i wish i'd taken pictures....

but since i didn't, we're going to stick with words. however, i'm hoping for some photos from one of the other girls, at which point they'll end up on here.

this weekend, grant and i spent all day saturday and sunday out playing ultimate at the HK pan-asian tournament. 12 teams from shanghai, beijing, singapore, bangkok, manila, korea, and other asian places all converged upon the tiny SAR of hong kong for some awesome tourney fun.

highlights:
*grant's team (star fairies) went 4-1 for the weekend, not including one other loss when they combined with the 3rd HK team for a fun game at the end of the day.
*an awesome star fairies game that was 8-8 at the cap, ending with a win by star fairies!
*grant was mentioned by many of his teammates as an unofficial mvp for his team (heck yeah, that's MY husband!! bet you wish you were that lucky...;-))
*an unfortunate 0-3 start by kristin's team (junk), but a second day that was 2-1 (the only loss coming to the eventual runner-ups in the tournament).
*a demolishing win against singapore (13-5) in the consolation round for 5th place. highlight of that game - one of our teammates making a defensive interception off their first pass for a point! (aka, a callahan). frickin awesome.
*the commentary on the final game: ringers of fire v. shanghai...especially, "let's hope [anonymous ringers player] has better luck with the disc than he did with either of the kristins"...did he really say that out loud?? yes, yes he did..
*grant's principal coming out to watch our games! how cool is that...
*free beer at the end of each day
*free food and drinks at parties friday and saturday nights
*free crocs and new discs
*good weather!

bet you wish you played ultimate :-D

church and frisbee.... that's kristin's life

it was a good times at youth group this past week. 8 senior high students - 2 of whom were first timers to the high school group (not first timers to the church though). it ended with olin and jannes toilet papering my fan, which shot the tp all over the office. nicely done guys.



then friday night, we had about 15 junior high kids come to watch the lion, the witch and the wardrobe, including a few new friends who were brought. also, good times.

saturday, we had 8 kids join us to go out to play frisbee on the beach. you would think more would come, but hey, we'll start with that!! we also invited a few people from our frisbee team to come, and that was great to have them along as well (thanks uli and alicia!)



yup that's my husband



some good defense :-D



youth event = junk food

after the beach time, grant and i went out with uli and alicia twice - once for dinner, and then way later (after a nap) for a 3AM rugby viewing - world cup semifinals england v. france.

we also found out that we did make teams for the tournament at the end of the month... little less than 2 weeks! sadly, we're not on the same team, but it'll be tons of fun anyways :-D

the crisp fall air....

well, not quite, but it's definitely cooler this week than it's been yet, and it feels great! (by cooler, i mean 23-28 degrees Celsius, so still around 80.)
it's hard to believe that we're in October, and nearly half way through!
grant and i are still beating up our bodies in training for the HK tournament at the end of the month - 3 hour sunday practices, 1-2 hour conditioning on Tuesdays, and league games on wednesdays. it's flippin sweet. but, unfortunately, sleep is being cut out of our schedules quickly!

hanging out with kids is still a blast. a lot of my time is spent at the church, but also doing some stuff at ics with meeting kids for lunch once in awhile and helping with swim team. (hopefully more often at some point).

i'm off to the philippines again next month, this time with a group of about 10 people, including 4 youth. prayers for their eyes to be open, their hearts to be soft would be stellar.

and prayers for my heart to be soft and my mind to stand firm would also be most appreciated. i've had a rough few weeks for no reason other than my mind and my heart fighting a lot.

until next time,
bye-bye!*

*standard closing to any conversation in hk

just some general posts on awesome things in life right now

since we haven't put much up here, here's just an information post...

some great things that have been happening -
*last week, ICS took their middle school students to camp, and i was privileged to be their speaker for their sessions. in between time though, i was free to hang out with them and get to know them for 3 days. it was a blast to be outdoors for three days in a COMPLETELY different part of hong kong, hanging out with middle school students, and being able to see the ministry of the ICS teachers at work. the talks went alright, though i was incredibly nervous!

*i love ultimate frisbee, and i'm completely obsessed. grant and i have been playing regularly in the league as we mentioned, and last night was just another great night. we played a long game against the previously unbeaten team. we were down 7-8 at the half, and scored the next 6 points after half until the lights went out. it was a fantastic, tough, and good spirited game. then (as has become routine for us) we went out with some people for a beer, appetizers, and peanut shell throwing fun.

*for mid-autumn festival, one of the ICS parents invited a bunch of the teachers over, so it was awesome (for me) to be able to see some of those folks again and hang out with them more.

*yesterday we took a group of 25 or so kayaking - mostly teens though some parents came as well. it seemed like the kids enjoyed themselves, and no one drowned!

*grant is rocking my world this week as my substitute for youth stuff as i leave for the philippines. there's a group of 4 adults going on the trip, though they'd been hoping for some youth. however, we're going again in a few weeks, so this will be a good chance to scout some things out i suppose. you can pray for me, that i can have a good attitude for the next 5 days. as i've not had one to this point!

we made it into the hong kong newspaper!

hello everyone!

kristin and i have been playing ultimate frisbee in HK, and we joined a league that meets on wednesdays and sundays. one wednesday, a journalist showed up on the pitch and started to interview players. kristin was interviewed and a quote made it into the south china morning post, a big english paper in HK. i was pictured on the front page of the section!

some people were also interviewed on video. you can watch that and see kristin and i in the background. click the link below...



http://www.scmp.com/portal/site/SCMP/template.PAGE/page.multimedia_page/?s=idx_Home&ss=MultiMedia

if that doesn't work,
go to www.scmp.com/multimedia
click the "life" tab
the title of the video is "the ultimate sport in hong kong"

happy viewing!
grant (and kristin)

the amazing stupidity of kristin franke :-)

hopefully this is the right picture.
i had a pair of tevas that were this style, though bright green. i only bought them in march, and they've been quite good to me.

saturday, grant and i did a shopping day. he got cleats, we both got books, i got distracted by a few clothes, and i got the hardcore tevas. something like this:


so...i was excited and the busride home was taking a long time due to traffic. so i changed my shoes on the bus. took the new tevas out, put the old tevas back in the shoebox... very nice

when we got home, grant and i started going through our purchases, putting them away, making piles of trash (shoeboxes, plastic bags, etc). so i gave him the bag with my shoebox and told him it was trash.

i should have known...

today i went looking for my old tevas to no avail...it dawned on me that they'd hit the refuse chute, LONG GONE.

darnit!

some captions

blogger on the macbook wasn't being too nice to me, and so i'm going to add the captions here.

our flat... 560 square feet (or so). the second bedroom is a bit more cleaned up as we've stored suitcases, and thrown away the tv box and replaced it with an actual desk.

there's a shipping yard near us. i thought of my brothers and how they'd think that was cool.

i take a ferry to work regularly... see the ferry.

and while i'm on a ferry, i often see those cute fishing boats hanging out.

i think that about covers it :-D

home sweet home!

i finally took some pictures of our flat, though a few things have changed in the past week since i did it, the pictures are pretty accurate!

mobile phones are fun

i'm a fan of mobile phones here. first of all, the price is ridiculously cheap. i believe that grant's plan is about 20 dollars (US) per month. we had to pay most of that upfront as a "deposit" on his phone (which will come out to be free). so, we end up paying closer to 8 dollars a month, because of the rebate on the phone. nice stuff. and that's for about 2000 minutes.

and texting is free intra-network. which is awesome.

and they come with pretty sweet cameras. which is great when i forget to take my camera with me (quite often).

what i haven't learned is how to rotate the pictures, on my phone or on blogger... so turn your head.

in front of the IFC building while we were waiting for the bus to church.

in front of the ferry pier... again, waiting for the bus for church (it's a perpetual wait)

at a lookout tower in hong kong park. those cool looking buildings are the lippo buildings. i think lippo means legos in chinese (JK)

and this was the day i got my phone and we were practicing taking self photos. it was fun.

first try for everything

here's a few pictures that i have. we haven't taken many unfortunately! (at least not on my camera). i promise that i'll work on getting pictures of our flat, but it's still sort of in a state of disarray!

we took the tram up to victoria peak (which i believe is the highest point in hong kong) on the island shortly after we arrived in hong kong. ics arranged a trip as part of orientation... it was a way to learn the public transport. regardless of the annoyances, the view was great. it was apparently a really clear week when we arrived which is not ALWAYS the case (pollution, haze, clouds, etc). so, the view of all the skyscrapers was fantastic. as a reference point, the north side of hong kong island is where the majority of the skyscrapers are (at least the huge ones!). The middle of the island is country park, victoria peak, etc. then the south side of the island is more residential and western. north across the harbor is kowloon, which also has a fair number of skyscrapers right on the water in Tsim Sha Tsui. We live just a bit east of there.

it's like another honeymoon type picture, holy cow!

the REALLY tall building is the IFC building (International Finance Centre) - one of the tallest in the world.

finally...

I meant to post this as soon as we knew it... and then we didn't know how to write it because addresses seem a bit more complicated here! so, copying off our gas bill, this is what you get:

Frankes
Flat G, 11/F, Block 14
Cherry Mansions
9 Shung King St
Hung Hom, Kowloon
Hong Kong

and for those of you interested in making international calls (haha), the numbers are:
kristin: +852 9684 2806
grant: +852 9136 1317

until the next time...

and back again...

we've got about 12 hours left in the states on this trip!

it's been a crazy week... lots of emotions, lots of ups and downs, but also some good times with family and friends. we've stayed up late a lot with people coming over to the house just to hang out. the memorial service went really well. close to 160 people came, many of whom grant had never met but who knew todd well. i even got to see my parents which was nice.

on the other side of the world, we've had some people who have been just wonderful to us - moving us out of the hotel, waiting for our mattress to be delivered, stocking our fridge, and just generally taking care of us with love and prayers. it's amazing how people show love even though they barely know us. we really did find a great community to be a part of - both ICS and union church.

as for me, i'm ready to get back, and GET SETTLED!!! to finish moving into our apartment, laying things out, setting them up, and then settling into a routine with work, life, etc. some regularity will be nice :-)

returning to the states

kristin and i are making our way back to the united states for a quick trip into rockford, IL. you may be thinking, "wow, they didn't stay in hong kong very long!" or "they must really like experiencing jet lag!" sadly, we have a much graver reason for returning. my father, todd franke, died suddenly, and we're returning to pay him his last respects and to bring some closure as a family. please keep us in your prayers during this time.

3 countries in 2 days

i'll let grant write his own post on what life has been like for us lately, but i thought i'd start!

today is july 27... which means we've been married for 13 days.

the wedding was fantastic. someday, i'll figure out how to put pictures online, since i don't currently have my own computer yet, nor do i have professional photos... and all our non-professional photos are on cd's packed in suitcases. however, if you're a facebooker, check out our profiles, and click on the "more pictures" link to see a bunch courtesy of lindsey muntz, william campbell, carrie waterman, and gina leon.

monday morning the 16th, our saint kim sawusch got us to the airport in time for our 5:30 flight. the flight to costa rica was smooth, and so worth every penny.

highlights:
-an awesome resort and pools and scenery overlooking the bay at playa hermosa
-having our own kitchen to cook whenever we wanted
-days on the beach
-renting a car and exploring
-a beach massage
-an adventure tour including ziplining in the canopy, the longest waterslide in costa rica, horseback riding, and a volcanic spa in the middle of the jungle - thermal springs, volcanic mud, steam room... sweet.
-hanging out with megan nelson and meghan number 2 from minnesota

and very much more, but that's at least a start!

we arrived back in the states on monday night the 23rd, and we had a surprise meeting with my parents! steven wilco and kim sawusch picked us up and drove us back to kim's house, where we spent the night, and where we had left our suitcases. we spent the evening (or late night) telling stories and visiting with my parents, steven and kim, and grant's mom and scott.
tuesday morning came, and we were back to the airport at 8 am to check in our bags... 5 suitcases, 2 of which were overweight...and we didn't get charged for any of it!

the 16 hour flight passed relatively quickly. i suppose i spent the first 6 hours reading harry potter though! on the flight, we also met several new teachers and their families. we arrived in hong kong at about 4 pm on wednesday afternoon and were greeted by some ics folks who escorted us to our hotel.

since then, we've obtained our temporary hong kong id cards, had some great chinese food, opened a bank account, and begun flat hunting. this may prove to be more difficult than anticipated, at least in finding a place that splits the difference well, and that is available. prayers are most appreciated in this department!

i'm excited to get out of a hotel room, and actually feel stable here.

this weekend, we're heading to union church (unionchurchhk.org) to meet people that i'll be working with and spending time with in the next few years. should be good!

the jet lag is almost over.... but not quite!!

3 days.... or 2 weeks

welcome to the exploits of us :-)

hopefully, we'll post fairly regularly as our lives unfold wherever on this wide globe God takes us.

for now, we have 3 days until the first life-shattering event takes place : marriage!
and 2 weeks from today, we will be arriving in Hong Kong for the first time to experience the start of our life together!

love- kristin