Getting Ready for Chinese New Year Part 2

The Year has just turned!  It's the Year of the Dragon in China now.

So our dear London-raised English teacher (aptly named "Rose", she's the one in red just right of center) invited the international students at LTS Hong Kong to a Chinese New Year's celebration.

See the dragon motif everywhere?  The year of the Dragon is supposed to be a good year! Dragons are strong, outgoing, and the local newspaper tells us the birthrates in Hong Kong and the mainland of China go up dramatically (more than 5%) as everyone wants their child to have a dragon year birthday.

We started the celebrations with... well, FOOD of course, including a large roasted pig, artfully carved by one of our mainland Chinese students (sorry to my tenderhearted vegetarian friends).

The international students then celebrated by singing a very robust version of "This is the day that the Lord has made," in 10+ different languages of the people who were present, including:

This is the year the Lord has made--
Mainland Chinese students sing in Mandarin

This is the year the Lord has made-- Laos

This is the year the Lord has made-- sung in Vietnamese,
with help from a Cambodian Uncle

This is the year the Lord has made-- one single American exchange student -
can you guess which one?!

This is the year the Lord has made-- sung in Thai

This is the year the Lord has made-- sung in the Karen language
by students from Myanmar (Burma)

This is the year the Lord has made--
sung in Danish by the Danish volunteers

This is the year the Lord has made--sung in Cantonese by our Hong Kong professor of Old Testament

This is the year the Lord has made-- Cambodian students sing in Khmer

This is the year the Lord has made- in the Chin language by more students from Myanmar (Burma)

This is the year the Lord has made --  sung  by some who actually  know how to sing -- Indonesian students

The evening ended with the distribution of red Lai-see packets to the youngest & cutest among us:

Scripture thoughts and a Christian Prayer for the Year of the Dragon:


"This is the [year] the Lord has made" -- Psalm 118:24

A characteristic of dragons: courage

"Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go.” -- Joshua 1:9

A characteristic of dragons: boldness

"Therefore, since we have such a hope, we are very bold."  -- Paul in his second letter to the Corinthians 3:12

A characteristic of dragons: ambition

"Whether we are at home or away from home, we make it our ambition to please Him [the Lord]" -- Paul in his second letter to the Corinthians 5:9

Prayer:

Creator of all creatures great and small, including the mind of humans who have in turn created dragons,
This New Year of the Dragon, may your Holy Spirit
--fill us with courage to carry current projects through to completion, courage to tell the truth and stand up for what is right and fair.
--Give us boldness to begin new plans and projects for your purposes.
--Make your ambitions our ambitions, and let us move forward with the strength of a dragon to make those ambitions come true.

In Christ's strong name we pray,  AMEN. 

Getting Ready for the New Year of the Dragon, Part I

Flower market in Mongkok

Bright blossoms of all kinds - New Year means springtime in China!

Youngest son adores getting schlepped to the Flower Market each year.

The busiest shopping night of the year.

Cambodia -Views from a Tuk Tuk

Cambodia -Views from a Tuk Tuk, a set on Flickr.

Finally, a set of pictures from my first visit to Cambodia New Year 2012. In 2012 you will be hearing more about my new job as Mekong Mission Forum Assistant Coordinator. Our family trip to Cambodia was my first trip to Cambodia... and my first chance to actually see the Mekong River (from whence comes my fancy new job title).  Cambodia was beautiful. We landed in Phnom Penh, saw some LTS graduates... took a river boat down to Siem Reap, visited the amazing temples of Angkor Wat... Later in the year I will visit again (I think) and one of our LTS alumni has promised me a motorcycle ride to her home and a home cooked meal which will include home-grown snails from her family's pond... I love my life and can't wait to see what else the New Year 2012 will bring! I do know I have an upcoming trip to Myanmar a.k.a. Burma very soon... and what hopeful news we are hearing from that country lately....

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you.  -- God, speaking through the prophet Jeremiah

Youtube Video of my workplace in Hong Kong

Dear Marathonangel readers... in case any of you are still out there... I thought I'd start out the New Year 2012 with a youtube video lifted from my good friend Dieter Mitternacht (is that not a great name?) about life at the Lutheran seminary in Hong Kong, China (where I now work as the Coordinator of International Student Affairs).
A film in English with Swedish sub-titles, made by a German, about life in Hong Kong. I don't think it gets a whole lot more international than this! 

(Coming up in my next blog post: A visit to the one of the top ten wonders of the world, Ankhor Wat in  Cambodia.  Stay tuned!)

Waiting for Christmas....

Five weeks of Truth English Bible Club, count them FIVE long weeks. 

We went from this in October to

these in November

So here's the grand finale in December

Almost all of the kids came back every week.  They LOVED the crafts  and didn't want to leave. In fact I think we might be in trouble with the school because they were late for their bus back to China so often.  I think.  I don't actually know.  Sometimes it's good not to know.

You can't help but love these kids but they are ROWDY!!! Maybe, for just a moment, they contemplated the God of the universe who created jewels of all colors, and children with all kinds of interests, curiosities, and capabilities...  maybe, maybe.

So that's what I did on Thursdays these past coupla months. We had twenty-four kids enrolled, six adults, and bedlam.  It makes me appreciate my "real" job (or my paying one, anyway :) which is now with international seminary students, who are calm!  interested!  glad to be at school! and they don't jump on the chairs and tables (or at least not as much)!

from L to R: an American visitor from California, two grad students from Myanmar and one from Mainland China.

The 2 students from Cambodia have finally gotten their student visas after waiting and wondering for more than three months and have arrived!

bringing our Cambodian student population up to three!

Lao students huddled against the cold (55F) which seems very cold indeed when you've just arrived from Laos. But they're happy to be here anyway!

Who knows which of the things we work for are worthwhile, which are of lasting significance, which are worth our time and talents and treasures?  I love the season of Advent (Yes, we've got another whole week of it, folks!) because it reminds me, in the midst of the world's frenzy, that there's power and strength in toughing things out (for a season), waiting them out, watch and see, which things show signs of fruition...

"Therefore judge nothing before the appointed time; wait until the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of the heart. At that time each will receive their praise from God."
-- I Corinthians 4:5

And on a very personal note, did I mention the BOYS are arriving next week!!!!!!!    Waiting.... waiting..... oooh it's hard to wait!!!!!!!!!!

My job is fun except when it's not.

My Coordinator of International Student affairs job AND my Mekong Mission Assistant Coordinator job is a lot of fun... except when it's not.

The not fun parts include excel spread sheets.  

I'm terrible at them.

Last week I was preparing in a frenzy for my first ever meeting with the Mekong Area "Network Implementation Committee" people who were flying in from Thailand, Cambodia, Myanmar and... Germany this week.  My duties included counting the number of Mekong area students at the seminary (28!), and reimbursing everybody for their airline tickets.  

So I was running around calculating exchange rates, converting Thai baht, Euros, and Hong Kong dollars into US dollars, ever so carefully counting out those greenbacks ... reminded me of my first job as a grocery store check out clerk.  Hmmmm. Some things don't change as much as one might have hoped....

Part of my nervousness is that I'm dealing with a whole host of expectations and different cultures in this job.  (For Saturday I was in charge of dealing with everything from giving reports on the academic presentations of faculty members who went to Myanmar to deciding what size bananas should be served for the afternoon snack- seriously, I got a phone call on Friday afternoon from the seminary President's secretary asking me about the bananas!!!!! Big ones or small ones?????....!!!!!!!! There is NOT a tradition of delegating decisions around here.)

But then I get to sit down with the students.  I talk with Rodion from Indonesia who's the first pastor getting a doctorate in something like thirty years. I talk with Sondang, also from Indonesia, dressed in a gorgeous beadwork dress.  Last week her church in Indonesia celebrated its 150th anniversary.... and over 100,000 people showed up for the event!

And then there's Mnai from Myanmar who has nine daughters to support at home. Nine. Daughters. Today one of the scholarship donors asked me if it was all right to give him a small extra gift for Christmas, because of his nine daughters.  Yes, I said. By all means. 

And there's the bishop from Thailand who was the first in his family to become a Christian. And he told the story of a witch doctor in the hill country of the Mekong, who is at the brink of converting.  And if he converts, then there are 300 of his tribes people who will be converting, too.  And the bishop and his  Church are scrambling to come up with some catechesis for these folks. (This is a novel challenge for the Lutheran Church to face... it's not the Lutheran Church as we usually know it from Germany, Scandinavia, or the USA!)

So it's amazing.  And maddening (when I'm dealing with those Excel spread sheets).  Occasionally, for a moment here and there, wonderful.

Wayne with a group from Myanmar.  Can you spot the American?

Stripes, zigzags, smiles

The Indonesians!

Can you tell where he's from?

Add caption

A future student... homegrown in Hong Kong!

I survived Saturday's meeting, by the way.  But I'm still not totally finished with the accounting for it...

"Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies."

               -- Mother Teresa

  “If you are faithful in little things, you will be faithful in large ones..."  -- Jesus in Luke 16:10