Fall in Full Flow

Good afternoon to all of you friends and family who are just finishing lunch and starting the second half of your work day. I am settling in for bedtime, and the clock just struck midnight. It has been a while since I caught you up with news from the Orient, but I miss each one of you and desire to make a personal connection again.

At the institute, things are calming down after a rocky summer and start of the fall semester. Our boss is content with the growing number of students, which is his number one goal, and I feel like I am finally getting a handle on preparing lesson plans and so many things that need to be done, often without the books or materials we need.

Yesterday I was telling the kids in one of my classes about God's word as I explained the scripture, "I have hidden your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you." I told them that the Bible is a book that tells us what God wants of us. The kids were fascinated! "How can we see this?" asked a student about ten years old. I promised I would bring a Bible to their next class on Saturday.

It's so amazing to see the wonder in the eyes of children who have never heard of God's word. There was no sarcasm like, "Yea, we know... we know..." No, these kids were dead serious!

We are finding other ways that God has given us ministries here, even though we still speak only a handful of Chinese words. Last week in a beautiful public Chinese garden, we came across what was apparently a religious ceremony contacting the spirits. It was being held in the middle of a rainstorm under a gazebo build over a carp pond.

As we walked by, filled with the God's Holy Presence, one of the two ladies decked out in the black and white vestments crossed her glassy stare with my eyes. Something was broken there. Leslie and I went to a nearby gazebo over the same pond and began declaring the word of God straight from the Psalms. The Spirit of God was breaking into new territory!

To rap things up, a little fun. Leslie and I had a couple of free days between semesters, and we traveled by train over the mountainous island and visited a beautiful resort near Hualien, built on a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Farglory Hotel did nothing less than take my breath away, in every aspect. Take a look at our album and enjoy.

Thanks for staying with us on our journey in the East.

With love,
Brian and Leslie