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
Helen
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