A boat

I got this boat the other day.

It's a very, very special boat to me. It sits on my bookcase in my room. As I wake up in the morning, this is usually one of the first things I see.

I got this boat while crossing over Salisbury Road close to the harbor. It's super busy right around that area, and there's lots of foot traffic crossing over the footbridge. Every time I pass by there is an old Chinese woman begging for money.

She never makes eye contact. She's very dirty, and her back is hunched over. Her fingernails and toenails are long and her hair is unkempt.

Each time I pass by I always try to put a few coins in her little box. It's not much--maybe a dollar or two if my money was American.

Last time I walked by her, all I had on me was a twenty (3 American bucks). I reached down and put it in her little box. She grabbed my leg as I walked by and yelled something I couldn't understand.

I looked down and saw a huge, beautiful smile (albeit somewhat toothless), and she was holding up this boat for me to take. You can't see it in the picture, but there is a smiley face drawn on the underside of the boat. I took the boat as she said, "M'goy!" ("Thank you!") I walked away, choked up, amazed at how a woman with arguably so little to offer still had the capacity to bless my heart so much.

The boat is a treasure to me. I try to pray for that woman whenever I look at my boat.

Jesus chose fishermen to be the founders of his church. They were dirty, probably a little bit toothless, and largely overlooked.

But Jesus came to bind up the brokenhearted. He came for the poor and the oppressed. For the dirty, the smelly, the homeless.

I hope someone who knows Cantonese has told (or will tell) that woman about Jesus. That's my prayer each time I look at that boat.

I'm not sure where my friend has gone. She hasn't been on the bridge the last few times I've walked across. All I know is that God knows her, and he notices her. And I know that I wish I could have done more. I wish that I knew her language. I wish I could have bought her a meal and some water and told her how much God loves her and that he sees her and that she matters.

All I can do now is pray for her. I'm so glad I have the boat to remind me to do that.

Try to notice.

Ken

Tonight I met one of the most interesting men I have ever talked to.

I was eating at Tommy's (not it's real name, but you have to call it something), our local hole-in-the-wall, leave-your-sanitation-standards-at-the-door restaurant down the street. I normally eat alone there in the evenings with a book. Just a really good time to read and reflect.

Not tonight. As I walked up to the restaurant, a white face (you don't see those in our neck of Hong Kong) motioned me over to his table. He said, "Care to join me?"

Why the heck not? Not every night can I mix and mingle with a random Westerner.

His name is Ken. He's about 60, and he teaches English two hours a day at a few of the local high schools around the city.

Ken told me that he grew up in Surrey, England (the same place where Kate Winslet lives in the movie The Holiday, I think) and studied to be an ornithologist (a glorified bird watcher).

He lived in the English countryside for the first 15 years of his adult life. He wrote articles about birds for various magazines. Then National Geographic called.

"Ken, we've got a deal for you. How about you sell all your belongings, buy a backpack and a pup tent, and spend about five years traveling the world and taking pictures of birds?"

So he did.

Ken said he spent five years all over the world. He never shaved. He never cut his hair. He said he looked like Moses, except for his safari hat. He lived out of his backpack and under a tent.

Five years later, Ken was in Hong Kong taking pictures of Hong Kong birds. He was in a random restaurant and saw a white guy. The white guy randomly started talking to him and realized he was English.

He told Ken that he was a principal of a private Christian school and needed a substitute English teacher for his sixth graders because the current teacher had a family emergency and had to quit unexpectedly the day before.

Ken said, "I don't have any clothes, a razor, or a decent haircut. Or a place to live." The guy gave Ken some clothes, a razor, and brought him to a barber. After a night in a hotel, Ken showed up and taught sixth-grade English grammar to a group of Cantonese students.

At the end of the day the principal said, "Good job. Want this job permanently?"

Ken took the job on the spot. Said he was tired of birds and wanted people for friends. He has lived in Hong Kong for 19 years now. And he's the coolest neighbor I've ever met.

I'm excited that I know Ken. Hong Kong gets more and more interesting each day.

My Family.

I was home in Montgomery for about two weeks over Christmas. I'm so thankful for my mom, my dad, Dan, and Gabe. I love you guys so much.

Peak shots-- Why we're here

Last Tuesday night, our group took a group of Mainland students from Poly U up to The Peak.

The Peak is a super high mountain on Hong Kong Island (the lower part of Hong Kong) that has a great lookout point from which you can see most of the city and beautiful Victoria Harbor (or, I guess it would be Harbour, since this was a British colony). We had a blast! You can kinda tell from the pictures how breathtaking the view is. When you see it in person, though, it really does something inside of you, deep in your spirit. It reminds me of how small I am, how creative and huge God is, how vast this city is. I'm so glad I got to share this experience with our new friends.

Polo, Chris, Justin, Joe, Alex--I'm so thankful for each of you and for our new friendship! You guys make life here so sweet and rich. I'm so glad I know you. I look forward to all the memories like this that we'll make over the next year or two. You guys are the best!

Here are the pictures:

1) Arguably the best group shot since we've been in Hong Kong

2) Me, and (from left) Justin, Joe (can't see him that well), Polo, and Chris

3) I like this one. Someone yelled, "Crazy pose!" and I think that only about 5 of us actually did a crazy pose. Me, Zach Benson, Mary, Katie, Jason. The rest of you just smiled normally. Thanks. Now we just look silly. :)

Take note--->

I've installed my twitter account to feed directly into my blog.

Because I'm busy working through some ESL curriculum development, I haven't blogged in a while. But you can check my twitter feed either here or on facebook (or through twitter if you've crossed over and have a twitterID).

I update twitter much more regularly than I do my blog.

Just wanted to make you guys aware.

Dinner

Last night I was invited to eat at the apartment of my good friend Polo. My friends Chris and Joe were there with me. They are all mainland students who are studying at Polytechnic University here in Hong Kong. The three of them hosted me for a "traditional Chinese dinner." I met Joe at Hung Hom MTR (subway) station and we walked to Polo's apartment about a half-mile away. I was met at the door by Chris and Polo with hugs and a tall glass of water.

I asked if I could do anything to help.

No. Of course not. You're our guest.

Polo and Chris and Joe took turns in the kitchen, each cooking a different dish. I sat on the couch and enjoyed great conversation (with Discovery Channel's "Shark Week" on in the background, I should add) as these three culinary studs took turns cooking a feast.

And it was definitely a feast.

Joe's contribution: Fried eggplant (delicious).

Chris's contribution: A dish that had eggs and shrimp (delicious).

Polo's contribution: A dish that had potatoes and carrots in a delicious sauce (delicious).

Did I mention it was delicious?

Additionally, they made rice and had some duck (yes, duck!) and fish from the store.

I liked the three homemade dishes best, even though the fish and duck were good. But man, those guys can cook!

We laughed for several hours and talked about school and girls and video games and Christianity and future jobs and languages and traveling and all sorts of things.

I am so grateful for these guys. Wow.

Thanks, Polo, Chris, and Joe for a wonderful night. You guys are the best. I feel very at home when we are together. Thank you for making me feel welcomed and for being my friends.

(Oh, and if you guys don't know what it meant when I said you are "culinary studs," it just means you are really awesome guys and you can cook super well!)

Catching up

It's saturday morning and i'm lazy. Nothing on the plate for today (a great thing!), and it's as good a time as ever to try to write (and finish) a blog.

Sorry I haven't written much lately. You know how sometimes you go through a time where you're working through some issues and it kinda consumes most of your emotional/spiritual energy? Yeah. That's been here recently for me.

But, I don't want to neglect writing on the blog. And even though I haven't been writing, that's not to say I haven't been looking around for things to blog about. I have.

Here's another top ten:

1. Dinner with some friends. Polo, Vincent, Claudia, Joe, and Justin, our new mainland friends from Polytechnic University in Hung Hom, came out with five members of our team to try their first ever "breakfast for dinner" meal the other night. We took them to the Flying Pan restaurant (more on the name in a little bit), a place that specializes in omelettes. We've been hanging out with these guys (and their friend Chris!) a lot these past few weeks. It's been such a joy getting to know them and hear their stories. You guys are awesome!

2. The Flying Pan. Obviously, this is a play on "frying pan" and the Chinese inability to distinguish correctly between the letters L and R. That's why you have "flied lice" and why Malorie is constantly called "Marorie" here. And why words like syllable and possible are sometimes pronounced syllabrr and possibrr. Which provides a nice transition into point 3...

3. English as a second language. i'm working right now (and have been for the past month) on developing an English as a Second Language course for Mandarin students. It's been super interesting to study the differences between Mandarin and English morphology (how words acquire meaning) and phonology (how the sounds of a language are formed). Like, for instance, did you know that the X sound in chinese is formed by curling your tongue backwards towards the back of your throat and blowing air forwards like you would for an S? We never curl our tongues backwards in English. And they never put their tongues between their teeth (like we would for th sounds). And they would never comment on men and "their cologne." They would say "the cologne of the pronoun masculine plural." They have a word to denote tense, gender, number, and the like. So these are just a FEW of the many differences I'm trying to address. I'll blog more in detail about English program stuff in the future. But it's exciting!

4. Some pictures.

For all the UGA fans back home, I came across this rugby bulldog.

A cool opportunity you don't see in America. Coming to a mall near us.

A Chinese advertisement in the middle of a mall. Way cooler than American signs.

Zach Furr at the lookout point on top of Chinese University.

Public transportation. Always crowded.

5. Food. It's getting better as I know what to get/ not to get. One of our favorite restaurants is a place called Tommy's. Not because it's called tommy's. But because it's completely chinese and the only guy who speaks english is a guy named tommy. So he helps us order and in thanks, we named the restaurant after him. not sure what it is in cantonese.

Anyway, sometimes Tommy isn't there. And that's where our handy dandy iphones come in. I sometimes have to google green beans and pork or fried/steamed rice and show them the pictures. This one, though, is a pork and peppers dish. And because they have several dishes that have pork and peppers, we had the waiter write down the dish in Chinese characters. I took a picture, and whenever we go I just pull up my photo library and show them this:

In addition to Tommy's, we are trying other things. Me and Furr and Benson and our friends Chris and Polo went out to a restaurant the other day. Benson's was served in a piece of bamboo:
6. Team dinners. I love Thursday nights. Matt and April prepare a feast for us and we spend the evening eating/laughing/playing games and wrestling with Josh and Caleb/and watching the Office. Matt downloads the episodes off iTunes and we set up a projector and speakers and gather around and watch the previous week's episodes together. I think Jason's laugh is one of my favorite things in life. He laughs harder than anyone I know. I think if I ever get depressed again, I'll tell jokes to Jason or just watch some funny movies with him and it'll likely make me feel better.

7. "A community of gratitude". April and Josh and Caleb prepared notebooks for each of the team members the other day. (I say "prepared"--April bought little 4x6 notebooks and Josh and Caleb stuck superman/power rangers stickers on the guys' books and princess pictures on the girls'. They are adorable.)

April challenged us to journal reasons we are thankful over the next month and a half until thanksgiving, just as a simple way to be meditating on the things God has done/is doing for us. The assignment? 1000 reasons we are thankful. (That's about 30 a day, give or take). I am excited! I have started carrying it around with me and so far my entries range from stuff like "I'm thankful that God spoke to me this morning through Psalm 16" to "I'm thankful for iTunes movie rentals on a Friday night when I'm kinda bored."

8. Growing ministry. We are entering relationships with people in our neighborhood. With people from Polytechnic U and City U and Hong Kong U. With people on basketball courts and soccer pitches and behind counters at starbucks. With people at our church (Island Evangelical Christian Church ) and at the chinese church where we help out with an English language program (Yan Fook). With the waiters at Tommy's. With my barber, a chinese guy named Henry who speaks great English while giving a great haircut, and his assistant jessica, who gives a great shampoo/head massage afterward. With the security guards who work at our apartment complex. Our prayer is that each of these relationships would continue to get deeper and fuller and that we could show the love of Christ to all these people we have the joy of knowing.

Hope you all are having a great week. My prayers are with you!