Planning for some jungle bedlam...

The posters are up, the kids are primed, and Thursday will be the start of our 

Big Jungle Adventure Truth English Bible Club

with local Hong Kong kids and some Chinese Mainland kids 

at Ma On Shan Lutheran Primary School.  

Some of them come from Christian homes, but many don't, 

and their English is, let's just say, minimal.

The question is, can fun, games, a good deal of chaos, songs, snacks, art projects, and those basic Bible Stories from the Old and New Testaments, somehow convey the essential truth that

the God of the Universe 

wants to be in relationship with kids of every nation, culture, and tribe, 

including very specifically, these kids, 

as well as you and me?

They are loved.  We are loved.  

Can we believe it?

This should be interesting.  Last spring we did it with two separate groups of  six or seven children at a time.  This year we have FIFTEEN P3 kids and SIX P4 "helpers". 
(We had decided as a leadership group that we wouldn't have helpers, given their pretty terrible behavior last spring, and lo and behold I was just given the list of participants from the official school list and it includes... six "helpers".)

So, who wants to sing a big round of:

"Who's the King of the Jungle?  WHO? WHO?
Who's the King of the sea (bubble, bubble, bubble)
Who's the King of the universe and
Who's the King of me???????

Stay tuned, I'm gonna try making some videos. Only maybe not the first week.

"...there is that great beast, which you have made 

as a plaything. "-- Psalm 104:26 Bible in Basic English

Is daily chapel too much or not enough?

Always an exotic, fresh flower arrangement, many with distinct symbolism. Not sure what the symbolism of this one is, but we're in the "liturgical growing" season right now, so I'm guessing... bloom and grow?! And swirl and dance in the Spirit?!

Beauty in the leaves, to and from chapel. This butterfly was as big as my hand.

Evening Prayer.

One of the things that's different for me in my new job at the seminary is the chance to attend daily chapel.  DAILY chapel?  Yup, and I'm enjoying it.  Full disclosure -- 30 years ago when I was in seminary myself, I did NOT attend daily chapel!  I thought that was for über-religious  and/or those students who wanted to impress their worship professors.

Now, it's a break in my day... it's a chance to get out of my office and see the community. It's a chance to sing a familiar hymn with old, deeply poetic words, or hear a new song sung.

It's almost always a chance to hear the Word. And to pray.

Sometimes the short homilies are in English and sometimes they're in Chinese.  And sometimes they're in English but it might as well be in Chinese (ha, something my former parishioners may have experienced from time to time) but there are Bibles available, and if the translation on the headphones isn't so great, then it's a few extra moments to look at the Biblical texts for the week (we follow a fairly standard liturgical lectionary).

It's beautiful!

I go to the day chapels at ten o'clock.  There's also evening chapel at five-thirty, but I just glance in as I start the 15 minute "descent" down the mountain to our home.  Maybe in another 30 years I'll be attending evening chapel too.

I was glad when they said to me, 

"Let us go to the house of the LORD."

 -- Psalm 122:1

The view from my new office

The view from my (still new) office. (As of September I'm the Coordinator of International Student Affairs at LTS)
Yesterday monkeys were scampering across the roof but I wasn't quick enough with my camera

LTS, where Wayne teaches and I work (!).  From the balcony outside my office, I look down on the fishponds!
It's enormously cool to have a balcony outside one's office!

Rain, rain, and more rain this month.  But it's still beautiful, even in the rain.

A rainy day is a good day for a baptism.  Michael's Mom is in failing health and had been unable to even eat for several days... then she rallied for her Baptism Day!  What a day of joy at Truth Church in Ma On Shan! This is part of what it's all about, our work, studies, teaching at the Lutheran School of Theology in Hong Kong.

As I said in an earlier post - the best thing about my new job is the students!  This student, from Indonesia,  is finishing up a doctorate in Old Testament. He's on a scholarship from one of the German Mission organizations, and eager to return home after three long years of study at LTS. He looks mild-mannered, but if you put a saxophone in his hands, look out!  (I believe the same is true of his passion for God's Word!)

Let my teaching fall like rain 

and my words descend like dew, 

like showers on new grass, 

like abundant rain on tender plants.  

(Deuteronomy 32:2)

Memorial Service for Two Mothers in Myanmar

Monday we held a Memorial service for two Moms of students from Myanmar.  Our students don't have the money to fly home for the funerals, and in any case burial would have been almost immediate, they wouldn't have made it back in time.  So the International Student Fellowship of our Lutheran School of Theology held a Memorial service in our chapel, as evening fell. Our Chinese chaplains led the service and the prayers.  Our American English teacher read the scripture. And each of the two now motherless students rose up and paid tribute to their Moms, struggling in poignantly broken English to express their love and honor for them, as well as their heartfelt gratitude for the "mothers, sisters, brothers" who surrounded them on this sad occasion.

Both the Indonesian students (above... be sure to click on the video to listen to it!) and the Myanmar students sang songs of comfort, and together we remembered the words from Scripture:

 Isaiah 66:13 

As a mother comforts her child,
                           so will I comfort you;
  and

from Matthew 12:49-50

    “Here are my mother and my brothers.  For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.” (words of Jesus)

and 

from I Corinthians 13:13

And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love.  

But the greatest of these is love.

What I like least and best about my new job...

Today's a Typhoon Day (heavy winds in Hong Kong from Typhoon Nesat, wind forces measured up to 121 KM per hour!) so I thought it's a good time to update my blog after my first two weeks on the new job as International Students' Coordinator at the Lutheran School of Theology in Hong Kong.

Above you can see a few of the beautiful faces I get to see each and every day that I am at the seminary.  (Shout-out to the congregations of the Indiana-Kentucky synod of the ELCA -- do you recognize one of these faces???  You should, because one of these wonderful new students is able to study here in Hong Kong because of a scholarship generously sponsored by YOU!)

This week I"m discovering that this job entails all I love to do best... and least!

I'll tell you about the least, first.

I get to push pencils.  Fill out forms.  Figure out where documents are filed on the computer.  Make sure money has transferred into the correct accounts.  Convert euros and U.S. dollars into Hong Kong dollars (whoa, for those who are interested... the euro really is worth a lot less than it was just a few months ago).  I get to send (what seems like) endless documents to the Immigration Office (for visas) and make sure they bear the correct reference numbers (Ref. 0001732096754 S0155, formerly ref. 0001697043226 S11432) for one made-up-but-not-exaggerated example! And I get to write elaborate letters thanking the immigration office for the opportunity to send in yet more documents for their perusal!  And, when sending to Cambodia for another document to send - immediately - to the Hong Kong office, I get a letter back stating that there is a national festival in Cambodia which means that all governmental offices are closed down... for the week!  AND when I DO get all the documents together for the students from Laos, I zip them off to the Hong Kong Immigration office (Ok, I don't actually zip them anywhere, because the fax machine clogs up on me at least 3 times) but I finally get them -- slowly - chug chug -- sent off so they will be there first thing in the morning... when ta ta!  A typhoon comes cycling close enough to HK that ALL HK governmental offices are closed today.

That's what I like least about my new job.

What I like best is....

International students. From Indonesia, Laos, Myanmar, Cambodia... and more.
That's what I like best about my new job.

"Who will not fear you, Lord, and bring glory to your name? For you alone are holy. All nations will come and worship before you, for your righteous acts have been revealed.”            Revelation 15:4

New Jobs

  I haven't posted lately because I've been a wee bit busy... I have a new job!  Actually TWO of them!  I am now (Job #1) the International Students' Coordinator at the Lutheran Theological Seminary of Hong Kong (same place - at the top of the hill here in Shatin -- where my husband, "Dr. Wayne" teaches) AND (Job #2) I'm the Associate Coordinator of the Mekong Mission Forum Network Implementation Committee.

I've spent the first week on the job just trying to learn my title(s)!  And getting acquainted with the map of the Mekong River (helpfully lifted from the internet).

After less than a week on  Job #1 I've already fielded inquiries from India, Pakistan, Myanmar, Malaysia, Ghana, Canada, and the USA. 

After less than a week on Job #2 I've done a bit of editing on an MMF-NIC publication but mostly am wondering whether I ever actually be able to be of help to anyone.  (I did learn how to use the copier, the scanner, and after much fumbling, successfully unlocked my own office door).

Stay tuned!

Oh, and I've still reserved Thursdays for Job #3, (volunteer church work, continuing for my third year already!) which is working with the primary school kids at the Ma On Shan Lutheran School in Heng On... we're going to be doing the Big Jungle Adventure  later on this fall in our Truth English Bible Club.  One of our sponsoring churches in Wisconsin sent us a bunch of fun crafts, posters, and prizes to use, since they used the same program this summer.

It's amazing what a big world it is, and how interconnected.

And now it's time for me to go to bed (yes, I'm pretty much over jet lag except that I'm going to bed at 9:30 and getting up at 5!) and time for many of you to be getting up for the day's journey.  Reminds me of one of my favorite hymns, stanzas 1 & 4 of "The Day You Gave Us, Lord, Has Ended":

The day you gave us, Lord, has ended, the darkness falls at your behest,
To you our morning hymns ascended; your praise shall hallow now our rest.

The sun, here having set, is waking your children under western skies,
and hour by hour as day is breaking, fresh hymns of thankful praise arise.