He used to go by “Jimmy” because his middle name is “James” and kids would tease that “Loren” is a girl’s name. Interestingly enough, he’s actually a junior. Loren’s father has the same name, got teased about it as a kid also, and still passed it on to his son.
Anyway, Loren – as he’s called now – liked sports and self defense as a kid. He played baseball and soccer, wrestled, and earned a brown belt in karate. In high school, he dropped most of that and got into skateboarding. When he gets comfortable, some skateboarder vocab seeps out.
Overall, though, he’s a guy who moved to Korea to change his life. From converting to Christianity to convincing a Korean girl to marry him, he’s done a pretty good job of that. I’ve enjoyed experiencing the changes with him.
How I met Loren Bennett
I remember the exact moment I met Loren. I tried out one of the Bible studies after the 10 o’clock service at IWE. He attended that. I remember specifically thinking he seemed like a cool guy to meet and get to know. Little did I know how cool he’d be or how much I’d get to know him.
Who Loren Bennett is
- New Yorker from Long Island
- English teacher in Seoul
- One of my best friends in Korea
What Loren Bennett likes
- Coffee
- Geography
- Reading the news
One fact about Loren Bennett
He can speak Korean well enough to have a basic conversation in the language but doesn’t want to list it on Facebook as a language he speaks.
I understand his hesitancy. It’s one thing to say you speak Korean when you’re in America, and the Koreans you meet there don’t expect much. It’s totally different when you live in Korea and saying you speak Korean could land you an unwanted interpretation gig.
Still, he stays disciplined with his studies and as a result speaks better Korean than any other American I know who’s been here the same amount of time.
One reason I like Loren Bennett
We share lots of things. That’s the simplest way I can put it.
We share a lot of the same values. We’re both Christians, spend a ton of time at church, and enjoy working through how we’re supposed to live. We both like to explore – we both like adventure. We’re both competitive.
We share a similar personality. We’re both fairly outgoing, not afraid to speak up in groups. We’re both competitive. We even share similar physical characteristics. We’re about the same size: weight, height, and build. We’re both fit enough to take on some pretty intense hiking but still complain about the soreness afterward.
We share a lot of the same struggles, a lot of the same ambitions, a lot of the same uncertainties, and a lot of the same hopes. Straight up, we’ve shared a lot of the same experiences in Korea. And that’s huge.
One memory I have of Loren Bennett
In a word, Jeju. I’ve had some awesome experiences with this guy, but probably the biggest one was the weekend he and I flew to the south Korean island just south of mainland Korea called Jeju.
We didn’t have much of a plan. We didn’t have any hotels booked. We didn’t even have the plane tickets until less than a week before we left. But we killed it.
[I’ll write a more detailed post on this trip soon.]
Loren Bennett in one word
Sick.
