Monday, September 21, 2009

Day to Day

Jen here. The days are becoming more normal. I am running errands, shopping and working to be a blessing to Roy. I want to do a good job at keeping the home, you know? Keep the laundry caught up, make delicious food, keep all 400 square feet clean, figure out how to make this place look like a home.

I ride the bus or tram daily, depending on whether I want to pay an extra $1.50HK for air con or not (tram=$2, bus=$3.40). I took this photo today on my way home from a Bible study(I'm on the tram).

The sun is back; we had a lot of rain since the typhoon level 8 warning (the equivalent of a snow day!) last Tuesday. Roy's first snow (well, typhoon) day in Hong Kong! If I hadn't heard about the typhoon warning, I would have just thought we were having a bad rainstorm. Not a Washington rain, but an Ohio rainstorm. I can't even remember if there was thunder and lightning.

For laundry, we do have a washer, but no dryer. In fact, of all the apartments we looked at, only one had a dryer. The norm in HK is to hang your clothes out the window to dry. We have a clothes line on our roof (our outdoor patio which is on the roof...), but everytime I've done laundry so far, it has been raining. So, here's my dryer when it rains...pretty sweet huh? Many a cloth has dried here on our window guards.

As I mentioned earlier, I checked out a women's Bible study from IECC on last Thursday. God brought me right to the place we met, a random conference room in a skyscraper downtown. I got off the tram and wandered into a building looking for the street number so I could know whether to walk north or south on the road to get to the right address. I showed the guard the address and he told me to take the elevator around the corner. I was in the right building!

The Bible study is going through a workbook called "Staying the Course with God". It is a study on the life of Joseph and taking different topics that he dealt with in his life and drawing applications out of them. Most of the women knew each other well...so well that they enjoyed chatting amongst themselves and catching up. It was an awkward time before the actual Bible study began...people said hi to me, but made no effort to carry conversation further. Instead, they seemed to scaredly jump into conversation with an already-made friend. My mind was running and full of criticism...Remember, I am the person who loves to know the names of everyone she comes in contact with. I even want to meet the people I sit by on the tram or in an elevator (that doesn't mean I do it, but I want to...). I kept asking God to take away my critical mind. Reminds me that when at church or a Bible I need to welcome new people rather than chat with my friends.

To their credit, at the end of the Bible study, I did get to chat with a few ladies. They seem nice...I am not sure if I'll keep going to that one or not. Ciao!

1 comment:

  1. Hi there. Yep; it's hard to find a place where people are intentionally friendly, especially beyond 'hello.' I find it extremely difficult but try even though I feel foolish. I learned some similar lessons when we moved to VA. Miss you and wish I could be hanging out with you. We're moving into Autumn here--probably going to take the kids to the pumpkin patch this week to get some gourds. Maybe you can cook up an apple crisp in your little oven? MMM..

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