we're taking a trip!

hey everyone. i realize its been SUCH a long time since i have written any sort of update. life has evened itself out a bit recently. we're living with the oppenheims still and its been a blessing for us to be there and play with the kids and have amazing edifying conversation day in and day out with steve and liz! we're really enjoying our time with them and feel like they have almost adopted us into their family. its been really great. i'm still looking for substantial work, i've had babysitting jobs here and there and one point had a job but due to strong convictions and i believe the Lord just driving it to happen, that job is no more. bud still works at anderson seedco. in san marcos/san elijo. he enjoys it. he has also started up with school again, going to persue and finish a degree in linguistics. he will finish up at palomar this semester and hopefully next semester or next fall (more likely to be in the fall) he will transfer to san diego state and go to school to finish up. its very exciting as he is also studying cantonese in depth and learning quite a bit! i'm studying cantonese as well, but i'm still very basic and very much considered a beginner. but i'm eager to learn!

God has given us a renewed vision for Hong Kong and continues to redefine it as we pray over it and learn from and listen to the Holy Spirit. i was blessed to go to the heartbeat international with cami kellenbarger a few months back, and was completely blessed and floored at what the Lord did for us there! we were invited because we still have a heart and are looking to start hopes refuge in the hong kong/china area. when we got there it was nothing but special treatment it felt like. we were blessed with great teaching and blessed with meeting amazing people right from the very beginning. we were given a lot of books and things to help start the center and get us on the right track. we spoke with a lot of different people and they gave us a lot of good advice. there were also a lot of people eager to join in the work with us and help us get things started! to top all of this off, i was picked out of hundreds of people at the conference, to do a radio broadcast interview with june hunt from the hope for the heart ministries. she has a radio station broadcast that she does and she was interviewing 6 individuals. so i was able to tell about my background, about the vision cami and i have for hopes refuge and basically just ask for whoever listens out there in radio world to pray for and with us. it was VERY exciting. i was a bit nervous too. hehe.

bud and i are doing lots of ministry at church and such. bud is the worship leader and preaches once a month to our church congregation. he also works hand in hand with ritchie on the basics of the church and such. i help with childrens ministry, worship, and i think i'm going to be helping also with the womens ministry soon. :) its been really great. crossweave is growing and its a beautiful thing to watch as the Lord uses ritchie and bud to preach and teach and to help encourage us with the Word of God. i'm blessed everyday i look at my husband and see how far he has come and how he longs and desires to please the Lord and do as He asks. :) oh and crossweave is celebrating its 1 year anniversary this sunday! we're so excited!!

so now that you know how life is going for us in general - now to update you on things with HK and other ministries we've been blessed to help out with. as you know, we're living with the oppenheims and they are restoring a little stone church and house in france. well we've been blessed to watch and be prayer warriors for their work. they just got back from a 3 month trip (all summer) doing demolition and reconstruction on the house. God is really pulling things together and beginning to form relationships with people out there. please pray for the work going on in france. it looks as though i (christin) am going to be blessed to go to france for a 3 week trip in october/november to help with the work on the house and to meet people. its awesome and i'm so excited! please pray for that and please be in prayer for the little stone church and house! here is a link to their blog and to a video that shows the progress of the house renovations.

http://littlestonechurchfrance.blogspot.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0AHEJvxFyXE

as for hong kong, we're taking a trip/team out to hong kong this winter for a 2 week trip and then taking one more week (hopefully) to go up and visit harmony outreach up near beijing. we are so excited to go back to our home away from home. we'll be taking literature into mainland and the like. i hope and plan to take a few days with cami to look into things needed for hopes refuge and such. we were encouraged at the conference to take a few trips out there before starting hopes refuge to get an idea of cost of items and housing. so i hope to be doing that when we go out. the trip to the beijing area is still tenative as of right now but we plan to helping out with harmony outreach, an orphanage for children with special needs. you can visit their website at http://harmonyoutreach.org and see what they do. they are doing a great work and if all goes well, it will be amazing to help alongside them and maybe even bring them some supplies back from the states. we want to be a blessing to the full-time people there. so please be in prayer for this trip. we are leaving the first week of january.

if you have any questions for either of the trips i mentioned, feel free to ask! :) i guess thats all i can update for now. :) we love you and are excited to keep you updated on future missions trips and where God is leading us.

agape,
christin joy.