Sunday fellowshipping

At GICF. A young man gave a sermon on loving Jesus. One of the church officers gave a talk about renewing the church's application to worship in the hotel and to urge everyone to abide by the rules of not bringing local Chinese into the fellowship (a big no-no). After lunch, I went to the 3-self church for the men’s fellowship, while L. headed back home.

G. led a Bible study on the "Romans Road" with me and another woman. I might consider coming to this gathering more. It's more personal, offering an easier environment to share and listen. About 40 people, broken up in 6-7 groups, conducted Bible studies, based on the "Romans Road" and other like material. Each group was at different chapters/levels. The room was air-conditioned, an added bonus.

Once through, I joined the men's fellowship in progress. J. was leading it, in Chinese. I didn't catch much of the theme, but heard them discuss the differences between the old and new covenant. J. was quoting all sorts of Scripture from memory, which was impressive. Some of the Scripture that we went over....

Revelations 19:11-19

Romans 8:30-32, 10:14-15

Luke 12:4-8

John 3:34, 14:27, 16:33

Matthew 16:21-23

2 Kings 22:13

2 Timothy 1:7

Matthew 9:35-38

Hebrews 8:8-12

1 Peter 1:19-21

2 Peter 1:21

J. and I prayed together. It's always a blessing to share prayer with a brother in China.

I later went to evening Bible study, which I helped facilitate. It'd been a long time since I'd been to it. I've missed it. We went over John 11 today, about Lazarus raised from the dead.

"A Walk In Your Shoes"

Ever seen the show "A Walk In Your Shoes"? It's fascinating. We saw it today on one of the HK channels. Today's episode focused on two girls, one Jewish and one Catholic, who spent a week at each other's religious camps. We were surprised to see the show broadcasted in China.

back to normal...

Now that the family's all gone...it's been pretty much back to normal for us. Nothing particularly exciting. Classes have been the usual...with fewer students since many of them are starting to go for job interviews, etc.

The middle-schoolers, whom we take on every Thursday, finally showed that they really were middle-schoolers. I had to get a bit tough with a couple of the boys, but they seemed to "calm" down after my little "talk."

I'm really looking forward to the summer and being done here and going to India. It'll be nice to be with my parents again for a longer period of time.

This is going to be a "take-it-easy" weekend.

evening of sports TV

L. went to her 3 classes today. I took the 509 to Carrefour to buy some groceries and lunch. I took the 523 on the way back, which was packed. Curious as to how so many get on, but few get off until the very end of the route. One of L.'s students recognized me. She was coming back from an interview at an Arab garment company.

We spent the evening relaxing, watching soccer, NBA playoffs (the Sonics lost to San Antonio again, 2nd game). The soccer game featured Shandong against a Japanese team, a game that had 15,000 police patrolling the stadium premises, amid concerns of anti-Japanese violence. One small fight broke out in the game. CCTV 5 did an interesting thing in panning out to a full-stadium camera shot during the scuffle and not following the skirmishes close-up, like American cameras do. The U.S. could do well to learn from giving unnecessary attention to stupid pro-player antics.

weekend in HK

The ache in my chest is much better...still a bit sore though. Maybe delayed exhaustion from the heat.

L. and I spent the weekend in Hong Kong. The train transportation between GZ and HK rocks! It was a very comfortable ride, to and from.

Once in, we breezed through customs and took public transportation (another easy mode of transportation around HK) to the JHF office to pick up information about staying at the flat. We shared it with another JHF associate, B., who, with his family, lives in Xiamen. He's lived here since 1988 with his wife and two sons. His sons are teens and speak Chinese fluently. He is very enthusiastic about Xiamen and welcomed us over numerous times.

The first day (i.e. Friday) - we walked to a sandwich shop for dinner. I wasn't too hungry, opting for a bowl of clam chowder (which wasn't that great), and L. for a toasted turkey sandwich. (You don't get turkey on the mainland - well, not cheap anyway).

Saturday - starting early this afternoon, L. and I went through all the places that we went to the first time we met each other over a year ago. It was fun to reminisce about that day. We took a ferry ride to the HK island, went to Taco Loco for lunch, visited Starbucks and HMV, and took the ferry ride back to Kowloon. We rode the moving sidewalks up to Taco Loco and walked back down, like we did last year. We stopped by to buy a few groceries (just a few...very expensive here) before heading back to the transit flat to rest. Hong Kong is a busy, dense, crowded city with a rhythm that tends to drain me as well as intrigue me. L. likes it because it is a change of pace from the mainland. We later went to Yoshinoya's for dinner.

Sunday - the rain really poured this morning! L. and I ran through it to catch a bus for church. After the service, a couple folks, B. L. and I went to a nearby buffet for lunch. We just relaxed in the flat (due to the rain) till dinner and then went to a nearby mall, which served Indian food. It is about a 30-story office building with a pretty amazing mall inside. It contained a high ceiling and the 2 longest escalators I'd ever ridden on. Stairs and stores wound around the escalators in a "spiral" fashion. The whole place was very non-symmetrical, very 21st century. The ceiling was lit up sky-blue with wispy white cloud-like images, like the ceilings in some of the hotel-malls in Las Vegas. Large TV screens played bright commercial images. We bought food at the food court there (L. didn't approve of the "indian" food, so she had some Thai, I got the Indian) and took it home to eat.

Monday - we headed back home today, since I have my class this evening. The train ride took us through a violent rainstorm, which we later learned killed a couple of people in HK. We were served a cool drink on board and slept most of the way. Upon getting to the station, I picked up a few blank entry cards, since it had Chinese and English on it, thinking it'd be a good learning tool for the English class.

On my way to class (L. was feeling a bit out of it, so she stayed home), I dropped by a nearby barber shop to give the promised Bible and Dad's letter to "C". He was there, along with most of his family in their shop. They were very friendly and invited me to sit and chat. I didn't say too much, not knowing what to say. I did notice that 5-6 people gathered intently around the Bible, looking through it and reading Dad's letter. They seemed quite curious about it. I asked if they wanted more copies, but they said it was enough to share. I wish I could follow up with them somehow to see if they had any questions. I left wondering if it'd be a good idea to drop by again.

Bon Voyage

We woke around 5 pm to get ready to go with Mom, Dad, J. and the kids to the airport. We took two taxis. Mom, H, P, and I rode in one, the rest rode in the other. We packed a suitcase filled with things we wouldn't be using in India or China. It was a good thing we called for two taxis (originally, L. and I weren't sure we'd be going), because they ended up needing the space to pack everything.

We thought we'd be able to spend some time with them before saying goodbye, but we no sooner got off the taxi and rolled into the airport when we said goodbye, gave hugs/kisses, and saw our family set off through the no-visitors gate to international check-in, which was right by the entrance into the airport. It was pretty fast. We left our place around 6:00 a.m., arrived at the airport by 6:30 and said goodbye before 6:45...

We hoped to take the airport express back into the city, but it wouldn't start running until 7 a.m., so L. and I wandered around the relatively quiet terminal before catching the (as usual) delayed express. It was 8:30 am by the time we got back - at least we saved money?

I wasn't feeling that good, achy in my chest and sleepy, so I took a nap. L. was more productive, using the time to clean the apartments (ours and the one the family stayed in), do laundry, etc. I woke up 7 hours later, still a bit groggy, but stable. I'm still reeling from the fever, it appears. We passed the time finishing up the laundry and watching "Finding Nemo" on DVD. By then, a fierce thunderstorm had rolled in. It rained something hard around midnight. It amazed me to see that some restaurants below us were still open for business, weathering the storm. No one appeared to be patronizing them during that late, wet night during school break and few students around, so it puzzled me why they stayed open. Who knows, maybe there were folks crazy enough to venture out in the madness for a bite to eat. We went to bed, still amazed that I could still sleep.

Last full day...

I felt a little better today. I spent the morning with Dad to visit the Dr. Sun-Yat Sen memorial. Dad really looks up to Dr. Sun, which made the trip there worthwhile to be spending a morning and part of the afternoon learning about his inspiration. It was warm, overcast, and raining slightly towards the end. We also stopped by a park. The kids would've enjoyed the paddleboats and the fishes. We went to the Five-Goat Statue and the Five-Fairy Statue (there's a legend in GZ that these celestial goats and fairies promised the people of GZ good crops 2000 years ago, which is why they are honored). Lots of folks gathered to do exercises, tai-chi, ballroom dancing, and kicking around a Chinese hacky-sack with feathers ("jin-zhi", I hear they're called).

Mom and J. and the girls went shopping for some last minute bargains before doing the final packing. (L. stayed home and rested). We'd hoped to watch "Mary Poppins" with the kids, but as soon as we found the DVD, the power went out. It remained out for about 3 hours this evening. We also wanted to have an early b'day celebration for R. (since she's to turn 3 in a few days), but due to the power cut, we blew out the candles in the dark. It was fun for the kids...just had a bit of a challenge with the cameras.

another nasty day

Both of us had a 101 temperature this morning and felt pretty lousy with colds, plus L. still has her nasty cough. We stayed at home pretty much the whole day, drinking liquids and cooling down the fever, which for me had gotten back to normal by the afternoon, but L's went up to 102. H. and P. are much better today as well as mom and dad and surprisingly J. and R. have not caught whatever bug is going around.

Not a good start to a "holiday" but perhaps it's better than working for L.

finally...a break

We woke up to the sound of heavy rain and loud thunder. It cleared the smog so much that we could see Bai Yun Mountain range in the distance for the first time. The sun also shone amid patches of blue sky. However, the unsettled weather was enough to keep us all at home during the day. L. has a 100.2 fever. She's been coughing rather violently the past couple of days.

The rain and thunder came back. H. and P. are running pretty high fevers. R. and J. have been okay. Mom and Dad are back to normal. I'm sniffling and sneezing myself, so it's going to be an early night. Some way to start a holiday...

Praise Him in a taxi...

Dad's feeling a little better, but not well enough for church. The rest of us walked to Guang Hua Yi Lu to take a taxi to GICF. It was a woman driver, which is kinda rare. We sang praise songs all the way to church.

A speaker from the US came to speak. He spoke on Deut. 4 and 6, on training children. "I Surrender All" was the last song we sang.

We ate at the hotel buffet with another family before going to Starbucks to pick up the tumbler we lost on the bus last week. The rest of the afternoon and evening was spent relaxing. The heat and travel may be starting to take its toll on us....