My Trip to Macau

Well, another week has passed in Hong Kong, and my how things have changed. I am now an official resident of Hong Kong for the next year (previously I was here as a tourist), I have a Hong Kong ID number (my card will be here in 2 weeks), I have more stamps in my passport, and I am continuing to get settled in Hong Kong.

Yesterday, Nathan and I made a day trip to Macau. It used to be under Portuguese rule, but now it has been returned to China, similar to Hong Kong previously being under British rule. Also similar to Hong Kong, Macau is a separate entity from Mainland China, so you don’t need a Mainland China tourist’s visa (which is expensive)to go there, but you do need to get your passport stamped to visit there from Hong Kong. I had to leave Hong Kong and re-enter under my employment visa in order to activate it, and Macau’s proximity made it the perfect location for my travels.

We spent the day touring Macau, seeing various old churches, forts, lighthouses, and more. In the afternoon, we wanted to go visit the Protestant Missionary Cemetery. We got in a taxi, pointed to where we wanted to go on our map, and we were on our way. The taxi driver pulled up to a cemetery, but it was a Catholic one. Not that there’s anything wrong with Catholic cemeteries, it simply wasn’t the one we wanted to visit. So, we told the taxi driver we were at the wrong cemetery, showed him the map again, emphasizing that we wanted the Protestant cemetery, and again pointed to it on the map, just to make sure there was no confusion. He looked at the map (which was very easy to read), seemed confused, called HQ on his radio to double-check his directions, got a response, seemed excited, and we were on our way. A few minutes later, we pulled up to a cemetery, paid our fare, and jumped out, excited to see this Protestant Missionary Cemetery. Nathan and I walked in and discovered that every tombstone there had a crescent moon and a star on it. What’s more, we found that the small building next to it was the home of the Macau Islamic Association. The man took us to the wrong place, twice. Nathan said he couldn’t believe the guy got the totally wrong religion. I couldn’t believe the guy took us to the totally wrong side of the island. Yes, that’s right, the wrong side of the island. We showed him the map twice, specifically pointing to where we needed to go, and somehow ended up farther from where we wanted to be than we were when we started.

But, the trip to the cemetery wasn’t a total loss. On the way, we spotted a Dairy Queen (which they don’t have in Hong Kong). As we walked back toward our ferry, we retraced our path from the taxi ride, found the DQ, and each got a blizzard. It was an excellent way to end a fun day abroad.

Camp Go Missions Trip, July 10-16

After camp, we had a trip to the Philippines. It was amazing. We were there July 10-16. While we were there, we worked with Kids International Mission to help with construction on a new building, helped build houses for 2 families in the community, tutored students at their school in reading English, and did feeding and after school programs. Jobs at the construction site included: carrying bags of rocks and dirt upstairs, carrying the rocks and dirt back downstairs after they realized they needed more downstairs than they had left, bringing rocks and dirt upstairs when another load came in, moving a workout center (weight bench, treadmill, elliptical machine) down 2 stories, painting, moving big bags of food to the food pantry, digging a new walkway then paving it, and more.

Tuesday night, a typhoon hit the area we were staying in. It was supposed to just brush us, but it made a direct hit on us. It was a level 3 typhoon (that’s out of 4 levels). Apparently, it was a bad enough storm that people died from it. I slept through the whole thing. Tree limbs were down, houses in the community were destroyed, power was out, and our plans for the day were changed. We spent Wednesday morning cleaning up KIM from the storm, and sent a group to help rebuild a house in the community that had been damaged by the storm. Wednesday afternoon, we played with the kids from KIM’s orphanage. Thursday, we were mostly back to our normal schedule.

Friday, we got to have a fun day before our flight back to Hong Kong. We went to a water park (which was partially shut down because of damage from the typhoon). Nevertheless, it was a fun time to relax and hang out after a hard week of work. We flew back into Hong Kong on Friday night, and Saturday I had a great time hanging out with the DBU team, but Sunday morning, I had to take them to the airport and send them back to the USA.

The trip was a great chance to develop deeper relationships with the students and get to see some friends from back home. It was also a great reminder to be thankful for the many blessings I have in my life.

Camp Go July 4-9

Sorry it’s been so long since my last post. Where do I even begin with what has happened the past two weeks? This will probably end up taking me multiple posts to get through, but I will start at the beginning.

Two weeks ago, we had camp. It started on July 4 and went through July 9. It was a great chance for me to get to know some of the kids I’ll be working with for the next year (although 1/3 of the kids that were at camp won’t be here in the fall), to get to see some friends from the US (4 DBUers came out to help lead camp), and to have fun. The week started stressfully, but it improved as it went on.

I knew that I would have to lead 2 breakout group discussions for the week, and I was pretty much all set with preparations for them, but I found out the week before camp that I was also going to be speaking for two of the evening worship sessions, something I had to scramble to prepare. Our theme verse for the week was Col. 1:16: “for by Him all things were created in the heavens and on earth, both visible and invisible, whether thrones, or dominions, or rulers, or authorities, all things have been created by Him and for Him.” The goal for the week was for all of our teaching times of any type to tie in to this verse. With that in mind, I spoke on Col. 1:19-20: “For the Father was pleased for all the fullness to dwell in Him, and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross, through Him I say, whether things on earth or things in heaven.” The first night I spoke, I talked about why all things in heaven and on earth have a need to be reconciled to God (our sin) and how gaining a better picture of who God is will better enable us to understand His response to our sin and why our sin merits such punishment not only of us, but of all creation. The second night, I talked about what God did to reconcile all things to Himself (sent Jesus to die on the cross), and why it was essential for Jesus to be the one to die for us (He was all God, so He was free from sin, and He was all man, so He was qualified to pay man’s punishment for sin).

In addition to lessons, we had lots of fun at camp. Games, water fights, cool playgrounds, and great game coordinators ensured that camp was as much fun as possible. It was a great week, and I think it was a great way for me to start off my year by having a chance to develop some quick relationships with the students that otherwise would have taken months to develop. Next time, I’ll post on our trip last week to the Philippines.