Hong Kong - Days 1-3

Hello Everyone,

I'm sorry that I haven't updated in the past couple of days. It is hard to find time to get on the Internet, and you either have to pay by the minute or a good amount all at once. I am writing this 35-40 minutes before we go onto our nightly activity. So I hope that this doesn't seem rushed, but I did pay by the minute and I don't want to hold the group up.

Day One:

Day one was all about travel. We took this bubble gum airplane from Nashville to Newark, and then we took this fantastic, awesome, lovely, I'll be having dreams about this airplane from Newark to Hong Kong. I do have to say that if I had to spend 15 hours (14:45 to be exact), I'm glad that it was on this plane. I got to watch movies, shows, listen to music, and experience all the plane had to offer. It was crazy because we flew basically near the top of the world and there were parts when it was like, "Degrees outside: -75F" What in the world? We got into Hong Kong at a good time that night, checked into the hotel (which is very, very nice) and basically ate at a mall and went back to the hotel.

Day Two: Part One

Day Two for me was let's see how Scott reacts when bad stuff happens to him in a foreign country...day. When I woke up, I went to get a deposit from an ATM that was near our hotel. I put my card in, and then the screen just froze. I tried to pressing every button, but nothing worked. Finally it said, "This machine is temporarily out of order." Now mind you, we had to be leaving to go to church in a couple of hours. So copied down the number, tried to call the company, and 1st I got it in Chinese, then I kept getting a busy signal. Finally I decided to check back to see if it spit it out or something. You know what happened? The machine was in perfect working order, and my card was no where to be found. So I went back, had breakfast, and e-mailed my parents to call and cancel my card. Luckily, I am with a group of people who are supportive and I am blessed that they are willing to loan me some money for fun/pleasure. I currently owe some money to the church, but it will all be taken care of. So, no worries :-)

Day Two: Part Two

We had worship at the Hong Kong College of Science and Technology...or something like that. I apologize that I cannot remember names that well. We had worship at Scott Harris' old church in Clearwater there. It was really cool. The preacher preached in English, then it was translated at the same time into Chinese. The same happened in worship except the worship leader sang in English, then Chinese, and then at times we sang together. After the service, we all had lunch together. It was a medley of Dimsum (I am probably not spelling that right) which was pretty good. It was great having conversation with the people from the church. Very smart, very fun, and very compassionate people. If they ever come to Tennessee, I would definitely ask them to come over for dinner. That's saying a lot too because my hospitality meter on a scale from 1-10 is probably a 2. The rest of the day was spent shopping in this one market which I can't remember the name (Stanley maybe?) and I got some good stuff there.

Day Three:

I am writing this at 6:40pm Hong Kong Time on Day three, so I have a pretty good grasp on what is going on. First off, let me say that there is an INCREDIBLE breakfast buffet here. I am not a big breakfast person, but this is heaven. Anyway, today was our first day for VBS so we had to get to the place, set up, eat, and then do it. If you take St. John's church and rooms, put them all together, and eliminate anything outside, that is kind of like the room that we are dealing with for VBS. We had a good amount of kids there. Zach has the official number...there were 14 in Courtney and I's group of 3rd-4th grade. This VBS is unlike any that I have ever done before. The whole dynamic with the kids, the language barrier (they speak English, but I think they struggle with some of it), and just the home-life and life situations these kids are in make it to be a very different environment and a pretty tough one to figure out how to effectively do something. However, the women that are leaders there (including the one that's helping us all week Janice and the women in charge named Caroline) are amazing. They display extreme leadership and they are great witnesses to the kids as well as role models.

For me, I have been worrying about what the group was going to be like, and how my Peter drama will go. At first when I came out as Peter, they all started laughing. They have never seen anything like that. However, I believe they were listening and somewhat intrigued as the drama went on. I pray that God continues to work through me in that. For the main Bible Study teaching, the group is very different. Thank goodness we have a volunteer in there because I am finding it difficult to get their attention. I think my goal for the week for them is that they know the themes, bible story, and the verses. I am having some communication troubles, but kids are kids. I expect kids to act like kids. But everything I am thinking as far as behavior management goes now is like, "Are these really universal?" I may have to figure out what's going on with that.

If you could please pray for my Bible Study Group, For my co-leader Courtney Coyle, The whole Brentwood Baptist Team for strength, and also some understanding of how to coordinate and use time effectively. Also if I don't update before Wednesday...that is the day we give the plan of salvation. So (to be a little selfish) please pray for me as I do the drama for Peter in telling the story about Jesus crucified and resurrected.

I know this is a lot, there is a lot more that I didn't say! I'm sorry if that was frazzled, but it's what I got. Have a great rest of the day and thanks for reading the blogs!