The Final New International Student Arrives... and other scenes from the seminary...

Scene from the top of our seminary hill
where the cloud formations alone make you
know there is a great God of all...
and when the heat & humidity suddenly breaks
with waves of fresh air,
you know the Spirit is moving
wild and strong.

We're getting just a wee bit more daring in chapel...
German-Swedish, Myanma, Lao and Chinese faces raise up their
voices, hearts and yes, even their hands in song (a stretch for some Lutherans, but the Mekong students are gently teaching us :)

International relationships among young church leaders are being formed... which will have impact for decades to come.
Two new students from Myanmar and Indonesia --
there are no strangers in God's house.

Our final international student (from Cambodia) received his visa!! He was only a few days late for the semester...
He won't see his wife and two young daughters for at least ten months. His
tee-shirt reads: All for Jesus... NO TURNING BACK.

A fairly typical cafeteria scene... only this day we were celebrating our seminary president's sixtieth birthday.
Apples, juice, cake and... grape tomatoes! I love grape tomatoes!

Wayne and I took our three Cambodian students to church
today... Union Church has an orphanage project in Cambodia... LTS seminary has
three culturally aware, spiritually committed Cambodian students...
what synergies might the Holy Spirit be weaving?
They were welcomed enthusiastically.  Then we five headed out for (what else, since Wayne
was involved) an Indian buffet. Yum!

John 3:8

New International Version (NIV)

The wind blows wherever it pleases. 

You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”*

*John 3:8 The Greek for Spirit is the same as that for wind.   

This is how the seminary school year begins...

This is how the new school year begins at the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Hong Kong...

hearing the Word (simultaneous translation provided - English, Cantonese, Mandarin)

Can't read the slogan on the t-shirt? I'll help you:

"Training Servants of God's Word for Asia"

receiving the Body at the foot of the cross -- face to face, hand to hand, heart to heart.

well fortified, students, staff, and professors walk back out into the Hong Kong heat... to classrooms, study, discussions, community life, and various kinds of diakonia - a recently renewed emphasis on campus - Christ-empowered acts of sharing, healing, and reconciliation.

¹⁴What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith 

but do not have works? 

Can faith save you? ¹⁵If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, 

¹⁶and one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,” 

and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, 

what is the good of that? 

¹⁷So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.

(James 2:14-17)

THIS is what I am saying hello to again in a few short days:

Photo by LTS Professor John Lemond

The Lutheran Theological Seminary in Hong Kong.

AND I'll finally get to say hello in person to this new group of International Students from Indonesia, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar, whose visas I have been laboring SUCCESSFULLY! to obtain:

 Under the good guidance of Rebecca, the American English Teacher, new students have learned lesson #1 for surviving Hong Kong in the summer: Carry an umbrella with you at all times because the deluge can begin at any moment! (Thanks to Maida from Indonesia for this photo)

And I'll be saying hello to my husband who has been chasing out the cockroaches and cleaning off the daily growth of mold on the walls due to the hot and humid Hong Kong weather (um, right honey, you HAVE been doing these things???) He has also been hard at work preparing for his next set of pastoral care and counseling classes this fall:

There's my husband, "Dr. Wayne" at June graduation ceremonies, looking up at me adoringly.
At least I think it's me he's looking at!

but I'll also be saying goodbyes again... goodbye to my only sister, who has just added a case of shingles to her other health issues:

See, I can be a helpful and loving person from time to time!

and saying goodbye to three sons, aging Mom, my brother and family, goodbye to the quiet woods and dear friends I've reconnected with this summer.

good-bye sons... and salmon dinners!

oh yes and the cat.
Did I mention saying good-bye to the cat?

Well, this is a missionary's life.  And I believe in a God who sends his disciples out from time to time, and this is our time, to be ministers of the Gospel in Hong Kong, and with God's beloved people in Southeast Asia.

Tonight in church the preacher challenged us: "Do you want to be useful to God?"

And my answer is, I do, I really do. This week that means saying a lot of good-byes, so that Wayne and I can say hello to those to whom God sends us.

Thanks for your prayers, and your care, and for sharing our new journey in this coming academic year 2012-2013.

"...Then Jesus went around teaching from village to village. ⁷ Calling the Twelve to him, he began to send them out two by two..."  -- Mark 6:6b-7a

What lies ahead? New international students arriving in Hong Kong

New seminary students from

Indonesia
Myanmar (aka Burma)
India
Laos
and Cambodia

are preparing to travel to Hong Kong in the coming week(s) for the summer orientation program.

For some of them it will be thier first time in an airplane.
For some of them it will be their first time out of their home country.
For some of them it will be their first time actually using English (many of them have learned English only in the classroom, and as someone who had four years of high school French before traveling to France and being shocked by having someone actually speak FRENCH to me and expecting a coherent answer.... I can testify to you that the prospect of speaking and functioning in English and eventually writing papers in English may be quite rightfully terrifying to some!)

For some of them it means they are saying good bye to their families for one, two or even three years. For a few this may mean saying goodbye to young children, or a husband or wife, or aging parents.

They are doing it because they have a commitment.
A hope for
A calling to

serve all people through God's global Church.


For those of you with time and inclination - below is a Powerpoint I put together about international students from the Mekong at our seminary - Lutheran Theological Seminary in Hong Kong.

Please keep the new students 2012-13 in your hearts and prayers.  Especially the two Cambodians who are still awaiting their visas - and the Chinese and international staff and faculty who are preparing for a new academic year.

"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." -- Jeremiah 29:11

May God's angels watch over them... may they and we be attentive to the Spirit's promptings to serve and grow in love and knowledge.

Threefold Paths of Mission MEKONG Students

Graduation Week at LTS in Hong Kong

Under a canopy of flowers

Ready for one last Hong Kong hike with Dr. Wayne

Education doesn't only take place in the classroom! A pre-graduation meal at a Thai restaurant, literally a hole in the wall, the food is great!

Getting ready for graduation

Graduation choir

New LTS-Hong Kong Alumni!

Dr. Wayne with Jimmy from Myanmar, who finished an M.Th. helping his church develop a Christian course in sex education

Dr. Wayne with his first doctoral student, Dr.Saw from Myanmar, whose thesis deals with counseling IDP's (internally displaced persons) from among the Karen people in Myanmar.

... with Fotani, who completed an M.A. in Theological Librarianship

...with Sokly from Cambodia, who has a special interest in issues of good church stewardship and ethical entrepreneurship

Heading home to Myanmar for a half dozen LTS graduates - the gorgeous airport in Bangkok, Thailand.

Big smiles! Heading home!

Mommy's now a theological "Doctor"... and she's back home in Myanmar after three years away, ready and equipped for teaching at the local seminary in Yangon.

In that day they will say, “Surely this is our God; we trusted in him, and he saved us. This is the LORD, we trusted in him; let us rejoice and be glad in his salvation.” 

  -- Isaiah 25:9

Sweetpeas in Wisconsin - and Sunday School in Cambodia

I am in Wisconsin for the summer... a working holiday as I enjoy the cool breezes, fresh air, wildflowers, among which are these sweet peas, which grow in the thin rocky soil of my little yard.

What I'm also doing is getting caught up on some of my work.. I'm so grateful for the internet.... just this morning I've already been in touch with Christians in Australia, Cambodia, Myanmar, India, Geneva, and of course, Hong Kong! "God's big back yard" is more connected than ever.

***
As part of getting caught up I want to show you the pictures from my most recent trip to Cambodia last month.

I got to visit Kirany, a Lutheran Theological Seminary (Hong Kong) Alumna from Cambodia who is now back in Cambodia, putting her intelligence, training, and loving faithfulness to work with children at a small local church.

 
Kirany works in an NGO during the week, which helps support her and her family (parents, siblings, and beautiful, beautiful little niece) but on the weekends, she's deeply involved with children... who grow in the thin rocky economic conditions of life in the outskirts of Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

The view as Kirany took me on a slightly harrowing motorbike ride from my hotel to church in the LIGHT traffic of Sunday morning.  And yes, there were THREE of us on her small motorbike.

The "garden" where Kirany's "flowers" grow!

Lots of laughter and multi-media punctuate the lessons. Creative Christian Education is one of the emphases of the "practical theology" programs at the Lutheran Theological Seminary (LTS) in Hong Kong

Teaching English through Bible songs is an "added value" for children who need English to access the wider world.

See how God's garden grows... in Cambodia!

For as the soil makes the sprout come up
    and a garden causes seeds to grow,
so the Sovereign Lord will make righteousness     and praise spring up before all nations.

 -- the prophet Isaiah 61:11

My First Baptism in the Mekong... (May in Mekong - Day 3)

Sarin and his Mom.

 On Day Three in Cambodia, I was invited by LTS (Lutheran Theological Seminary in Hong Kong) alumni Sarah and Sarin to  go out to the countryside, outside of Phnom Penh, where Sarin's parents live in a small village. Sarin's Dad had been crippled years ago, while living in a refugee camp, so his tiny Mom has worked to sustain their family with small business and farming projects.


Sarin was the first in his family to become a follower of Jesus Christ, and one by one the rest of his family came to faith, too.


Except for his Dad, who understandably, had a lot to wonder about this God, this Christ Jesus, this new Lord of his son's.


Through divine interventions... and maybe through the new, fresh voices of Sarin's bride, Sarah, and the beautiful grandchildren they gave to Sarin's Dad... maybe because of their regular visits, their persistent love....

And because of some dreams.  Over the last few years Sarin's Dad has been given some amazing dreams, and discovered that God's Son is for real.

It was an beautiful story and an moving testimony to me, of the power of God's Spirit to draw people to Christ, even in the countryside, even in Cambodia, where recent human history seems to contradict the existence of a caring, loving God.  

"So where were you baptized?" I asked, just out of curiosity.

"Baptized, I haven't been baptized yet.  But -" (he said in Khmer, with Sarah as our translator, but he was looking directly at me) "You're a pastor.  You could do my baptism!"

And there was a basin of water.  A congregation was easily, enthusiastically summoned.  An "acolyte" was found to add more water to the basin. 

Sarah (originally from Hong Kong) and  her father-in-law

A granddaughter who shares special treats with her Grandpa - fresh roast frog!

"You're a pastor, you could do my baptism, couldn't you?"

A congregation is easily gathered

An acolyte adds more water to the "baptismal font"

A preacher has been preached to, by this incredible experience of joy.

A long-married wife is delighted to present her  husband with a gift of flowers in honor of his new birth in Christ

^36-39As they continued down the road, they came to a stream of water. The eunuch said, "Here's water. Why can't I be baptized?" He ordered the chariot to stop. They both went down to the water, and Philip baptized him on the spot. When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of God suddenly took Philip off, and that was the last the eunuch saw of him. But he didn't mind. He had what he'd come for and went on down the road as happy as he could be.  (Acts 8 - The Message translation of the Bible.... and I kid you not, my Bible just "happened" to be bookmarked at exactly this passage that day)