Woo Yang Ha's eyelids, brushed lightly with a golden shimmer shadow over a touch of pale peach, crinkled in answer when asked how she was able to move with her husband and two children from Seoul, Korea to Federal Way, buy and operate a teriyaki shop in Auburn, and settle into life in a new country, all within the past three months.

"Self-confidence," Ha succinctly replied, trying out the saying in English.

"The hardest part is, of course, the language," she went on to say through an interpreter, Kim Hensley, the Korean Community Liaison with the city of Federal Way.

Over lunch at the New Teriyaki and Wok in a strip mall just beyond the Muckleshoot Casino in east Auburn, Ha told the Federal Way News about her experiences thus far in her adopted home. She and her husband bought the teriyaki shop in Auburn only because they couldn't find one available in Federal Way, where the family now lives.

"I had one friend already here, in Bellevue, but we moved to Federal Way because of the large Korean community here," explained Ha.

"But we moved here for the children," Ha said of the family's decision to move to America. After coming for a grand tour in 2003, when they visited Disneyworld, the Grand Canyon and the beaches of California, she and her husband fell in love with the natural beauty of the country, and with the idea of their children earning scholarships and perhaps having more educational opportunity than in Korea.

That education met its first test when the family went to enroll their son James at Illahee.

For help communicating to the school that their son needed special education in addition to ESL, the family turned to the Korean Outreach Program, sponsored by the City of Federal Way.

On March 13, Mayor Park and council member Linda Kochmar traveled to Washington D.C. to receive an award for the city's program. The National Black Caucus of Local Elected Officials (NBC-LEO), which is a sub-group of the National League of Cities, said that Federal Way had one of the best outreach programs in the country.

That program rests on the shoulders of one woman, Kim Hensley. In Federal Way for the past 30 years, she says language is still a barrier to her, the same as it is for her clients.

When families like Ha's come to Federal Way, they can call Ms. Hensley, known as Ms. Kim, for any help they may require.

Hensley says she gets two or three calls a day; everything from how to locate a towed car to asking the finer points of attending a party. Should they bring a huge amount of food, like in Korea, or should they show up "naked?"

Social niceties aside, Woo Yang Ha hasn't the time to worry about herself and her husband.

"The kids are happy. They were happy to move here. They will succeed," said Ha.