Newsletter 4

Hello Friends,

Happy Belated Thanksgiving. I hope that the Holiday was enjoyable for you all. Obviously since the pilgrims didn’t arrive in Hong Kong or China, they don’t celebrate Thanksgiving here. So I didn’t have the day off. But on Sunday a group of friends got together and we had a Thanksgiving meal. There were 25 of us who got together to celebrate and give thanks to God. After dinner we went around the room and shared what we were thankful for and sang worship songs. As much as it’s strange to not be with family for the holidays, this group is very much like family and so I wasn’t homesick at all.

Since it’s the time of being thankful, I thought I would try to keep this newsletter short and just list out the prayer requests and my Thanksgiving list.

Prayer Requests:

* Juliana—Friend from my small group. She is searching for direction and I’m not really sure that she is a Christian.

* Franklin Graham Crusade—Starts on Thursday (Nov 28) and runs thru Sunday (Dec 2). We are taking our upper level students to the festival on Friday.

* Speech festival—I have been working with 7 students on their poems for speech festival. Pray that their nerves will not get the best of them when they do their performance and they won’t be stressed from the added work.

* Christmas Season—as the Christmas season is approaching pray for students’ hearts to be open to the message of Christmas.

* Levi Scheu—Levi was on the mission trip this summer with me and he is going to be returning a week. He will be here on Dec 16^th. He really connected with the students this summer and will be spending the week hanging out with them. Pray that he will be able to use this time for some really good conversations with the students. Also pray for his safe travel.

Things for which I am thankful:

* Prayer and financial support from my friends and family at home.

* Letters and Cards—I love to get things in the mail from home and they always seem to arrive on a day that I need some encouragement

* Nikelle and Stuart—They really helped me out a lot in my transition here.

* Other teachers at the school—They have helped so much in getting settled into work, and my home.

* New Friends—one of my big concerns in moving was that I would be alone, or that it would take a long time to get connected, but God has provided so many wonderful friends. Friends that have quickly become my family-away-from-home.

* Location of my apartment—I know that might sound like a little thing, but the location is probably the best I could ask for. It’s 20 minutes to school, 30 minutes to Church. There are 3 grocery stores with-in walking distance of me. 7-11 right around the corner. And it’s quiet!!!!