of my friends, on a whim, sent a golf ball sailing over the river, to ricochet off the cement barrier and high fence holding the steep mountain side in place. The ball bounced down to the road that runs along the base of the mountain, and rolled off somewhere. (Needless, to say: not a good place to hit golf balls.) The said road, follows the contour of the river, as do most country roads. I’m still getting used to driving here. Seems like if there’s not a speed bump or a traffic speed camera, there are curves enough to slow any driver down.

But before this post gets lost down some country road, I ask you to consider this post’s title: “Where’s home?”. Is home the place where you were born, or where you were raised, or where your parents live, or where you spent most of your adult life until now? For me it’s none of those. I think home is just wherever God has planted my feet for now. If, as some say, “home is where the heart lies”, then I want my heart to be attuned to where God wants me, and go there and be there.

So Why Korea remains a humble place where I’ll write my thoughts from time to time. Perhaps my experiences in my Korean home will inspire you in your home, wherever that is. Blessings for 2026,

-Trudi
트루디

I. Love. This. River.

It gets me every time.