Off To A Great Start

We just finished up an incredible week of work with a HUGE group of 31 from Kansas City. The team, consisting of adults, teens, and children, got involved with almost every aspect of our ministry...children's events, youth events, BOOK distribution, sports EV, and the orphanage.
For five mornings, they led a Children's English Camp at our little national clubhouse. About 75 children attended, and 15 made decisions to follow HIM.

Each evening, they led a youth event at our little national clubhouse. One night, the group participated in a photo scavenger hunt. This activity really cemented the relationships between the national youth and the teens from the USA.

The highlight of the week was the formation of an on-going weekly youth group. We had our first meeting last night with 25 teens participating.

We will be using 40+ chronological stories to lead these teens through an overview of HIStory during the next year. Seven teens made decisions to follow HIM during the weeklong youth events. These teens are already involved in Sunday morning service and Friday night youth group at our little national clubhouse, and Saturday English Youth Group that Esther leads in our home. We are really looking forward to seeing them be discipled into servants for HIM.

The KC group also had two opportunities to distribute BOOKS to Mainland tourists, to participate in sports EV at the local elementary school and park, to PRYwalk local temples, and to make daily visits to the orphanage. We are grateful for their investment in strengthening and expanding our existing ministries. We praise Father for all of the lives they touched for eternity.

Almost Heaven, WV 6

We have just experienced twenty days of "almost heaven". Once again, WV came through and sent us a great team of workers. This particular association has been supporting us for many years, sending us a summer "m" worker to MT in 2002, the same summer "m" worker to the Mainland in 2006, eight workers to the Mainland in 2008, four workers to our little island in 2009, and six workers to our little island this summer. Four of the six were "newbies" to our little island; so, of course, we initiated them with a traditional trip to the hot pot restaurant.

The shepherd of the group is also an artist. So, he used his talent to draw and tell the C2C story fourteen times in six days.

He shared in elementary, junior high, and university classrooms; private homes; our little national clubhouse; parks; and apartment complex courtyards.

Everywhere he shared, he was well received. Many heard HIStory for the first time. Several were very interested and asked lots of questions.

Some accepted, including a father of 4 teenagers, a grandmother, and our 13 year old neighbor.

We could not have done it without the help of co-workers, national brothers and sisters, and lots of translators.

Then, it was on to English Camp #1 and English Camp #2. Again, doors were opened into public schools through national brothers and sisters.

The highlight of English Camp is always the recreation time, including basketball, football, and other games.

As always, we used holidays to share the C2C story: Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, and Valentine's.

Special thanks to everyone who helped gather supplies. The children really enjoyed craft time.

We even recruited co-workers to help us tell HIStory. It was literally "all hands on deck" as we shared with about 75 children in English Camp #1 and about 100 children in English Camp #2.

Each child was given several gifts to tell HIStory: a copy of the BOOK, a coloring book, a comic book, and a dvd. Please ask that the children will use these items at home to share HIStory with their family and friends. May the seeds that were planted quickly come to harvest.

You Can Do This # 2

This past Monday, we had an opportunity to go to another tourist spot on our island and help a co-worker distribute BOOKS. We had a great time and were able to distribute about 800 copies of HIStory in a few short hours. It's pretty simple. YOU CAN DO THIS!
First, the buses arrive, filled with tourists. They unload at a pier on this famous lake.

Then, the tourists go out on the lake for about a one hour cruise, enjoying the beauty of HIS creation.

As they leave the boat and head back to the bus, we greet them with a free copy of HIStory.

They always immediately open the gift bags. It's very exciting to see how eager they are to read the BOOK.

Some of us get the materials ready to be distributed. Some of us hand out the materials. And, some of us talk to HIM about them. Please remember these distributions. Remember the tour bus drivers, the tour companies, the tour guides, and the tourists. May all be changed by this encounter with HIM. The tourists are here, every day, all year long. Think about coming over to help us get the WORD out. YOU CAN DO THIS!

You Can Do This!

About 3000 tourists from the BIG country visit our island every day throughout the year. While they are here, we want to give them a gift, a copy of HIStory. We have the BOOKS, we have the place, we have the people....now we just need the volunteers to distribute the books. YOU CAN DO THIS!
First, find the places where the tourists shop, eat, sleep, or explore. Wait for a tour bus with about 40 folks per bus.

Set up a sign stating: FREE BOOKS. Hand out the books and bags with dvds and booklets.

Hand out the materials as quickly as possible. While they wait for their tour buses, chat with them. Ask if they have any requests for HIM. Talk to HIM with them. Talk to them about HIM.

Watch them immediately begin to read HIStory. The tour buses come to this spot every afternoon, every day of the year. In about three hours, you can easily see hundreds of tourists. Yesterday was Day # 1 for this outreach event in our city. Yesterday, we used national siblings to distribute. Yesterday, someone's life was changed for eternity. We'd love to have someone distributing in this spot every day of the year. YOU CAN DO THIS!

Happy Mother's Day

Celebrating Mother's Day is a relatively new concept in our part of the world. But, it has DEFINITELY caught on and the flower shops and bakeries stay very busy. Carrying all of the goodies I received as gifts back home was a bit much. I got flowers from our little national clubhouse, from my daughter, from our big clubhouse, from the orphanage, and from some adopted daughters.
One highlight of Mother's Day in the USA each year to me is Baby Dedication. So, I was pleased to see our big clubhouse carrying on this tradition.

After morning services and SS, we headed off to Harmony Home to love on babies. When we first arrived, most of the younger kids were still sleeping....how precious.

But, when they woke up, they were full of energy. They love it when Jack gets down on the floor with them. They think he is a big mountain, and they crawl all over him.

We are so happy to spend quality time with the older kids each week, telling them HIStory, playing games, making crafts, singing, etc. Ten of the older kids have registered to attend VBS at our big clubhouse in July. What a great opportunity for them to learn HIS truth.

Notice any differences in our version of Monopoly over here? Bubble tea, beef noodles, dumplings, shaved ice treats....yummy.

Keep remembering us on a daily basis. Next week, we'll be doing Mother's Day Holiday Presentations in the public school classrooms using the story of Hannah and Samuel. Happy Mother's Day!

A "Typical" Day Off

We stay busy 6 days a week, mornings, afternoons, and evenings. Since there are three of us now, sometimes, we are all three doing three different things in the mornings, afternoons, and evenings. So, once a week, we try to take a WHOLE day off. And, once a month, we try to go out of our city to explore another part of our island. Usually, we know which direction we want to drive. But, most of the time, we have NO IDEA what we will do, eat, or see. It's always an adventure. Yesterday, we got into the car and headed down the east coast of our island. We knew we wanted to quickly follow the national 4 lane highway south until it ended and then slowly follow the local 2 lane highway back north until we reached our city.
The 4 lane highway ended at a small fishing village, famous for its temple to the goddess, Mazu. Our island has approximately 1000 temples dedicated to Mazu. Originally, she was the patron goddess for local fishermen. But as time went by, people begin to pray to this statue for health, careers, farming, relationships, and all sorts of concerns.

This particular temple has a jade statue of Mazu.

And, the only gold statue of Mazu on our island.

This fishing village is also famous for its fresh seafood.

Hopping back in the car, we headed further north. We were excited to find a National Museum dedicated to the Traditional Arts of our island. This museum is very well maintained and even has some English translation. There were lots of small shops selling local folk art. Artisians were at work, and (for a fee) you could try your hand at making an object.

There were even shows! Now, we have been to our fair share of amusement parks, museums, aquariums, art galleries, science centers, state fairs, zoos, etc., but it is ALWAYS an adventure to visit those kinds of places in Asia. There is just something very interesting about not having a clue what the performers are saying or doing.

Yesterday was no different. The stage was located outside of a traditional temple, so we knew the show would have some "religious" significance. The story centered around one particular figure in Asian culture, the Monkey King.

I must say this was our first trip to an amusement-type facility that featured stage shows and costumed characters concerning Asian "religious" culture. People lined up to have their photos made with these characters and to get their autographs...just like at DisneyLand.

The show was completely done in the local language, so we had to do quite a bit of internet research after we returned home to have "some" guess at what was being said or done.

The actors, actresses, costumes, etc. were very beautiful, but we most enjoyed watching the crowd. Lots of those in attendance were tourists from the Mainland. Hmmm...perhaps this would be a great spot to distribute some BOOKS in the future. We know it was a great spot to "think" about these folks and to hope that they can soon know the truth about HIStory.

Spring Time on the Island

Spring has finally come to our little island. And with the coming of spring, Esther is another year older. It's hard to believe the time has gone so quickly, and our baby girl is almost an adult. She pretty much celebrated in various ways ALL MONTH! But, one special event was the "annual" Scum Card party. Some of you may remember that Granny sent Esther a cake-decoraing kit last year. So, with a little help from the internet, she designed, baked, and decorated her own cake!
Lots of local friends helped her celebrate. These girls attend her Saturday night High School Youth Group. They also attend our BIG English clubhouse and help with VBS.

Of course, Twiggy and Sabrina were invited. They are definitely family. Twiggy is co-leading the Saturday night High School Youth Group with Esther.

Nadia is our friend from the Summer English Camp at WanLi, the Orphanage ministry at Harmony Home, and various other groups at our BIG English clubhouse. You can tell, by the lovely crown, that she won the highest honor of Queen.

Spring also gives us ample opportunity to go into public school junior high and high schools to do Holiday presentations. We were able to present HIStory of Easter to several hundred students in multiple classrooms.

We really enjoy being able to use our holiday supplies in various areas: our Wednesday night Home Book Study, the Saturday night High School Youth Group, public school holiday presentations, Summer English Camps, Awanas, our Saturday SS class at our LITTLE national clubhouse, Harmony Home Orphanage, etc. Jack has been busy laminating every thing in site, so we can use our supplies over and over and over throughout the year for many years to come.

Another highlight of the Easter season was being able to hear various choirs present special music at our BIG National Clubhouse. Even though we don't understand many of the words, we can feel HIS Spirit and can see their love for HIM on their faces. Many of Esther's Awana children partcipated in the children's choir.

And several of her high school friends from the Saturday night High School Youth Group, the Tuesday night Senior High BSF group, and VBS also participated in the Youth Choir.

It's been a wonderful season of celebrating Esther's 17th birthday and HIS resurrection. We could literally do hundreds of public school classroom presentations if we just had the manpower. Think about coming to visit us during any holiday season. We can use your help year round!