Relaxed!

I spend about a week in mainland China where one of my indirect coworkers lives.  It was wonderful to be able to spend some time with her, to see a new city, and to relax!  As all of you who are working know, it's hard to go-go-go without stopping to smell the roses.  I was able to have some much needed relaxation time. The photo to the right is from 石林 (shi lin) or in English, the Stone Forest.  It was beautiful!

After that trip, I was back for a day or two, and then I went to another city in China for some meetings. We got to spend some time with our coworkers and friends, and we were able to share ideas and struggles and comforts.  It was a good weekend.

I now am back in Macau!  I just got back yesterday, but last night was quite eventful!  My new roommates that I mentioned in the last post have been here for about a week, and last night they had their baby!  I am so excited for them!  So as soon as she is released from the hospital, there will be a baby around the house!  I am very excited :)

Tomorrow I will be getting back to work.  It will be a cruel reality after 2 weeks with very little work, but it will be good to see my students again.

I have a friend and supporter in Hong Kong right now.  I am excited because this weekend I will be able to visit her!  I am excited to be able to do so!  If any of you are ever in the area, please send me a message so that I can meet up with you!  If scheduling works, I can travel to HK (like this weekend!), or we can meet up in Macau!  It's always great to have visitors!

That's all for now.  I should probably go and get some lunch!  Let me know if you have any questions about anything I mentioned in this post! :)

Coming up...

Hey everyone!

I just wanted to write a note to say that Chinese New Year was amazing!  Long story short, I had 3 days to relax (which really means that I am doing lots of work!).  In addition to finally having time to clean my house, I had time to reconnect with some friends whom I hadn't seen in a LONG time!  It was great to be able to play games, watch movies, and walk around admiring CNY decorations and festivities!

I am taking a few vacation days, as our center is closed for another week and a half.  I am going to go to the Yunnan province to visit a friend.  I am super excited to go, and I cannot wait to see some of the sites!  I am mostly excited, though, to have a relaxing time with a friend, and to be refreshed when I return! (Hopefully it happens that way!)

Upon returning I will have some new roommates!  My landlord will move in with me while she has a baby.  It should be for about a month.  Some may say that it is strange, but I find it interesting, intimidating, exciting, and awesome, all at the same time.  I love kids, and though it will be a newborn who will cry and sleep the whole time (yes, I know that's what babies do), I am excited to have a baby in the house :)

After they leave, I'll have a week or two to get the house ready and then I'll have a couple of ladies come to live with me for 2 months.  I just hope and pray that my house stays clean throughout the entire time so I don't have to do a deep clean again (like I did these past 3 days!).  I am not a cleaner.  My house isn't super dirty...it's just not super clean.  And outside is very dirty, so windows are very dirty.  It took me about half an hour to clean my windows because I had to wash each one at least 2 times, inside and out!

Ok, that's it.  Time for me to go to bed before I leave!  I only have 5 hours before I absolutely need to jump out of bed and race to the ferry terminal!  So that means 4.5 hours of sleep if I am lucky.

Lucky money witnesses

Lucky money is a tradition during Chinese New Year where the married people give money in red packets to children and unmarried young adults. It is also tradition to give them to the doormen. For this reason, instead of having the normal one doorman, there are often 4 doormen there on New Year's Day, hanging out and waiting for lucky money to come. My lucky money packets are a witnes, because instead of saying "happy new year" or "I hope you get richer this year" or some other blessing, it simply states the truth: Jesus loves you! I pray tht these lucky money packets find their way not only into their pockets, but into their hearts.

More Updates!

We had a team from South Dakota come, as I told you in the previous post.

It was pretty much awesome!  I am so thankful that they came!  They brought me some treats from America, and they brought energy to the entire team!  They also brought enthusiasm and vigor to share the Gospel with our students!  It was wonderful!!  I thank God that He allowed for them to visit us!

For unexplained reasons, we ended up accidentally cancelling class on the day that they visited, which worked out PERFECTLY!  We invited our students and friends to join us for a potluck.  So instead of having class, we were able to free talk, and the Gospel was shared!  We had students bring American food (Pizza hut!) and some homemade Chinese food as well, so we had a wonderful mix!

After that, we had our free class, where they shared about the individuality of snowflakes, and how God created each one, just like he created each one of us individually and different!  What a blessing to hear that! We also talked about how we are all sinners, but we are washed clean through Christ! After that night, I had a good friend of mine (who is not Christian) come up to me and tell me that he now knows that he is a sinner. He didn't profess faith, or regret for the sins, but he now knows.  That is a REALLY big step for someone.  In Chinese, the word for sin is also the word for crime.  People often feel that sin isn't a part of their lives, because they follow the law.  When people realize that they do things that are wrong, and that God knows that, it is such a huge step, and I thank God for that realization.  I just pray that He would allow us to be able to have the words to say to witness to this man, and to tell him that yes, he is a sinner, but God forgives those sins of all who ask for forgiveness.

I don't have any pictures from my camera, but once I get some, I will post them here or in another post.

Right now I am working on editing the bilingual bulletin.  Being human, I made some mistakes (typos), and I have to go through and fix them.  I'm making a master, and then hopefully tomorrow or Sunday I will have some help fixing all 20 of them!  There are too many things to add (like page numbers) that it would take me WAY too long to do on my own!  So I now thank God for community! :)

Chinese New Year is starting this weekend.  Most of our students will be gone visiting their families.  I still have another 5 days at home in Macau, and then I will travel to visit an indirect coworker of mine living about 2 hours away by plane.  I am so excited to visit a new place in Asia!  I haven't really traveled, outside of going to Hong Kong and Jiangmen (for work), and Thailand for 3 days (for a friend's wedding).  This will be my first refreshing vacation, and I am stoked! :)  Tonight I will go to pick up my ferry ticket to the HK airport, and on Wednesday I will take off! :)

We also had a new teacher join us.  He's not new to the area, but he's new to Macau as of today!  He taught in mainland for a year, in Hong Kong for 3 months, and now he will (God willing!) be here for almost 2 years!  That is exciting news! :)

I think that's all I have for today.  I pray that you all enjoy your time, and that you are able to recognize the blessings that God is giving you today and every day!

Apple pie!!

Today I got to make 2 apple pies!! Tomorrow we have some Americans coming to visit, so naturally we will have a party!! I made some apple pie to share at said party with my students and the Americans. Yeah!! I am thankful for my grandma and the recipes that she has passed down to me so I can share some wonderful food with my friends!!

Take a look around!

In case you haven't done so, I want to let you know that there are a few pages on my blog besides each individual post.  Right above this post you'll see a dark gray bar with a few links.  Feel free to click on them to see my testimony, my reason for being a missionary, information about LCMS International, and more.

In other news...

Friday marks a day I've been looking forward to.  No, not Groundhog's Day Eve, though that day will be quite exciting too.  I am excited to have members of the South Dakota team to Hong Kong come to Macau to see me, and to help with the Bible Study!  The team comes from a church that has been supporting me, and I am thoroughly excited to see them again!  I hope that they are excited to come to Macau, as their trip to Hong Kong is near its completion!

I'm also excited to Skype with an elementary school class to teach them a little about being a missionary!

If you have a group who wants to take a short-term mission trip to Macau, or make the virtual trip via Skype, please get in contact with me and I can either help you myself or get you in contact with the right person, depending!

It's 2am, though, and I have spent too much time putzing around my blog (and I admit: Facebook!) tonight.  It's time to get some sleep!

Temptation of Jesus

Today we are discussing the temptation of Jesus in Bible Study.  Since I have the young kids, I am not sure how brave I will be: one of the lesson plans that I have suggests to put a tray of food together: chocolates/candies in the middle with fruit on the outside.  Tell the students that they can only take a piece of fruit: no chocolate.  Then, I turn my back for a few minutes, and see what happens.

This would then lead into talking about temptation and what it is, which would lead into talking about how Jesus responded to temptation.

The English Children's Bible and our library of CPH books both do not include the temptation of Jesus, but the Chinese Children's Bible that I have does.  I will try to record a friend reading it so that I can play it for the kids to hear.  And I can pretend that I am reading ;) Sorry, the photo is turned sideways.

The basic idea is to get across that Jesus is true God, but also true man, and he was tempted to sin just like we are.  The difference is that He always chose to not succumb to sin.  He gave us some examples of how to say NO to temptation.  Hopefully that message will come across tonight!