December 07 Newsletter

December was a real mixed bag of events for the three of us. It began when we took Deborah to Hong Kong on the first weekend for her 16th birthday (20 Nov). We spent the Saturday at Ocean Park; a theme park with many rides, some which Deborah enjoyed more than others. On the Sunday we attended the wedding in the afternoon of Brandon Wong to Rachel, followed by the obligatory twelve course banquet that night.

We met Brandon the first time we went to Kowloon International Baptist Church on arriving in Hong Kong. He befriended us immediately and soon we were invited along to his prayer group as well. We kept in touch when we moved into China, and were honoured to be invited to attend his wedding.

As luck would have it there was a Franklin Graham Festival in Hong Kong that weekend which we got to attend. The venue was filled to capacity before we got there so the taxi driver immediately switched to the alternative venue. We ended up sitting on mats provided on the ground in the middle of Hong Kong’s Happy Valley Racecourse watching the proceedings on huge screens.

We couldn’t believe the number of people who went forward to receive Christ, literally going up in their thousands. From the official website it appears that total attendance over the four nights of the festival was 340,000, with 33,464 (or nearly 10%) of these people making a commitment. Awesome for a place as materialistic as Hong Kong; this materialism becoming the theme of Franklin’s preaching.

Suzanne spent two out of the four weekends away examining for IELTS (International English Language Testing System). Unfortunately she was placed in a situation of “conflict of interest” with her teaching here at the Medical College and has resigned from IELTS. The experience will stand her in good stead, however, if she wants to be involved in this again on our return to Australia.

Deborah and Ray flew to Changsha one weekend for Fostercare training, where Ray was invited to share on our fostering experience. We learned we certainly have a lot to be thankful for when it comes to our fostering of Deborah. Listening to some of the stories from other families made us realise just how lucky we were. Because of issues associated with their previous abandonment, some foster children were having real problems bonding with their foster families. This was something we never experienced with Deborah.

Christmas Day was a normal work day here in China so we held an Open House on the Sunday prior. We were truly blessed to have many medical students, post-grad & Masters students, doctors, and church members come and go throughout the day. There was much food, and laughter as we played simple games like “pin the tale on the donkey”, and bursting balloons (by sitting on them) with little notes inside telling people to sing, dance, or perform some other action.

We had a number of nativity scenes displayed, giving us a good opportunity to talk about “the reason for the season”. Ridiculous as it may seem some Chinese think that Christmas is the birth day of Santa Claus. As a result of the day we have a number of people keen to join our Sunday afternoon Bible classes.

Praise Points:

  • Praise Him for an awesome Christmas, the opportunity to share, and the seeds sown.
  • Praise that on Dec. 30th our special young man at the college decided to give his life to Jesus.


Prayer Points:

  • Please continue to pray for the young people who have decided to come to our Sunday class.
  • Pray for the growth of our Saturday Bible study class as the church recruits for this.
  • Pray for our second trip to Beijing in mid-January for Deborah’s adoption process.