Flat Stanley in Hong Kong

I've got a little interlude on this blog... an enterprising kid from my church in Hartland, Wisconsin sent us a Flat Stanley. Flat Stanley, for the uninitiated, is a school project based on a book about a kid who gets flattened through an accident but makes the best of the situation when he discovers this enables him to travel the world cheaply and easily by being mailed in a regular postal envelope.

Generations of 3rd and 4th graders now draw "Flat Stanleys" to send to distant friends and relatives for recording adventures. This makes learning geography a little more fun as the kids then make a school presentation of the photos taken with their own Flat Stanley.

What follows is Flat Stanley's adventures with us in Hong Kong.

Flat Stanley arrives in pretty good shape after ten days of traveling in his envelope. He then slept for a couple of weeks working off his jet lag.  The time difference between Hong Kong and Hartland, Wisconsin in the U.S.A. is 14 hours.

Last week, finally emerging from his jet lag, Flat Stanley took a trip on a Hong Kong bus to pick up friends from the Hong Kong airport.  Most people living in Hong Kong (including Flat Stanley's host family) don't have their own cars, so it's good for Flat Stanley to learn to use mass transportation.

Flat Stanley arrives at the Hong Kong airport to pick up his friends.

Flat Stanley makes his first Hong Kong friend.  It's mutual admiration at first sight.

Our friends have arrived from Wisconsin and Flat Stanley explains the Hong Kong subway system map to them.  The light blue line goes to his Hong Kong host's home.

Flat Stanley makes friends with German friends in Hong Kong.  He wonders if they will take him to the German Octoberfest a.k.a. BierFest held in Hong Kong every October-November.  They tell him, Sorry, he's a little too late.

Flat Stanley tries to make friends with the monkeys on "Monkey Hill" near Lion's Rock in Hong Kong.  They are not interested.

There are a lot of tall buildings in Hong Kong.  Flat Stanley tries to pose with the Hong Kong flag but the wind isn't cooperating today.  The Hong Kong flag is red with a white flower on it.

Flat Stanley in Hong Kong Park.

Trying to make friends with the long-tailed birds in Hong Kong Park's aviary.  The birds aren't interested.

Flat Stanley gets caught in a Hong Kong rain.  Good thing his friends have umbrellas.  It rains a lot in Hong Kong so people carry their umbrellas everywhere they go.

OOh, Flat Stanley takes an excursion to Macau.  He goes to the biggest casino in the world (the Venetian) but his host makes him stay in the backpack because nobody under the age of 18 is admitted into the casinos.

On his last night in Hong Kong, Flat Stanley goes for a pleasant boat ride in Sai Kung. He also checks out the sea food but after he takes a good look at today's selection, he decides he isn't hungry after all.

whoops I can't add the video just now... check back in a day or two and I'll try to get it attached here. GOT IT! click and watch to see why Flat Stanley did NOT order seafood tonight:

 

Scenes from ISF at LTS up on TFS

One of the crazy things about my new job is all the acronyms.  Here are just some of the ones I deal with on a daily basis:
MMF/NIC/ LTS / GM / ELCA/ FELM / HK/ IMM/ LWF/ DMS/ TFS/ ATEM/ MIT/ NMS/ CAN

but one of my favorites is the 

LTS-ISF 

(Lutheran Theological Seminary - International Student Fellowship)

Here are some scenes from recent LTS-ISF activities:

This is actually just a scene from the celebration for the ground breaking for the LTS expansion project, but I wanted to tell you about it as one result will be a bigger cafeteria, with some outdoor seating.  yay!

LTS-ISF sponsors a monthly birthday bash! Those with birthdays are supposed to share some words of wisdom from the vast  treasure house of knowledge they are accumulating as they age.

The approach of winter means some colder temperatures than some of our international students have ever experienced before.  Thanks to a very kind anonymous donation, Chaplain Po Chu was able to arrange for jackets for all the international students to help them weather near freezing temperatures soon to come (kinda humorous for us snow & ice habituated  northern Europeans and Americans, but seriously affecting the health of some of the students from Laos, Vietnam, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, or Indonesia)

LTS-ISF president Frans (from Indonesia) hunts for the XL size.  What, no XXL? Diminutive Chaplain Po Chu (from Hong Kong) found him the biggest jacket they make!

Mmmmm, apples, Asian pears and dragonfruit.  No fellowship event is complete without food for sharing.

Ooh, we can just feel all that vitamin C at work...

They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.   -- Acts 2:42

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