David Wiley has been invited to plenty of church dinners.
But the "appreciation supper" Monday night at the Korean Community Presbyterian Church in Duluth was different, said Wiley, assistant chief at the Gwinnett County Department of Fire and Emergency Services. It was the first one he and wife Cindy could ever remember acting as a cultural exchange. And it was certainly the first to serve chop chey noodle dishes and Korean-style crab cakes.

"I've had Chinese food and I think Vietnamese," said Wiley, one of dozens of firefighters, police officers and other public safety officials to attend the three-hour dinner. "But I don't think I've ever had Korean."
The idea behind Monday night's dinner, church leaders said, was to tighten bonds between Gwinnett's public servants and one of the county's fast-growing ethnic communities. There are now more than 10,000 people of Korean descent living in Gwinnett, according to 2003 estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau.
Monday, members of one of the South's largest Korean churches traded stories and business cards with firefighters, 911 operators and police officers.
David Dusik, a fire department spokesman, said he sees great potential for collaboration with the 1,800-member church off Duluth Highway. For one, the department could offer CPR classes in the facility's giant all-purpose room, he said.
"This is a great opportunity," Dusik said. "We'd much rather interact with the diversity, the different groups, when it's not an emergency."
One table over, church member Dong Jin Park buttonholed Gwinnett Sheriff Butch Conway. Park, a volunteer chaplain at the DeKalb County jail, wants to do similar work at Gwinnett's jail. And he was much more hopeful after talking to Conway.
Gwinnett businessman Sunny Park, Senior Pastor James Jung, and other church leaders said such exchanges were just what they had in mind. Last year, the church sent out 3,000 dinner invitations to people living within a 2-mile radius. Only 50 showed up, said Park, founder of Good Neighboring Foundation Inc., a nonprofit group that helps immigrants participate in American life.
This year, the church decided to target its invitations to public safety officials as a way of thanking them for their hard work, Park said.
"We're trying to find ways to get the community to mingle," he said.
Those at the dinner Monday also watched a video about Korean Americans and listened to a performance on the kayagum, a 12-string instrument commonly played in Korea.