ridiculous

merry christmas to all of our friends and family that read this!

anyway, i just noticed something that reminded me of how weird hong kong can be. it's currently 13 degrees celsius (or 55 fahrenheit) and our official HK weather site posted the following:

"COLD WEATHER WARNING
Cold Weather Warning

The Cold Weather Warning is now in force.

The Hong Kong Observatory is forecasting cold weather in
Hong Kong today.

As Hong Kong is being affected by a cold winter monsoon,
people are advised to put on warm clothes and to avoid
adverse health effects due to the cold weather. You must
also ensure adequate indoor ventilation.

If you must go out, please avoid prolonged exposure to
wintry winds.

If you know of elderly persons or persons with chronic
medical conditions staying alone, please call or visit them
occasionally to check if they need any assistance.

Make sure heaters are safe before use, and place them away
from any combustibles. Do not light fires indoors as a
means to keep warm.

Whatever the temperature, please ensure that there is
plenty of fresh air in your room when you are using an
old-type gas water heater.

DISPATCHED BY HONG KONG OBSERVATORY AT 06:02 HKT ON 23.12.2008"


can you believe it!?
it's well above freezing, and we're experiencing "wintery monsoons!"
i can only imagine what they might say if HK looked like illinois or indiana right now... "run for your lives! set anything combustible on fire! do whatever is necessary to stay warm from this apocalyptic nightmare!"

then again, i suppose that kristin and i are heading to vietnam to escape the cold and relax on a beach. wish us safe travels, and we'll post some pictures when we return!

:)

why i am picture-less

i realized that i regularly write "pictures to come," and i was planning to do that again. then, i realized it's all one big lie. i write my blog posts at work, and i don't have access to my photo library since it's on our laptop. someday that will change. either i will upload photos to my work computer, or i will stop blogging at work. (sorry charles, you've discovered my secret now).

last week was thanksgiving. the holiday itself was very anticlimactic. as in, we didn't do anything. kathy, scott and grant went to the light show - does that count as exciting? nope, probably not. saturday, i cooked my first thanksgiving turkey. whoohoo! the picture of that one is on stu's mobile phone. i'm not sure he'll ever email it to me. i felt like i needed proof of a cooked turkey - mostly because that's what mom and dad always did. anyways, the turkey was great, if a bit pink in the middle. oops, the microwave has since killed off all salmonella, e coli, and whatever else comes in raw turkey. we had an american thanksgiving - turkey, stuffing, potatoes and gravy, sweet potatoes, and veggies - at a british flat.
for those of you who missed the turkey saga... i bought the smallest (and only) turkey i found at our grocery store. weighing in at a massive 8.8 pounds (for nearly 20 USD), i thought i better snatch it up. once i arrived at home, i realized that mr. turkey was about one inch too tall for our oven. luckily, i'd already invited michele and stu to eat with us, so we ate at their flat and cooked there as well. yay for bigger ovens than mine!
we had apple crumble for dessert, courtesy of michele and stu - and grant was requesting whipped cream or vanilla ice cream prior to the meal. when i asked them about this, i was given a blank look. apparently british people don't put cold cream on their hot apple crumble. instead they make hot custard. it was a first for me, but tasty indeed.

that's all i've got for thanksgiving. now life is calmer, but christmas is starting soon. funny how that happens.

hasta luego amigos...

pictures to come...

i went to the US for a week and left my camera in Hong Kong... go figure. i'm relying on family and friends to give me their pictures, and i need to upload a few off my phone.
quick highlights:
*playing cards with the siblings
*being amazed at how grown up they all are

*kim driving 6 hours round trip to hang out

*dinner with the zpc ladies and lindsey d, aka lindsey muntz (i can't not call you that!)
*coffee at the malott home
*sunrises, driving, music, long conversations
*coffee with steven wilco, the coolest ever
*the conference: well done youthspecialties. margaret feinberg is my new fave, audio adrenaline reclaimed a place of love in my music fan-dom, and my motivation and inspiration for reaching out to kids and wanting them to experience the transformation of the Lord
*a campfire, hotdogs, and s'mores at the larew home
*watching a colts game - i do love american football, it's true
*getting a free book by meeting an author at the airport
*making all my connections in both directions and having no problems with the airlines!!
*getting home and seeing grant
it was a beautiful, relaxing, amazing trip, and it was easy to slip back into normalcy of the US - being at home with my family, and driving around and going to a conference with joy. conversations came easily with people i haven't seen in over a year (or longer!), and i was encouraged just by seeing people and talking about life, marriage, work, faith. yet, at the end of the week, at the airport with joy, i was excited to be getting back on the plane. i had a husband to see, a ministry to work on, kids to love, and frisbee to play. some of my heart will forever be in the USofA, but my home truly is in Hong Kong.

grant and i leave for indonesia on monday - pray for the kids' hearts to be transformed through service, and for safety.
oh, and grant's birthday is tomorrow (november 7). send him an email or a facebook message. frankeg [at] ics [dot] com.

one more side note, Go Obama! :-D i know that he's not a messiah/savior/fixer of all evils in america, but i am excited to see what happens under his leadership.

a wild weekend

thursday night was passion: hong kong.  absolutely amazing and fun!!  the venue was small enough, and set up in such a way that you could CLEARLY see the stage, no matter where you were sitting.  the blog said there were 2100 people present - mostly young people.

i haven't been to a huge worship event in a long while, of jumping up and down, singing loudly, and hearing a great preacher (hats off to louie giglio... may we all be fruitcakes for jesus!).  it was really clear that the Spirit was present.  grant and i were talking about the challenge of slipping into emotional highs in those kinds of settings, but i also know that there is something refreshing in having those moments from time to time.  no, my faith doesn't thrive on exciting, high paced, crazy moving, loud, lights, pizzazz, and such... but those events are a chance to be lost in worship, singing to the King of all, and celebrating with thousands of others around you.  and then those moments provide refreshment for later.  i think one difference between something like passion and church worship is that i don't have to think about anything when it's not at church :-)  when i'm at my own church, i'm sometimes leading, always aware of the students i'm with, etc.  when i'm at someone else's church, i'm looking at how they do things, noticing what's different, unique, cool, could be adapted for our church, etc... at a big event like passion, those distractions aren't present - we can't put that in our church, problem solved! :-)

the whole thing got done at 11:30 or later, and then getting home on a school night was pretty late.  our sleep schedules are so messed up.  when we got home, i was still on a bit of a rush from the concert - ears ringing, eyes tired, but wide awake inside.  i said to grant, "concerts give me a better buzz than drinking does!"

for more photos and the "official" blog, visit this blog.

less than 24 hours later, i was at a youth camp in fanling (aka, almost china, in the new territories) for a youth retreat.  we had just over 40 high school students from at least 4 different churches attend this retreat: love actually - aka, a relationships and purity retreat.  praise Jesus that He can take care of logistical issues, nitty gritty details that we haven't planned for!!!  saturday night was a prime-time example.  we decided it would be a cool idea for the guys to surprise the girls with a "nice" dinner - dress up, flowers, escorts, etc.  the camp said "no, you can't bring in nice food.  you have to eat in the cafeteria.  maybe you can decorate tables...."  well, saturday night rolled around, and we were about a half hour behind schedule and found out that the cafeteria would be closed, and there was no chance of us eating in the cafeteria.  the teens and adult guys hauled tables and chairs to our meeting room, set up candles and roses, and ordered pizza and soda while the girls primped.  in other words, the whole thing happened exactly the way we'd wanted in the first place!!  what was cool was that the girls were able to feel really treasured, valuable, and special - even though they were being served and treated by guys they may have only barely known.  anyways, God really did work, and i heard enough kids comment on my talk saturday night that i can just pray God lets it stick, take hold of their hearts, and remind them to stay committed to purity and living in the light!  

now, it's time to sleep a lot tonight on a SOFT bed (you thought camp beds in the US were bad?  wait til you try hong kong...) and not do ANYTHING tomorrow!!

september recap

wow, it's been a long time since we posted.

blank blog pages have started becoming a source of writer's block for me.  looking at the blank entry, i feel a need to write something exciting, profound, unusual, unique.  in truth, life feels fairly normal right now.  though, normal is go-go-go.  we've had a lot going on in the past month.  youth group kicked off at the beginning of september with messy games and a junk trip on friday-saturday.

that Sunday, there was a beach hat tournament for frisbee.  i played as a pick-up after church was done, and grant captained team fluorescent yellow:

the next weekend, there was a public holiday, and grant volunteered his time to help me with a youth ultimate tournament for kids at our church and around other churches and schools.

just when things seemed they would get calm for me, grant was in the throes of planning middle school camp.  200 students plus faculty and adults!!  oh, and it had to be replanned twice because a typhoon came through, cancelling school.  of course.

here's a picture of grant in his fat suit:

the other big event of september was "super 'stache september."  grant and a bunch of other teachers decided to have a moustache contest.   they grew beards, goatees, etc, until the one monday when they had to shave them into a moustache for people to vote on the best one.  (we used mascara to darken grant's).  grant landed somewhere in the middle.  here's a picture of the moustachioed men.  

i think those are basically the highlights of september.  we had a few typhoons, lots of frisbee, and general life.  the next few months don't look any slower either.  this weekend will be the "Love Actually V" retreat - an annual HK youth retreat for high schoolers talking about dating, relationships, and purity.  next weekend is the hong kong tournament.  the day after, i visit the states for a week for a conference.  mid-november will bring grant's school service trip to indonesia (and i'll be a chaperone).  then a few days later, kathy and scott visit!!  

don't expect lots of posts anytime soon :-)  sorry we've been so slow!

singapore: mud, food, and frisbee

we went to singapore last weekend for a tournament. i'd say it was probably one of my favorite tournaments this year. we played fairly well as a team, won more games than we lost (4-3), finished 5th (per usual), and had a good time. less anxiety and tensions overall :-) the first day we won our first and last game, which put us 3rd in our pool going into Sunday. this meant sleeping in and getting a first round bye! we won our pre-quarters game, and then lost a close quarterfinals game :-( that was the most frustrating game, by far.

grant had an amazing tournament - great defense, lots of blocks, lots of layouts, and great cuts. oh, and a great huck to the endzone for a score!

my play wasn't spectacular or terrible. i was happy (overally) with how i played, minus a few stupid drops. we played a lot of zone o and d. zone d is super tiring, and somehow i end up in the cup a lot which runs the most... on o, i handled a lot, and i don't think i really turned it over in a zone as handler, so that was good, right? :-)

food in singapore is so good. the fields were across the street from a hawker market: cooked food stalls with singaporean, chinese, indian, sri lankan, and more for REALLY cheap prices. then, saturday night, lily and jon invited us to go with them to chinatown for food (we skipped the party... oops :-P) basically there were two streets that were nothing but food stands, so we ate our way down the row! good times. lily has all those pictures on her camera... (if you read this, i want those!)

but here are a few pictures from the second day of the tournament:

*i'm not altogether certain what grant's doing in that picture

*can you find the feet under the mud? tough, i know.

update...

so that typhoon 8 we had?  escalated to typhoon 9 - the first time in 5 years that the T9 has been called by the HK observatory.  cool.  we had a direct hit by typhoon nuri.  now as exciting as this could have been, it was a bit of a letdown, we felt.  i think our last typhoon 8 felt much windier and rainier overall.  still, pretty cool to have a day off work and school.  a bunch of teachers came over to our flat for lunch, olympics, nerts, and hang out time.  

speaking of olympics [digression begins here]... i'm very sad they're over.  nothing left on TV to watch and discuss!  i also have a really mixed perspective on this year's.  on one hand, there were some AWESOME events, athletes, etc to follow.  and really, china did pull them off without a tactical or organizational hitch (except having swimming and gymnastics during the work day... boo NBC).  at the same time, i read a lot of the news articles surrounding some of the human rights issues with the olympics, protesters, volunteers, etc.  and that then makes me sad.  maybe it's the western, individual culture side of me that says "each person should have their basic rights" whereas china views the overall group/state/government as more important.  i don't know.  but some of it was pure showmanship.  "sure, we'll have protest zones.  look, nobody is using them!... did we mention that we hadn't approved any of the protest applications?"  

so am i against the olympics?  no way.  i think china did a heck of a job, but at what cost?  (a yahoo article).

back to actual life in hong kong: probably the best thing about the typhoon was saturday's weather: cool, low humidity, and absolutely stunning views because of the air clarity.  in other words, a great day for each disc, dinner in the plaza, and a night out in soho with the new teachers (and some old ones).

i love weekends!!

T-8

I think this is our 3rd T-8 this summer.  I'm excited.

[Clarification: T-8 means there are high winds because there's a typhoon in the neighborhood.  Everything shuts down, you're not required to go to work, etc.]

Grant's even more excited.  He had a late night last night at Back-to-School night, and now he gets to sleep in!

Rumor has it, there may be a direct hit on HK tonight.  Could be exciting!!!

a week of superlatives in hong kong

saturday, august 3 = most perfect summer day

 we woke up early and went wakeboarding for our first time with john and lily.  (wakeboarding = snowboarding on water)  very very fun.  grant got up relatively quickly, and i'd had a tiny bit of practice one other time, so i had no problems, until i would try to go outside the wake, and then i would fall.  can't wait to try again! 

we stopped by lily and jon's flat, then changed clothes for a day out on a junk trip.  junks are pleasure boats that people take out for a day (either renting or owning), stock up on food and drinks, and drive out to a bay somewhere around the many (200) islands of Hong Kong.  our boat had about 45 people on it, was paired up with another boat of the same number, and i knew about 15 :-)  good times.  lots of sun, diving into the water, trying to catch frisbees while diving, diving through inner tubes, etc etc.  in other words, a perfect summer day.  here's a picture of michele and me towards the end of the day.

 

Wednesday = Craziest weather

it was a typhoon 8 day!  where we live, nothing too exciting happens, but windspeeds in parts of hong kong reached 150km/hour.  however, it meant that grant's first day back to work was cancelled, i didn't go into the office, and we stayed home and watched the three Bourne movies. 

Friday = awesome Olympics opening

i'm an olympic junkie.  i'll admit it without shame.  every four years, i get very excited in the sports i don't follow the rest of the time - gymnastics, diving, swimming, even volleyball and basketball!  so when the opening ceremonies come on, i try to watch the whole thing, and i love the pageantry and showiness of it all.  this year's was amazing.  we'll give china some props for that.  my personal favorite? the little 9 year old carrying the flags next to yao ming from china.  

Saturday = best beach ultimate

every saturday (almost) we play beach ultimate in the summer.  this week was my favorite.  we went to a beach that grant and i hadn't been to yet called shek o.  the sand was super soft and didn't hurt my feet, the water was clean (or as clean as it gets in HK) when you wanted to cool off, and there was a great thai restaurant nearby.  

Sunday = best food day

dim sum for lunch, and sushi for dinner.  could it get any better?  no, no it couldn't.  

a year already?

last week, grant and i took a 5 day trip to get away from rainy hong kong and to celebrate one year together! whoohoo!
the trip: good overall, with lots of hangups along the way that got sorted out. i'd show you pictures, but that was one of the hangups. while wading a bit deep in water, grant forgot his bag was in the ocean and carrying the camera. we'll get that one sorted out soon! the ocean was full of seaweed/algae, but the pools were beautiful at our hotel. lagoon shaped, flowers, waterfalls, shallow ledges you could lay on, etc. we spent a LOT of time by the side of the pool!
i've moved past my anti-seafood days. it started back in september with sushi, followed by my first trip to the philippines and tuna, and now i think i'm over it. though i still prefer chicken! for our anniversary dinner, we went to a seafood restaurant where they have the fish swimming around, you pick what you want, and they grill it for you. so delicious!

it's really hard to believe that it's been a full year since we got married, and only a few days short of a full year in hong kong. the weather is doing a good job reminding me of our arrival here - hot, hot, and more hot! i think that because we're always meeting new people and new friends, it seems like we've just become settled. perhaps that will keep on going the whole time we live here with the amount of transience in this city.

it's been a blessed year!

youth mission trip to cambodia

we spent 6 days in cambodia with 8 youth and 2 other adults on a mission trip with Foursquare Children of Promise. our goal: to paint the inside and outside of one of their orphan homes in Battambang Province. our bigger goal: to introduce our students to service and deeper relationships with the Lord. we definitely accomplished the bigger goal, and sort of accomplished the first goal!

here's a bunch of pictures in no particular order

*Grant scaring the geese - also known as the Pharisees, according to one student.

**Sharon having a thumb war with a student

**Olin and the guys

**the Our Kcheay orphan kids praying a blessing over us as we prepared to leave

**Olin and Grant behaving VERY well...

**the Our Kcheay home, prepainting

**the Our Kcheay home post-painting!

**our team

**Distributing clothes we brought from HK

**Playing lots of frisbee

frisbee my love

we spent this weekend in shanghai for a frisbee tournament.  sadly, we left the camera at home... it would have been awesome to capture a few moments.  our flight and hotel package was the best deal we could have imagined.  essentially the package cost the same amount as the flight would have cost on its own.  the hotel included in the package wasn't your run-down motel 6 either.  we're talking amazing, awesome, beautiful, huge breakfast buffet, hot tub and pool, mini spa changing rooms, etc.  not bad for basically free!  

the tournament was great too.  it's been raining a LOT in hong kong, so our practice fields have been mudpits (with a little bit of sewer stench), so it was a great change of pace to play on actual grass - cushy, a little slick with rain, and perfect for layouts!  

our team did alright in the end.  i think we got 5th?  we went 1-3 the first day (bummer), and 2-1 the second day (much better).  both grant and i felt ok about our play, but not great.  some games were really good for me, some really awful.  games where i could catch anything, and games where i dropped everything.  my favorite part was  our "honey score."  grant had the disc near the right side of the field, and i was wide open in the left corner of the endzone.  he totally faked out his defender for a beautiful backhand pass across the field to me.  :-D  yay!

the 2nd day was a lot more relaxed, fun, and silly.  lots of vipers, our captain finally got pantsed (after bragging about being "impregnable"), and some fun spirited teams to play.  between the semifinals and the finals, they held a women's exhibition game where any women from all the teams got together and played basically a pickup game of women only.  awesome!!  i'd love to play a bit more ladies' ultimate.

i love frisbee.

now we're getting ready for a mission trip to cambodia with our youth!  lots to do this week... 

pictures from joy and chris's visit

As promised, the photos from joy and chris's visit

I love dim sum!!

waiting for the ferry

looking cute at church

on our hike

katie, joy, chris and me.  we don't want to touch each other because it's SOOO hot!

at the temple street night market

the sullivans come to visit!

for those of you following along with our blog (and i'm not sure how many of you there are - leave a comment!), you may remember my dear friend joy from zionsville?
joy and i were interns together in 06-07 at zionsville pres. church, and we were, self-admittedly, pretty much each other's friend in town. (though we had a few other contacts, don't worry, we weren't that big of dorks!)

while joy and i were being great friends, we made our fiances tag along and become friends as well on the weekends. and oh how well it worked. a great scheme of ours, i believe.

well, these two lovely people - joy and chris- got married almost a year ago (yay congrats!), and we got married a month later and left for the other side of the world. they promised a visit out to us, and it actually was able to happen!

they got here last friday and stayed for a week, just leaving this morning. i'll put up pictures from our exploits in HK later (when i get the photos uploaded), but it was an awesome week of playing cards, going to the beach, seeing the tourist sights, and just being able to live life together for a week.

friends are a blessing from God. i'm thoroughly convinced of it, and this week was an amazing reminder of it. i remember a sermon that pastor glenn gave last year at zpc about friends. he talked about how God grants us 2 kinds of good friends: friends of the road and friends of the heart. friends of the road are those people that come into our life for a short time and are so incredibly important during that phase in our life: the friend from summer camp, the classmates who helped you through that tough course, or even a great acquaintance that comes into our life at one time. these people are incredibly valuable and important to us, if only for a season. and God uses them to touch our life in that moment. but then there are friends of the heart who last through all seasons of life. these are friends who we may grow apart in interests or career, but who remain "soul friends." thank God for those people as well!

we will rock you

Last night, Grant and I went to see We Will Rock You - the musical based on Queen's music. It was everything you could want in a musical: recognizable songs to sing along with, sensory overload in the scenery, costumes, dance numbers, clapping along with the actors during "We will rock you," singing to "We are the Champions," etc. Definitely a blast. We went with two of our frisbee friends, Stu and Michele, so that was good times as well.

Probably the best part was our seats. We bought the cheap tickets - 2nd floor gallery on the side, row L or something... We were moved to the lower floor, row S! Our ticket value went from HK350 to HK700 simply by showing the usher our ticket and being directed to the upgrade booth. :-D

The libretto of the musical was a lot of fun because there were SO many pop culture references - mostly mocking the boy bands, the girl bands, the pop stars, etc. Also, random lyrics from well-known songs thrown in: quotes from Queen (obviously), the Beatles, and more. They even did some tailored HK references a few times to Cantopop stars and places in HK. Added value for the audience.

If the show is ever anywhere near you, go see it!

random thoughts

 we ordered pizza hut last night with the students.  the boxes were still on the table this morning, and i noticed the box.  "Experience European Sensation."  Who are you kidding?!  Pizza Hut is a purely American invention.  sigh.

On an unrelated note, i think God is trying to teach me to quit sleeping in.  this is the 2nd day in the row where it's started raining as soon as I've thought of leaving the house.  If i had left at my normal time today, I'd already be at work.  instead, i'm going to go slog through the rain again.  dangit.  

michelle's visit

michelle (my sister) came to visit for about 10 days.  she just left today :-/  so i'm taking the opportunity to use all her photos that she uploaded on our computer and post them on here!

we ate dim sum, sushi, mongolian barbecue, and cheap cantonese food

rode the tram to the peak

shopped in the markets

hiked to a beach in sai kung

went to another beach and took a junk boat back to the harbour for the light show.

played ultimate

went to museums (it rained a lot)

took a cruise with grant's 8th graders

watched indiana jones, enchanted, and juno

played a lot of guitar hero

taught michelle cribbage

see what you're missing?  i know you want to visit now!!

Photos in non-chronological order:

**Grant likes Indiana Jones

**On the ferry after hiking to the beach and back

**Out in Sai Kung

**Grant fights Bruce Lee

**Such cute sisters

**There was a comic book exhibition

**under the fountain at HK park

**The Peak Tram

**Waiting for a table at Sushi One.  It's a Lily sandwich!

**Big Buddha

**Grant likes Indiana Jones

i've been meaning to link to this blog

i was introduced to a funny blog by the youthspecialties updates i get each week. this blog is all about "stuff christians like." it follows after the theme of "stuff white people like." this post was the best though:

http://stufffchristianslike.blogspot.com/2008/05/205-frisbee-gods-favorite-sport.html

check it out.

a quick update since it's been awhile

it's been awhile, so i thought i'd throw a few highlights up... i don't have any pictures really, since i'm at work :-D

*in the beginning of April, we went to the states for garret's wedding. garret was the best man in our wedding, and grant's best friend of all his life. it was beautiful, warm, sunny, blue skies, clear air, being able to drive a mazda 3, shop at target, sit at a pool and hot tub, see kathy and scott, celebrate love and weddings, and then make our quick trip back to hong kong.

*grant did the 30 hour famine with his 8th grade students, including an overnight the week we got back. i was only able to be there for a short time, but it was a blast spending the night with the kids! they all seemed to have really been impacted by the fasting and the games they had played.

*confirmation sunday came and went, and was quite awesome. 5 kids were confirmed, after spending about 3 months with mentors from the congregation. grant was a mentor for a cool kid named jannes.this is me and a couple of our kids: olin and jannes (not related! not even the same nationality!!)

*our friend from university, anna, came to visit from china during a long weekend, and we went and watched the olympic torch run through hong kong.

*this weekend, we visited the "billiards house" down the street from our flat. very quiet, somber, and serious pool playing. the guys didn't end up playing pool, but rather a game called "snooker" that's british. crazy.

*michelle comes to visit in 2 weeks!

other than that, it's been a lot of frisbee, church and youth group, grading for grant and getting ready for the end of the year!

our summer plans so far: one weekend trip to shanghai for a tournament, one week mission trip to cambodia, and hopefully a one week vacation trip to phuket, thailand in mid-july.

when i was talking to a friend recently, he pointed out the strange juxtaposition that is life for us (and him, as he is in egypt). on one hand, we have daily life that is no different (really) from what it would have been in the states - hanging out with friends, playing frisbee, and working. on the other hand, our life sounds wild with travels, olympic torches, and becoming accustomed to hong kong. i realized as i walked down a busy road the other day that the abundance of neon lights and people barely fazed me.

the wonders of cambodia

we spent 6 days in cambodia, 3 in phnom penh, and 3 in siem reap (near angkor wat).  

the first half of the trip was to scout the mission trip that we're taking the youth on this summer.  we were able to visit the genocide museum (haunting), and then drive out to the orphanage where we'll be helping paint.

the second half was pure enjoyment :-D

i feel like the Angkor kingdom is one you never hear about in western history - it was big, but not necessarily big enough to learn about.  anyways, they left these massive ruins and temples.  only gods could live in stone and bricks, so there's no buildings left from everyday life.  

for once, grant and i took lots of pictures.  over 400 to be precise.  so, i'm not going to load them into blogger, because it takes FOREVER!!   instead, here's the links to the facebook albums (which are quicker when connected through iphoto! :-D)

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2036224&l=44458&id=40800939

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2036225&l=d485f&id=40800939

easter skies

today as i walked to the ferry for church, i realized that it felt like a new day. besides the fact that the streets were basically empty before 8 AM on a Sunday, something else was in the air.
or rather, was not in the air!
since thursday, it's been grey outside, with threats of rain, low lying clouds, and lots of smog. in short, terrible visibility and dreariness abounded.
but not today.
as i got to the ferry pier, i realized that i could see in perfect clarity the colors of the buildings in every direction as far as the mountains on both kowloon side and the island. it's been awhile since i could see the tops of buildings, or their shapes, instead seeing indistinct forms of what might be buildings.
in short, amazing.

reminded me ofthe easter resurrection, new life, and new creations from the death, despair and dirt of good friday.

may we always live in the resurrection
the promises of life
without forgetting the pains of good friday

he is risen indeed!

observations on hong kong, based loosely out of yahoo! news

for the second or third time this month, hong kong made it into the yahoo! news headlines, which surprised me. generally, american media (digital and print) is heavily concentrated on the states, and on western politics (europe, latin america, things that directly affect the US, in other words). i can't remember reading much about hong kong under the "top world stories" in recent years (then again, I wasn't looking for it). anyways, here's the top 3 things that you would have learned about hong kong from yahoo news in recent days:

1) there was a big scandal with compromising photos being released of some young celebrities. i didn't see them, but i can't imagine they were anything worse than most of the US stuff that gets released "accidentally."

2) there was a flu outbreak. for the record, this massive outbreak has not affected my everyday life. there's plastic over the buttons in the elevator to ease sterilization efforts. that's it. while my heart goes out to the families who did lose children, there have only been 10 cases admitted to the hospital in the past week. that's out of the approximately 7 million people who live in hong kong. don't worry about us, the odds are with us right now.

3) there's now a serial killer on the loose, who has killed 4 sex workers. first, the fact that we use such a euphemism here gives you an idea of the prevalence of such an "industry." i read today that there are approximately 100,000 sex workers in hong kong. that's ridiculous. i understand being concerned about the murderer on the loose, but what's our reaction to the sex industry? nothing. meanwhile, we're up in arms about some photos of some celebs let out online. get real folks!

primary school madness

i think this week is when Grant wishes he were a primary school teacher.

In Hong Kong, there was a flu outbreak at a primary school, with something like 35 kids showing symptoms. one of those kids died. there have been 4 deaths of kids under age 8 from flu like symptoms (and sometimes also other complications). i think the government is pretty nervous because this is the 5th anniversary of SARS, so they're taking extra measures to not let something like that happen again.

first, they closed the school where all the kids were sick.

as of today, every primary school, kindergarten, preschool, and special ed school is closed for the next two weeks. they figure that little kids are impossible to keep hygienic - they touch everything, everyone, and spread germs rather quickly.

i can't imagine being a parent. it's one thing in the states to have an unexpected snow DAY because usually the parents have troubles getting to work as well... but an unexpected two week holiday? there were loads of kids being dragged around the grocery store today, out playing basketball, etc.

very strange, very strange indeed...

the story of my life

isn't that the truth?

for more fun garfield comics, minus the garfield (thanks for the link lily!) check this site:

http://garfieldminusgarfield.tumblr.com/

free chatting

hey!

just a quick reminder... if anyone has a microphone or a camera on their computer, we can talk over the internet for free...

www.skype.com

our username is grantandkristin :-)  just add us to your contacts if you add skype!

45,000 HKD

45,000 HKD was the goal for the 30 hour famine. not entirely an arbitrary number. It takes very near to 3,000 HKD to feed a child for a year through World Vision. My goal was to have 15 kids from our youth group participate in the 30HF this year. 15x3,000= 45,000.

The deal was that if they raised that money, I would dye my hair the color of their choice. We're well over that amount, and they haven't all turned in their money.

So I went to the hair salon today to uphold my end of the deal....

a very long 30 hours

This past Friday-Saturday, we joined 20+ kids from church in doing a 30 hour fast to raise money for World Vision.  Most of them didn't think they could do it, and I think they were surprised that they could.  They ate breakfast before school, and then came to church in the evening to spend the night til lunch on Saturday.  We started off with some board games, and then went into opening worship, welcome, and a short quiet time.

**twister is a popular game**

**doing a devotional**

There's a lady at our church, Debbie, who works for a Christian charity called Crossroads International.  Crossroads collects unwanted goods from Hong Kong and ships them around the world - furniture, clothes, toys, you name it.  They also run simulations to teach about world poverty, so she did that for us at the church.  This simulation was based on a true story of a family in India who makes a living making paper bags.  The family groups had to make enough paper bags to pay for food and rent each week, while facing medical problems, etc.

**a family group making paper bags out of newspaper, and glue (flour and water)**

**Grant was Mr. Deepahdebt - the loan shark who lived under the bridge**

The rest of the night we wrote letters to students in the Philippines whose education is sponsored by our church, played "Romans and Christians," did a short quiet time, and then a midnight candlelight worship service (don't look at the carpet in the sanctuary anymore...)

In the morning, we had a prolonged quiet time, and then some time for just hanging out - scrabble, chess, jenga, and slacklining...

**Olin (a high school student) owns a slackline - something similar to a tightrope, so he taught and spotted a bunch of the kids**

We then broke into groups for a photo scavenger hunt around various sites in Hong Kong.

**one group at the "cataract"**

**The Peak Tram in the background**

**another "waterfall" photo

When we returned, we had enough time to clean up, do some reflection, and prepare for lunch.  Before lunch, a pastor from another church came to lead the kids in some worship time, as well as communion as a way to break the fast.  It was both meaningful and difficult - meaningful because he really had them thinking about sacrifice, the blessings of food, and Christ's love; difficult because they sat around the lunch table (with food on it) while he talked to them!

**chowing down on pasta, rice, fruit, veggies, chicken, and dessert!**

**some of the kids who "survived"**

Overall, my prayer for the weekend had been for kids to really meet God during the fasting - after all, that's the true reason why we fast.  As I was looking through some of their reflections, it seemed like some of them were starting to really get to know God - a very cool thing.  One outward sign that I noticed was their willingness to step outside of their comfort zone and actually sing during worship :-)  We don't do worship (musical) that often during our youth group times (mostly because i don't play an instrument or lead worship), so it's something very uncomfortable for many of them.  It was really neat to see them go from not singing AT ALL on Friday evening, to being willing to sing (almost loudly) on Saturday afternoon.  I know that's just an outside sign, but at least it's comfort with worshipping together.  Another cool thing - I have a student who is very puzzling to me.  Some times he's a real punk, and sometimes he's really a cool kid.  He's loud, so he's either misbehaving or contributing really well.  This morning at church, we arrived in between the 2 services, and he was leaving from the 1st service (traditional worship), and told us he'd already gone to church.  I assumed that a) his parents were there for something else, or b) he had been told he had to go to church if he wanted to go out with friends.  Interestingly, his family wasn't at church at either service so it seems like that was his own choice!  

Another cool thing is that the kids really outdid themselves fundraising, and the church really showed its willingness to give to the youth for something like this.  We (I) had set our fundraising goal at HK 45,000 - enough to feed 15 kids for a year (approx.).  At the moment, I haven't counted it all, and the kids haven't turned in all their money, but we're looking at near HK 50-60,000 that will be donated to World Vision.  

Actually, the real reason the kids were so gung-ho about raising money (except for maybe 2 of them), was because I gave them outside incentive... If they raised HKD 45,000, I told them I would dye my hair whatever color they wanted....

the next post will be photos of my hot pink hair.

I'm super thankful to God for the whole weekend - 

-all the adults who brought food, led worship, stayed the night, came for bits and pieces

-kids bringing friends who were (whether they wanted to or not) introduced to a side of God that loves and cares for everyone in the world

-the whole weekend went rather smoothly, and it was my first "big" event that I'd ever had to do on my own

-the Holy Spirit's strong presence at the midnight worship and the Communion break-fast

Praise God :-D