Witness.

You may be asking...

Why Hong Kong?

Wasn't Washington far enough West?

Why put all our stuff in boxes and move again after only a year and go half way around the world?

In a word: 

Witness.

Most of you know for the past year I have been working for Chess4Life, a company that uses chess to teach valuable life lessons to elementary school students, as a a Head Chess Coach - yes I didn't know you could be paid to teach chess either. :)
  

Several months ago my boss announced that he had been approached with the opportunity to bring Chess4Life Camps to Hong Kong, with the possibility of a setting up a franchise there someday and asked for interest from the coaches.

 

Thanks to a roommate Jenny and I had, Jenny has a heart for China (LiLi would say a stomach too), so I told Elliott(my boss) that we would be interested in going to do the camp in April. We went and had a great time - and shortly after were offered the chance to return for a year to setup a Chess4Life franchise that would be owned and operated by Active Kids (an after school activities organization in Hong Kong), with School Programs, Center Classes, Private Lessons, Quads, Camps, Tournaments, etc…

After lots of prayer, and consideration, and seeking counsel…I still didn’t want to go.
My heart was in WA. Home to me, Mars Hill-my church, community group-my family. I’m so excited about the work Jesus is doing through Mars Hill-the gospel-people are being saved, lives are being transformed, and Christians are being the church. After more prayer we finally made our decision based on one idea.

I'm reading through the book of Acts, Jesus puts it this way,
“And you will be My witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

Witness - to stand up and bear testimony of the truth of Jesus. This is what we have been redeemed for, this is what we live for and have been called unto; to show forth Jesus’ death & resurrection, his reconciliation offered freely to the ends of the earth. And we want to consider every door possible where we can be just that. And Hong Kong looks like a great door.

So we started packing up all our stuff into boxes. We left the 26th of August 2009 with lots of help from our friends, some who stored our stuff, Scott & Jill & Elliott, and our good buddy Collin who drove us to the airport. Everything went smoothly. No problems with security. The flight was easy. Customs. Baggage. Taxi. Check-in at the hotel. God was in all of it carrying us along.

So let us stand for you Jesus, in our marriage, in work, in our relationships, in everything we do.

Memorial.

On great recommendation of a friend of Jenny and I, we plan to blog on our time in Hong Kong:

to record the ongoing story of God's grace - the brief sentence our lives represent in God's eternal story.
to give God the glory for everything good that is done in us and through us.
to put this glory on display for all to see, and so glorify God.
to remember and meditate upon what God has done.
to turn away from the ways we will and do act sinfully and foolishly.




God often takes His people on journey's - away from their homes - to set them free - to change them - and to teach them - to trust in Him - to provide for them - and to make Himself their new home.


And sometimes on these journeys the people of God would raise up a memorial, nothing special, maybe just a pile of rocks, but it served as a reminder for themselves and future generations of what God had done, His redemption, grace, provision, sufficiency, power, wisdom, goodness, justice, mercy, love, wrath. So they would never forget that is was God that brought them out and set them free.


...this is our pile of rocks


-God, please be in this thing, for if you are not there is no point in it, let this not be about us, but about you, change us and make us more like you, in Jesus' name.