long time no write!

hi all! i greatly apologize for not having written in at least a week. i hope you can forgive me! :) so whats been going on in hong kong you must ask. this week has not shown to be much more than getting settled into our new home! we moved in last sunday to our permanent address (which i will post on here later) and this week we have just been working on making it our "home" if you will. preparing it for our soon to have roommates (kristen & danny!) and making it comfortable. our friends (the family who lived here before us) had 2 children and the dog we now have. oh, and fighting off roaches! since we live in the village - we're gonna get bugs. eww!! i will post pictures of our home and our dog soon. i just need to get them onto the computer. we've spent a lot of time going into town, buying things for the home, grocery shopping and looking for pieces for bud's computer. if you could remember that in your prayers it'd be awesome, his computer has been having issues and that has everything on it. my laptop is just so we can travel.

this week i have become friends with our local bus driver. i still don't know his name nor have i had any real conversations with him but he always says hello to me, smiles and knows where to drop me off (my spot). this week i will tell him Jehso Oi Nei (Jesus loves you). he has asked if i like it here in HK and i was able to have that brief conversation with him. we'll see how it goes. so last week we were supposed to go on bread runs but it just kept falling through and i ended up babysitting all week. the children were a lot of fun. bud and i took them to mc'donalds and to a place thats like a make-shift chuck e' cheese. it kind of sucks, but the kids really enjoyed playing with me and bud in the balls. it was a lot of work! taking two children both under the age of 10 (combined) on a bus where they want to kick seats in front of them, stand up and yell can be quite difficult. they were not difficult, just full of energy! we also have found a new desire and yearn to pray diligently for our neighbors. within this area, there are i believe 3 or 4 temples where people go to worship their ancestors. just the other day at the bottom of the hill from our house, there were 'joss sticks' (incense) that had been burning. meaning that our neighbors, like most everyone in hong kong - worship and give honor to their dead ancestors. quite heart breaking.

we also went about 2 hours away for our friend po ying's birthday party. it was at our friend gau wai's and his fiance's house. they will both move in once they are married in october. it was a lot of fun, ate some good food. they barbecue with honey out here. they just throw everything and anything on the grill, paint some honey on it and grill it. its really good. :) so we took that trip and had sometime with our friends. got to talk to them a bit, it was fun and good conversation. can't lose with that, can you? :) and bud has had several job interviews - so we're just waiting and praying. we also found a mexican restaraunt and a subway - so when we're desperate we'll take the hour and a half it takes to get there. =D (the mexican food was not bad but it was no oscar's. i'm drooling just thinking of it.

today bud and i woke up and we both had stomach aches. we think it was something we ate. so we stayed home from church and we listened to a john piper sermon about romans 14:5-9. it was really good about how christians may have different ideas and convictions over non-essential topics and even if we disagree it still glorifies and honors God. go read. it was a very good message. after that i made breakfast in bed. pancakes! and we had a scare with the dog. it started making this horrible grunting noise and whenever i hear something like that i panic as i think 'OH NO IT CAN'T BREATHE" but it turned out it had a upset stomach as well. it threw up all over the couch! oh man, it was pretty gross but its okay. i can't be upset with her. oh, we named her monster truck and she is a pomeranian. i doubt that she is pure bred as she has some different colors. now that we have the house a little more organized and our style, we will probably have people come over for movie night or maybe some sort of bible study. it would be nice to have some friends over. (although, its wonderful being home with my husband and having our own place).

other than playing house all week, both bud and i are ready to see what this week has for us. we are expecting information from places that we've inquired about - a school for bud and i am still waiting on word from HOLF. we'll see what happens. oh and everynight before falling asleep we've been catching up with the past 3 seasons of House. so now that we're settled in - we feel even more prepared for things to pick up and take up our time. so i guess - not much to mention as of now but i wanted to let you all know that we're alive, we're here to help, we're here to pray and be used wherever God will have us. we love you all and thank you for your prayers. OH! after having spoken with my husband about it, we decided that it'd be a good idea that if you want our address to send letters or anything like that, it'd be best if you emailed us and we can send it to you. we love you and we'll talk to you again soon.

agape,

christin joy.