Church in HK

Hey, this is Jen. Here's a post from last Sunday...better late than never

Sunday, August 30th
Today we planned to rest and check out a church: Island Evangelical Community Church. We woke up, Skyped with a few family members and made our life in Hong Kong official by me sinning against Roy. Up until this point, God poured His grace on us in giving us a few sweet weeks of still water. I don’t know what happened, but we just got along very well…It had to have been Jesus. Maybe I chose life, instead of selfishness, sin and death. But now in Hong Kong God showed me that it is so easy to choose death and it hurts. Ugh. All I have to do is to not choose Jesus, and in doing that I am choosing death or sin. It is so easy, and things go way better when we choose Jesus/life.

We left late for church, took the tram to the MTR, speed-walked to the MTR and then walked SO FAST in BURNING HOT, HUMID weather to the church. When we walked in the glorious doors of the wonderful air-conditioned building I was pouring sweat. Pouring. Like someone just dumped a bucket of water on my head. People warmly greeted us(though at that time I was in no mood for joy or faking, so I just nodded at people, wiped the sweat from my face and kept a blank face), Roy asked about a few ways to get connected, then we went to the 2nd floor service, which we were told is “More relaxed--there’s a coffee bar”. They were praising Jesus with song when we entered…what did they sing, you ask? It was all in English…the songs were all familiar: Amazing Grace, Come Thou Fount, something else. The people sat in chairs and couches. We watched the pastor on a screen--who does that? Weird… He preached on the first floor (like MHC, only 1st floor=Ballard, 2nd floor=Shoreline on a 5 minute delay).

Pastor Brett Hilliard preached about vision, his main text from Micah 6:8. What does God require of you, but to Do justice, Love mercy, and to Walk humbly with your God. His last point was sweet: To walk humbly with God is an adventure of intimacy. He shot down religion and stressed that this is about a relationship with God, knowing God. Oh yeah. In familiar words, It’s always about Jesus, it’s only about Jesus, it’s all about Jesus.

Pastor Brett shared the mission of the church. Their target people group is English speakers living in Hong Kong, whether that be native english speakers or 4th language learners of english. The church is pretty packed, ready to outgrow their space in this sky-scraper. Pastor Brett spoke of their plans for the future, maybe a church plant or creating a satellite campus or something…sounds familiar.

After the service I met Kathy Hamilton, director of the women’s ministries. Friendly and in her 50s, she warmly greeted me (by that time I remembered God’s goodness and joy, and Roy and I reconciled, so I was warm back to her). They are having a women’s retreat in two weeks--Beth Moore via satellite. I may go. The idea of southern, sweet Beth Moore doing a conference in Hong Kong is strange to me, but I don’t have an international /global mind-set yet. Foolish American.

There’s too much to recall about the past few days. They’ve been fun, difficult, stretching, God-glorifying. Good thing God is amazing, because I am a frail human on my own.

Just as a reminder, Hong Kong is 12 hours ahead of Ohio/Michigan.
Example: 8am on September 1st in Hong Kong=8pm on August 31st in the Midwest
Trick for the Midwest: Take your present time and switch the am to pm or vice versa, then add a day, if needed. We are ahead of you.

Hong Kong is 15 hours ahead of Washington.
Example: 8am on September 1st in Hong Kong=5pm on August 31st in Washington
Trick: Take your present time (ex 5pm 8/31) add three hours (8pm), switch pm to am or vice versa (8am) and add a day, if needed (8am 9/1). Confused yet?

Just remember, if we forget it is your birthday, no problem because we can call you the day after and still not have missed it. If you remember our birthdays the day of, you may be too late! ha.

Our current trend for communicating with the other side of the world is to call or Skype in our morning time and the US’s evening time. So, if you are free in the evenings, let us know, we may be free to Skype with you!