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

a February vacation

a great thing about working in Hong Kong is public holidays. there are a lot of them. Christmas, New Year's, Easter, plus a bunch of religious festivals, and then, the best yet, Chinese New Year - 3 days off for everyone. (and more if you're a teacher). in December, we found out that 3 of the teachers grant works with and a teacher from another school were going to Boracay in the Philippines for the holidays, so we decided to go with them. Boracay has an amazing reputation for white sand beaches, so we thought that sounded pretty perfect in February. And how it was...

the good things:
*great food and eating on the beach
*playing Scrabble and reading on the beach
*playing beach ultimate with the Boracay team
*sunny weather
*snorkeling and lots of fish!
*jonah's fruitshakes
*hanging out at the other girls' hotel
*very minimal sunburns for both of us!

the bad things:
*our hotel room. i suppose we only paid $30 a night, but still... a sink would have been nice, as well as a seat on the toilet bowl! at least things seemed clean, if not comfortable.
*both of us catching colds - how does that work?! luckily we're both nearly over them.

I think the good outweighs the bad... here are the photos:


This is the boat that took us from the island where the airport was to Boracay


we booked a boat to go snorkeling, but they stopped off at a little island first, where we had to pay (of course) to see some caves. there were also some random statues of bulls. I don't know why, but the natural thing to do is ride the bull, right?
this was the stairwell in and out of the caves
grant and the weird statue man
inside one of the caves


an accurate representation of how we spent our time (that's a great book, by the way)


the water is the same color as a pool would be!


I thought this picture looked like one of the backgrounds they would give you as a default on your computer


the 5 girls on the trip - 4 teachers and me!


sunset!


at night, local families would make intricate sand castles and creations. taking a picture basically meant giving a donation.

whoops...

sorry it's been awhile! grant started a post after vietnam, but blogger wasn't working too well, so it never got posted (perhaps it will come another day). until then, here's a photoblog of our trip to Vietnam and the tournament, some January fun, and Steven's visit and our daytrip to Macau :-)


grant and the fruit shakes - he averaged 2-3 a day... not a huge expense at $.60 each!


a plane from the vietnam war


on the boat tour with our cool hats :-)


the tiny cu chi tunnels. the village of cu chi was near saigon, and the communist army built these tunnels to hide and fight the south. very interesting!


our royal blue team at the hat tournament... too bad we lost a lot!


however, grant scored the most points of anyone in the tournament!


teena lee, the sister of an ICS teacher, came to visit!!


a cathedral and art museum in macau


Jesus was put in a box!!


grant, me and steven in front of the st. paul's ruins. once a nice church and school, there was a fire, leaving only the stone facade.


in macau, i guess they think you can make your pets use one toilet only.


a close up of the sign


look! we're in venice! Or, a few thousand miles away...the venetian casino in macau is THE place to go right now, so we did too!


massage chairs at the ferry terminal! that's what i like to see...


at a pub in HK, watching the AFC playoff games... think he can fit it in his mouth? yes he can!


It's been freezing in Hong Kong - and you might laugh, but it's true. the temps have barely gone over 50 in the past two weeks, and it's been drizzly and misty and gray. oh, and there's not great heat in any building, so space heaters are our best friends. however, i love walking through hong kong park, because they've planted loads of flowers!! beautiful warmth in the middle of the dreariness. I also get a kick out of laughing at all the people getting their wedding portraits done - a pitying, "boy i'm glad i'm not you" kind of laugh...



so, this week, it's chinese new year - the biggest holiday here. someone said, "it's like thanksgiving and christmas rolled into one." we decided to head somewhere warm with some of the other teachers... boracay, here we come! (white beaches, snorkeling... i'm excited)