Easter Angels, Washing Wounds, and Mother Mary

This year we had Easter orchids along with our Easter lilies, and the orchids are still happily in bloom!

 Happy First Week of Easter!

I love the fact that in the liturgical Church we celebrate Easter for a "week of Sundays" so that it's not over when the lilies fade away.

This was our first Easter without any of our children. Wayne and I each had Easter services at our respective congregations (Cantonese-speaking Lutheran churches) and then -- novel idea -- we rested on Easter Sunday afternoon!!!

Andy!!! The delightful son of the only "pastoral couple" students at LTS...

 On Easter Monday we had friends (a.k.a. "Easter Angels") over for an Easter Monday dinner. In Hong Kong, where only 10% of the people are Christian, we get both Good Friday and Easter Monday off as public holidays!  Some parts of the British colonial heritage are worth keeping.

Andy's parents are the only students we have from Vietnam this year. Some of you will remember that we had enormous difficulties obtaining  student visas this year, and these are two of the students we were were praying for... and yours truly was filing mountains of paperwork for... and now they are here!!! I would appreciate your continued prayers as I am deep into preparing the visa documents for the new students who are supposed to arrive by July 30 this summer.  Pray for my attitude (it's not very good about having to do and re-do paperwork) but most important is just that these new visas are GRANTED in time for the summer orientation program here at LTS.

Valerie!!

 In addition to Andy's family from Vietnam, we also were able to host the daughter of one of our previous colleagues from our years in the Central African Republic... Valerie!!!!!  We haven't seen Valerie since she was about three years old and we all lived in Africa.  She is cute and obviously smart as ever, I might add.

Blake!!

 Valerie brought along one of her fellow students at the Savannah College of Art and Design [SCAD] - Hong Kong Campus.

Welcome to Hong Kong, Valerie and Blake!

So you see the good Lord fills up our lives with wonderful folks even when our "bio-family members" are far away.  (We are very grateful for Skype, however, and were able to connect with almost everyone back in the USA as well as in Korea, where eldest son is located.)

 Meanwhile, the photo to the left  is a snapshot of a place I've been spending way too much time at... one of the public clinics, where, for $17 Hong Kong dollars  a pop (approximately $2.18 USD) I can have my leg wound scrubbed and redressed.  Yes, I'm well into week 4 of my continuing shin injury saga, week 4 of taking antibiotics, week 4 of exploring the public health care system in Hong Kong. Which is actually a pretty good system. There are worse ways of spending time than sitting in a clinic for a few extra minutes a day, watching the wounds of others getting washed... my own problem is pretty darn small.

This coming Sunday (The Second Sunday of Easter!) I'll be doing the second in  a series of Bible studies with Muslim, Christian, and secular Indonesian domestic workers-- we are talking about Mary, Jesus' mother, who is famous in Christian and Muslim circles. We are discussing being a woman, mother, virgin, widow, pray-er, sufferer, friend and beloved one [not necessarily in that order!!!] Assisting me is one of my "personal" angels (=God's messenger) LTS student Sondang Napitupulu  (Thanks Sondang!!!)

Happy First Week of Easter!!!!

May All SEVEN weeks of Easter be filled with new views of the Risen Lord!