Nine Korean young people brought music and joy to residents of Mathews County during a three-week visit this month.
Members of the youth group of Dong-San Methodist Church in Hwa-Sung City, South Korea, landed at Dulles International Airport on New Year’s Eve, and the next day were whisked south to Mathews and the small waterfront community of Mobjack. There, members of Grace-Providence and Emmanuel United Methodist churches welcomed the students into their homes.
“The first thing they did was watch the sun rise over Mobjack Bay,” said the Rev. Jeongin Kim, pastor of the two host churches.
What followed was a whirlwind schedule of visiting homebound church members, performing a music recital, and touring sites in Virginia’s historic triangle. They also visited major eastern universities, from William and Mary in Williamsburg to Yale in New Haven to Harvard, MIT, and Boston University in Boston.
But the school the students liked best of all, said Mr. Kim, was Mat...