December 27, 2011
Christmas Performance
A few weeks ago our favorite student group invited us to join their Christmas performance and this last Friday it took place at the government church building here in Shaoxing.
Even after asking several of the student leaders, we weren't exactly sure what to expect. It turned out that the whole thing was arranged by this student group and the government church people just let them use the building. Different people from the group sang, danced, performed skits, did some readings, and more. Below are some pictures from the evening.
Near the end of the evening, our family was up. We had prepared a short skit based on the Good Samaritan - featuring Seth as the helpless traveler, Caleb as the fierce robber, Lisa as the Good Samaritan, a couple of friends as good for nothing passers-by, and Dale as the narrator. As Dale read in English, the whole story was shown in Chinese on a projector screen. About 200 people were there, mostly young people, but some older people as well. It was a great, fun evening and I'm sure that some of the people there were influenced as God used the evening for his glory. There are lots more pictures of the performance here at our Flickr photo page.
Last, but not least - here's a youtube video of our family's performance.
December 20, 2011
Student Group
Halfway through the semester, we found a believer in Lisa's class who is a leader at a local student group. Lisa went to their Sunday meeting once, then again, and again... Now Lisa's a regular member of the group. There are about 30 students in the group and they lead & organize everything by themselves except for some traveling speakers who often come on Sunday. They've got a few different small groups that meet during the week and they're a generally awesome family. A few weeks ago they told us that they're planning a big Christmas performance and they asked our family to prepare something. We've agreed and the performance will be this Friday night. We'll let you know how it goes!
Every other Sunday someone in the group cooks for everybody and this last Sunday Lisa volunteered to cook. It's tempting for me (Dale) to dream about things we could do with the group like teaching, helping small groups, mentoring some leaders, etc. But Lisa's a lot better than me and she just shows up to serve and love. She spent most of Saturday buying stuff at the market and cooking for the big group. On Sunday, Lisa went early in the morning along with 3 of our students who we've been studying with this semester, which was really cool. They took all of the food, then around lunch time I went with the kids for the end of their 3 hour meeting. We all ate together, then Lisa and I occupied the kids while they had another prayer meeting. Finally, we practiced for our Christmas performance and came home exhausted. Here are a few pictures of the day:
Prayer before the meal.
The crowd admiring the food before devouring it.
One of the student leaders with Seth.
Everybody eating together (with Caleb and Seth at the bottom).
December 13, 2011
Teacher David
God really started opening doors for our ministry about halfway through our teaching semester. We got settled into our new home, schedules settled down, and some of our "contacts" turned into real relationships. One of the most exciting for us personally is David.
David is one of Dale's co-teachers. He is also a nice, incredibly smart guy. Besides teaching English classes, he's also written his own book on linguistic philosophy (what?) and gives lectures on philosophy type stuff. On one of our first days here, David invited Dale to his small 1 room apartment to talk about spiritual things. Since that time, our family has hung out with David several times. About 2 months ago we started studying the Bible with David - pretty informally at first - by watching movies, talking about spiritual things, and reading some random passages. Recently though, David agreed to start reading through Luke and studying it together. It's exciting to study with somebody like David, but also fairly intimidating. We realize that we can never outwit David or offer him half-baked answers to real, complicated problems. Instead of trying to reason him to faith, we're simply going rely on love and God's Spirit. We plan to hang out with David, let our family influence him, and love him in extra godly ways. Then as he reads through Luke we'll point out some things, but mostly just depend on the Spirit to open David's heart and draw him closer to Jesus.
Please pray that God will open David's heart, push past his intellectual pride, and show him how much he needs Jesus. And pray that we'll have the wisdom to not really on our wisdom, but on God's transforming power and love.
