August 11, 2004

• Ahh ... a brief moment with online access before the conference.

  DAY 4 - Team Meeting

  We
  met up with the Canadians today (Mona, Maureen, and Pastor Kong) and
  had our first official meeting. Bert and a few of his BBC (british-born
  chinese) kids gave us a crash coarse on the british schooling system
  and helped us to understand the concerns/issues among british in
  general and then specifically with the BBC. I've mentioned many of
  these things in my personal sharing with many of you, but here are a
  few specifics:

  -Stress of GCSE's and A level exams (especially among chinese families)
  -the state of the church of England and difficulty for chinese trying to fit into non-chinese churches
  -most families own takeaways or restaurants (associated family and marital challenges)

  we
  reviewed schedule and other details for the upcoming leadership
  conference and then spent time in prayer. Tomorrow we travel to the
  conference site.

  DAY 3 - Tour of Birmingham

  Phan
  has the posh'est accent in the world and gave us a totally professional
  tour of Birmingham (she happens to be a town planner). We were walking
  around Birmingham making observations and noting objects of worship.
  This morning, we were reflecting on Acts 17:16 (paul's tour de athens).
  Here are a few things our team noted:

  -Some scenes from
  Birmingham. Note the Starbuck's Coffee shop and the real pagoda.
  Apparently this pagoda was so heavy that they needed to reinforce the
  underpass. 

       

  -We
  walked into a chinese bakery and was greeted in Cantonese by the lady
  working there. We struck up a conversation in cantonese and eventually,
  she asked me about my profession. I said "gung cheng" (that's
  engineering). She then asked if I worked in the restaurant business, so
  I repeated "gung cheng". This happened a few times before she "heard"
  what I said since most of the Chinese here are involved in the
  retaurant business (initially I thought I used the wrong word).
  -We
  saw the Bullring with the St. Martin Church in the background. This was
  quite a scene. Imagine an all glass modern shopping structure with
  large advertisements on it and then the steeple of something that
  resembled a cathedral sticking up in an opening. I hear that the
  roundabout around the cathedral was removed and the mall was built
  around the church so that the church would be repositioned in the
  center of town.

    

  -Pastor
  luke learned quite a bit about the Church of England through a long
  conversation with a chaplain who greeted us for a tour of the
  Birmingham Cathedral. (more later).
  -Walked by some of the Pubs of
  Broad Street and wandered pass some of the canals. These canals are
  everywhere in Birmingham and were originally built during the
  industrial revolution to transport commercial goods.

     
  
  DAY 2 - Sweet Slumber
  Weariness
  overcame us that first night, and though our sleep was a bit irregular
  and interrupted at times, our slumber was sweet. I was so tired that
  first night that I fell asleep while waiting waiting for one of the
  other guys to shower. We had this first morning to sleep in, but I had
  to wake up early since my back was starting to feel sore from sleeping
  on the hard floor.

  We've been very thankful to Debra (starting
  university next year) for opening her empty house to us and making sure
  that we're taken care of. Debra has also joined all of our team
  reflection and prayer times. We're also very thankful to Bert and Phan
  for their hospitality and for allowing us to use their home to do last
  minute preparation for some of the talks and workshops.

  some random reflections:
  -though I woke up a few times in the evening, I got some of the best sleep in about 6-9 months
  -I woke up with deep hunger pains. I can't remember the last time I've been hungry in the morning.
  -watched some british TV shows
  -reflecting on Psalm 84 during devotions

  • 5:19 pm
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