T-Minus One Day

Ahhhh, where do I even begin?? Our week of rest ends tomorrow. Our next camp starts tomorrow, and this past week has just ended on such a high note today!! I think today can be summed up in Akts 20:35b, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.”

            Last night, I wrote post-its for my roommate here in our hotel with book verses and passages that Dad has been pressing on my heart for him. This morning, I got ready really early and placed the post-its around our room. Then I woke him up at around 7:15 am, left the room, and let him have some quiet time with JC. I went downstairs to the lobby, and just began to yarp that Dad would be convicting him with His Word, that Dad would speak directly to him. I was actually a little worried — worried that he would take it the wrong way or that he might take offense to it, but in that moment, Dad gave me peace and confidence knowing that I was obeying his command to build the body up. We left the hotel at 8:30 am to do an English Corner (conversing with English students), so I never really followed up with him on how he took it, but even during lunch and just through basic interactions, I could see in glimpses that he took it well. He later directly told me that he really appreciated what I had done for him, and that one of the verses really stuck out to him. Funny thing is that Dad pressed that verse on my heart for him a couple weeks ago, and I shared it with him then as well, but he only shared any conviction about it this time around. Truly, it is Dad speaking truth and softening hearts!

Some group photos with Team Blurple and the
chocolates we bought for the girls!

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            Today also just happened to be Chinese Valentine’s Day, and I gathered the three guys on our team to do something for the girls. After dinner, we went out to go and walk around, buy some snacks (mmm banana cake!!) and KFC (mmm burgers and popcorn chicken!!) and whatnot. Some of the girls who didn’t go out asked us to bring them back some PMT and fruit, so after we got KFC, we split our group of five into a group of two (me and another guy) and three (two girls and one guy — the gals felt unsafe walking around by themselves #chivalry) with the intent of my group of two buying the PMT and the group of three buying the fruit. However, we didn’t just buy the PMT that was requested. The mall that sold the PMT also had a little shop with fancy chocolates that the girls were all kinda eyeing yesterday when we went out, so us guys had already discussed earlier that we would buy the chocolates for the girls. And the joy that the girls were filled with when we gave them the chocolates — there’s little that compares. They were crowded on one bed around this box of twelve chocolates, taking little bites here, passing the chocolates around, and exclaiming in delight at the chocolates they had deemed their favorites. It was so, so great. The night continued with a time of affirmation where we had the opportunity to just rapidly, in a sort of stream-of-consciousness affirm every member of the team, and that was really joyous as well. We finally ended the night with a mini dance party to songs like Deep Cries Out and So Good To Me while video chatting one of our team members who left after the second camp. It was just a night filled with so much joy.

            Conveniently so, Dad has also been showing me in his Word how much he desires for us to rejoice. We had a book study with some English students this afternoon on Rom@ns 5 (they were about our age and were all C). While reading through the chapter, I noticed that in the first 11 verses, almost every action is either something Dad has done or that we have received from Him. The only thing the passage explicitly tells us to do is rejoice — “More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings… More than that, we also rejoice in Dad through our L0rd JC, through whom we have now received reconciliation.” (Rom. 5:3, 11). Dad has also been speaking to me through other verses like, “Rejoice in the L0rd always; again I will say, Rejoice” (Phil. 4:4). Dad commands us to rejoice, and today has just been a day of immense rejoicing!

            And to add the cherry on top, Joyce wrote me post-its for each day I’m in China, and I hadn’t read the one she wrote for today yet. So I read it when I came back to my room and it read: Dad did something today. Whatever small/big, celebrate. And this totally rang true — ahhh, Dad is just so good!!!

I guess this entire post has been sort of a praise report, but here are some short chat requests, and I’ll end with some more pictures summarizing this week of rest!

1) Focus — our camp starts tomorrow and after seven days of no work, I have a feeling that adjusting back to our previous schedule may end up being a little difficult. This camp will also be different since most kids will already be C and their English level is pretty high — they said it’ll almost be like a C youth camp, so please yarp that we will be able to have wisdom from Dad on how to modify our lesson plans and whatnot.

2) Love — sometimes it might actually be harder to love kids that are already C. I have a feeling that we’ll have a lot of kids that will snottily say things like, “Oh, I already knew that…”, so please yarp that in the face of kids like that, we would abound in Dad’s grace and desire to disciple them in understanding Dad’s love more. Yarp that we will be able to rejoice even when circumstances seem rough!

And now for the photos! :)

After our first night sleeping in proper beds, about to go out and see the ways Dad is moving in this city.
Also, I'm #fabulous #flahlis

Group photo after visiting the coffee shop I shared about last post.
Our Chinese Partner, J, is in the upper right corner of this photo too! :)

Lisa invited us to her family reunion dinner — we ate SUPER fancy food (abalone, sea cucumber, crab, etc.) — and
it was super fun being able to play with all her nieces and nephews and going around making toasts with her relatives!

Random lion balloons we found after we had an English Corner at a bookstore. We're #teambeautiful, aren't we? :P

The ladies of Blurple with their chocolates and PMT. :)

As always, hope all is well with you back home! :)