April Showers Bring May... Monkeys???

May in Hong Kong means it's hot again. Unbelievably muggy. The mosquitos are swarming.  And the monkeys are on the prowl for the brown mushy fruit (I still haven't figured out what it is) that hangs from our trees.

Last week I walked out of my front door and nearly into a ... five foot long snake.  He slithered away, and so did I... in the opposite direction.  So, no photos, sorry. I don't know what kind of snake he was.  Surely not a poisonous one.  Surely not.


So here's what makes it worth it to face the mosquitoes, the monkeys, the snakes and the heat:

A graduate of LTS(center) who works with these beautiful, beautiful, Indonesian domestic workers, cheering them on, mothering them, coaching them, loving them through the highs and lows of working as live-in maids in a foreign land. They don't always dress like this, but Sundays are their one day off, so they dress up, looking like they just stepped in from a different, more exotic planet.  And in some ways, that's exactly what they've done!

"Miss Rose" who speaks the world's most beautiful British English, with two of her LTS students from Laos, who are able to study at LTS because of scholarships from the Ev. Lutheran Church in America.  They are developing leadership skills to work in the Laos Evangelical Church... which has grown from 26 believers in the capital city in 1990... to 10,000 believers in the capital city today... so the need for capable and committed Christian leadership is huge... and these young women are well on their way.

and then

there's the  exuberance

of the students from Hong Kong, Indonesia, Myanmar, Mainland China, even from the USA!

(Here celebrating the almost-end of the academic year)

This keeps remembering what it's all about... and glad to be here.

"...the joy of the LORD is your strength.”  -- Nehemiah 8:10

Advent 3 in Hong Kong - Joy!

 I don't think the road to Bethlehem is quite this hilly, but I did think of the pregnant Mary and (presumably) worried Joseph walking their weary way to the manger this week.

Wayne & I started among the monkeys of Monkey Hill, climbed up the 1,284 steps to Needle Point (yup, we counted them!), paused often enough to breathe deeply (well, to breath at all actually, and to quiet our pounding hearts) and admire the view.  Unfortunately we took a few too many stops so that our last 20 minutes were literally in the dark.  Good thing the path was paved with white rocks and had a railing for the more treacherous parts.

Next time, we'll get an earlier start.

(I wonder if that's what Mary and Joseph said, too?)

"The desert and the parched land will be glad;
the wilderness will rejoice and blossom.
Like the crocus, it will burst into bloom;
it will rejoice greatly and shout for joy.


Strengthen the feeble hands,
steady the knees that give way;
say to those with fearful hearts,
Be strong, do not fear;
your God will come..."  -- the prophet Isaiah 35:1-4

New semester begins at LTS - Hong Kong

This is how the semester begins at the Lutheran Theological Seminary of Hong Kong. With Word. With the Sacrament of the Altar.  With the Communion of Saints including students and professors from Hong Kong, Mainland China, Myanmar (Burma), Laos, Vietnam, Indonesia, the Philippines, Germany, the USA, Sweden, and more...

The semester begins with  radical trust & hope: we are here for a purpose. We will be given what we need to succeed.

The sermon is punctuated by a real live illustration:  We are not like monkeys!  the preacher says.  In the animal kingdom the fittest survive, the strongest get ahead, those with power are the first to eat and only then do they let the subordinates get to the leftovers.  But those who walk with Jesus are learning to be strong servants who serve the weakest ones first, and well.

Just then a monkey comes tumbling off the wall next to the seminary chapel windows.  He was pushed off the wall by a bigger monkey.  He shrieks, and everybody smiles.  It is as if he has said, Listen! This is important!

We move forward with open hands, needing this bread given for those who are weak.

"I am the Bread—living Bread!—who came down out of heaven. Anyone who eats this Bread will live—and forever! The Bread that I present to the world so that it can eat and live is myself, this flesh-and-blood self."   -- Jesus  (as translated by The Message version of the Bible, John 6:51)

Monkey Mountain

From Prayers from the Ark by Carmen Bernos de Gasztold
Translated by Rumer Godden


The Prayer of the Monkey

Dear God, Why have You made me so ugly? With this ridiculous face, Grimaces seem asked for! Shall I always be The clown of Your creation? Oh, who will lift this melancholy from my heart? Could You not, one day, Let someone take me seriously, Lord? Amen.


Just a few photos from our trip to "Monkey Hill" in Hong Kong (also known as Kam Shan Country Park), where Rhesus Macaque (Macaca mulatte) monkeys run wild. This is a non-native species, the multiplied descendants of escaped pets. It is forbidden to feed the monkeys, and stories abound of tourists getting bit and mauled by hordes of them, when they've brought food into the park and there wasn't enough to go around. Wayne went again last week with some students, and reported that it was a little like a scene out of Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds". Definitely another unique Hong Kong experience!
Monkey Mountain

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