What do you guys do there in Hong Kong, anyway?

Lutheran Theological Seminary: Hong Kong, Chinese, and international students commit themselves to reach out with God's justice, hope and healing.

Just this week a US pastor from a sponsoring congregation (Yes, you too can sponsor us here in Hong Kong and I bet you don't even have to be Lutheran :) asked us the very good question:
What do you guys do there in Hong Kong, anyway?

Happy to oblige I sent him  a longish e-mail which I then realized I could re-post here and share with our thousands... hundreds... tens... well, at least with our one loyal follower (shout-out to my Mom in Wisconsin.... Hi Mutti!!)

 
Specifically, Wayne & I are a husband & wife Christian pastoral team.  Wayne is the guy with a Ph.D., so he teaches Pastoral Care and Counseling to seminary students from Hong Kong, Mainland China, and many other countries esp. those from the Mekong region (Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam).  

Wayne is part of a Hong Kong and international faculty at LTS which has theology students in many levels, from barely post-high school (and struggling with English) to those working on advanced level, doctorate degrees.

Right now besides teaching classes, Wayne is working especially closely with three graduate students who are preparing to return to their home countries and minister with --- 

1) Conflict resolution  -- this student has experienced situations in which church conflicts have erupted in violence and even death
2) A Christian sex education program for adolescents -- this student will be ministering in an area with some of the world's worst sex trade trafficking, and where ignorance abounds and deaths through self- inflicted abortions are said to be disastrously high
3) Internally Displaced Persons who now have some hope of returning to their ancestral lands. After enduring years of being on the run, their children stolen to serve in the army, their fields sown with land mines, men killed, women raped -- this student will bring discerning questions, listening ears, and Christian hope to these civil war refugees.

LTS International Student Choir April 20, 2012

 

colors and sounds of the nations at the Lutheran Seminary of Hong Kong

 And meanwhile, yours truly is working as  "Coordinator of International Student Affairs" which means I get to do boatloads of paperwork such as dealing with  scholarship accounts (yes, you too can be an international scholarship donor!) and applying for student visas, but I also get to do some hands on pastoral stuff such as visit LTS alumni and their ministries in places like Cambodia and Myanmar, and I'm currently working with a dynamite Indonesian student to do a Bible study/English conversation class with Muslim and Christian Indonesian domestic workers here in Hong Kong. 

Christian and Muslim dialogue - What does it mean to be a woman of faith?

"This is what I think... how about you?"  LTS student and Hong Kong domestic worker - both from Indonesia.

We think Jesus laughed a lot while on this earth -- so we do too!

 ²⁴ "...but let the one who boasts boast about this:
   that they have the understanding to know me,
that I am the LORD, who exercises kindness,
   justice and righteousness on earth,
   for in these I delight,”
            declares the LORD."     (Jeremiah 9:24)

Easter Angels, Washing Wounds, and Mother Mary

This year we had Easter orchids along with our Easter lilies, and the orchids are still happily in bloom!

 Happy First Week of Easter!

I love the fact that in the liturgical Church we celebrate Easter for a "week of Sundays" so that it's not over when the lilies fade away.

This was our first Easter without any of our children. Wayne and I each had Easter services at our respective congregations (Cantonese-speaking Lutheran churches) and then -- novel idea -- we rested on Easter Sunday afternoon!!!

Andy!!! The delightful son of the only "pastoral couple" students at LTS...

 On Easter Monday we had friends (a.k.a. "Easter Angels") over for an Easter Monday dinner. In Hong Kong, where only 10% of the people are Christian, we get both Good Friday and Easter Monday off as public holidays!  Some parts of the British colonial heritage are worth keeping.

Andy's parents are the only students we have from Vietnam this year. Some of you will remember that we had enormous difficulties obtaining  student visas this year, and these are two of the students we were were praying for... and yours truly was filing mountains of paperwork for... and now they are here!!! I would appreciate your continued prayers as I am deep into preparing the visa documents for the new students who are supposed to arrive by July 30 this summer.  Pray for my attitude (it's not very good about having to do and re-do paperwork) but most important is just that these new visas are GRANTED in time for the summer orientation program here at LTS.

Valerie!!

 In addition to Andy's family from Vietnam, we also were able to host the daughter of one of our previous colleagues from our years in the Central African Republic... Valerie!!!!!  We haven't seen Valerie since she was about three years old and we all lived in Africa.  She is cute and obviously smart as ever, I might add.

Blake!!

 Valerie brought along one of her fellow students at the Savannah College of Art and Design [SCAD] - Hong Kong Campus.

Welcome to Hong Kong, Valerie and Blake!

So you see the good Lord fills up our lives with wonderful folks even when our "bio-family members" are far away.  (We are very grateful for Skype, however, and were able to connect with almost everyone back in the USA as well as in Korea, where eldest son is located.)

 Meanwhile, the photo to the left  is a snapshot of a place I've been spending way too much time at... one of the public clinics, where, for $17 Hong Kong dollars  a pop (approximately $2.18 USD) I can have my leg wound scrubbed and redressed.  Yes, I'm well into week 4 of my continuing shin injury saga, week 4 of taking antibiotics, week 4 of exploring the public health care system in Hong Kong. Which is actually a pretty good system. There are worse ways of spending time than sitting in a clinic for a few extra minutes a day, watching the wounds of others getting washed... my own problem is pretty darn small.

This coming Sunday (The Second Sunday of Easter!) I'll be doing the second in  a series of Bible studies with Muslim, Christian, and secular Indonesian domestic workers-- we are talking about Mary, Jesus' mother, who is famous in Christian and Muslim circles. We are discussing being a woman, mother, virgin, widow, pray-er, sufferer, friend and beloved one [not necessarily in that order!!!] Assisting me is one of my "personal" angels (=God's messenger) LTS student Sondang Napitupulu  (Thanks Sondang!!!)

Happy First Week of Easter!!!!

May All SEVEN weeks of Easter be filled with new views of the Risen Lord!

A glorious trip to China's Fairy Lake Garden, followed by an inglorious fall...

Shenzen blossoms

I have not posted for a while and this is why:

Twelve days ago (March 20th to be exact) Wayne and I celebrated our thirtieth wedding anniversary by using our newly acquired multiple-entry visas to China (yes, we need a visa to enter the mainland of China from Hong Kong).  We took the metro, and 45 minutes and two checkpoints later, we were in the great shopping land of Shenzen, where you can buy a cheap imitation of anything.  Anything.

We, however, did not linger in the shopping areas but splurged and took a ten minute taxi to a place I had read about called the Shenzen Fairy Lake Botanical Garden.  There we:

posed by trees planted by Deng Xiaoping in 1992

took turns posing...

on the Fairy Lake bridge.

Admired the Fairy Land landscape.

and lilypads...

lots and lots

of

lilypads

cacti gardens

and things besides cacti to look at!

Each cactus blooms in its own way...

At last, the petrified forest! I've always wanted to see a petrified forest.

Up close.

and even closer... petrified wood is like marble.

The 30th wedding anniversary meal in Shenzen was cheap, and the photography was free!!!

So why have I not posted in such a long time?  Because, alas, was it the wine? Was it the slightly loose sandals I was wearing? Was it the fact that I was tired and hurried too much to get an empty seat on the train back to Hong Kong?  The sad story is, I did not "mind the gap", I fell into the side of the tracks, got a gash on my shin, which got infected, which landed me in the hospital, which may be the subject of my next post... and then I'll try and get back on track with some of the great international student stories I have to tell...

So stay tuned!  Blessed Holy Week!

Fantastic Creatures of Hong Kong

 Winter's cold has been lasting unusually long here in Hong Kong. Temps in the 40's and 50's F can be very chilly in unheated apartments, offices and classrooms

The season of Lent continues, with contemplation, prayer, and attempts to be of service in this world, especially for and with the poor and the poor in spirit.

But sometimes you just have to get out! One of the unique and beautiful things about the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Hong Kong is the international Christian community life - pictured are students from Myanmar, USA, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Cambodia, and Laos! Once a month the seminary "family groups" go on outings, and Friday was the day!

First order of business -- It's Dr. Wayne's family group, so that means a stop at an Indian buffet!

Yum! This is Trang, one of our two Vietnamese students this year (she's married to the only other Vietnamese student!). She's the mom of the little boy who had the honor of being LTS's youngest student ever... sitting in theology classes with his coloring books and pillow until his parents were able to get him situated in a local pre-school. Some of you will remember from earlier blog posts that it took us over 6 months and a five inch stack of paperwork to get this young family their student visas for Hong Kong.  But God is good! They've finally arrived!!!

The second part of our "family day" outing was a trip to the Hong Kong Art Museum... Fantastic Creatures!  [and so we are!]

There were a lot of dragons, dark and dastardly!

But we had no fear!

 At that time God will unsheathe his sword, 

his merciless, massive, mighty sword.
He'll punish the serpent Leviathan as it flees,
   the serpent Leviathan thrashing in flight.
He'll kill that old dragon
   that lives in the sea. 

 -- The Prophet Isaiah 27:1 (The Message version)

The Lenten Discipline of Language Study

My Lenten discipline this year is another Cantonese course.

How's it going, you may ask?

Well, see those guys on bike in the picture?  Can you tell what kind of a road they are on?  Just after I snapped this picture, the guy in the back landed on his butt in the shrubbery.  I didn't have the moxy to take his picture then.

But that's how my Cantonese is progressing. 

One humiliation after another.

So in addition to my still new job as Coordinator of International Student Affairs and Mekong Mission Assistant Coordinator (that mouthful wonderfully depicts both the fascinating range and woefully wide disarray of tasks which I am still sorting out) I am also hauling my derriere over to the Tai Wai subway station, changing trains twice, fighting the rush hour hordes to get to my two hour intensive Cantonese class on Wednesday and Friday nights.

It's not called an intensive class, but for me it is.  Very.

I sit through two alternately agonizing and comical hours of attempting to get my mouth, my memory and my mind's eye to work together to string together a comprehensible sentence in Cantonese, while a dozen other students, mostly a couple of decades younger than I, look on in either deep sympathy or undepleted boredom (I can't always tell which).

I am that person I do not, ever, want to be.  The worst in the class.

Afterwards, I take the three train lines back to Tai Wai walk the 15 minutes back to our home, and lie awake for a couple of hours, unwanted fragments of Cantonese crowding my head.

Researching the meaning of Lenten disciplines, I found this quote:
 "A discipline won’t bring you closer to God. Only God can bring you closer to Himself. What the discipline is meant to do is to help you get yourself, your ego, out of the way so you are open to His grace." (James Kushiner)

Each Wednesday and Friday night Cantonese class I am reminded how damned full of myself I really am. How much pride I take in my word choice, nuance, powers of communication, knowledge. Maybe, little by little, there is some important emptying going on with me this Lent.

So, today, as I was walking down the hill from the seminary, I had a two and a half minute conversation with our street cleaner.  In Cantonese.  And she seemed pleased to listen to me sputter out my responses.  I've been smiling ever since.

The guy on the bike in the picture? He fell, but he got up and rode on.

How is your Lenten discipline going?

"Let this same mind be in you that you have in Christ Jesus, who... emptied himself...  in human form, he humbled himself..."       Philippians 2:5-8

Ash Wednesday Walk

Add caption

⁴ “Show me, LORD, my life’s end
   and the number of my days;
   let me know how fleeting my life is.
⁵ You have made my days a mere handbreadth;
   the span of my years is as nothing before you.
Everyone is but a breath,
   even those who seem secure.

--Psalm 39

...we do not lose heart...

 I've been a bit busy lately (see attached pictures for proof :) And no, I don't dress like this every day, but I feel like it's part of putting on my "armor."  Can you tell I'm really, really trying to make a point here? (all photos taken by LTS student Zo Hming. Thanks Zo Hming!)
 
-- Prison ministry last weekend. We are doing a baptism class and may be having an upcoming baptism. Here's a situation I never learned about in seminary: some of the guys who want to be baptized were already baptized once, but it "didn't mean anything" and... this seriously bothers a couple of them ... they do 

 not have a certificate.  So we'll be doing a baptism for some of them and an "affirmation of baptism" for some others.  And everyone will get certificates, although we'll try and make the point that it's what GOD does through water and the Word which matters, not who pours the water or how much water we use (no immersion baptisms allowed in prison) or the certificates, (or lack thereof!)

Recently read this quote in Christianity Today:

"For too long, we've called unbelievers to 'invite Jesus into your life.' Jesus doesn't want to be in your life. Your life's a wreck. Jesus calls you into his life."  -- Russell D. Moore

 I love that quote!  Because as a Christian, I hate the thought that anyone would think I would even THINK of asking someone to be more like me, or more like us Christians.  Yuck!  But to teach about becoming more fully human, like Jesus was fully human... that's interesting and exciting, and something worth talking about.

Last Sunday I preached at the Truth Church in Ma On Shan. Afterwards, I got to help give communion to three elderly women living in an "senior home".  Folks, these were the tiniest rooms I've ever seen, and furnishings were sparse, to say the least.  The food I saw being ladled out for lunch was, literally, gray.

But things were clean. And the three women were delighted to receive our company.  And they prayed the Lord's Prayer with gusto. (In Chinese of course!)  What a privilege!

Wednesday I preached in seminary chapel, which is always intimidating enough to remind me that I worry WAY too much about what others will think of me.

And Wednesday and Friday night I had my CANTONESE classes (yes, folks, I'm studying Chinese again, at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.  Why I put myself through this I do not know, but maybe, maybe when I told those three elderly women I was happy to meet them and I said it in their language, maybe that meant something to them.)

I hope so. 
 
"Therefore, since it is by God's mercy that we are engaged in this ministry, we do not lose heart." -- St. Paul in his Second Letter to the Corinthians, chapter 4:1