Work Week?

Hong Kong likes its holidays. This last week we had Wednesday (Qingming Festival or Tomb Sweeping Day) and Friday and Monday (Easter) off. We took advantage of some of the time off, going to a famous  Buddhist temple with some of our fellow missionaries and out to dinner a couple of times. 

But, surprising as this may sound, we also went into work for several (5+)hours on each of these holidays. I had a million emails to catch up on and I love working in P-day clothes when it is quiet and I can get much done. 

Regular work days border on the crazy side: lots of meetings, zoom conferences, working with the para-legals on different projects, and working through lots of email. I've very quickly become the resident real estate specialist, dealing with zoning and permitting issues in India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Viet Nam, Malaysia, etc. I've also started meeting with the Physical Facilities group here in the building. These are the people who find buildings and raw ground all over Asia for churches and temples. There are approximately a dozen of these men and women working with real-estate brokers and construction people all over Asia. This is actually fascinating stuff to see all that it takes to lease or build buildings in these different countries. 

I'm sort of the middle-man working with the local lawyers in each of these countries (I've become really good at using Microsoft Teams to video conference with all these different men and women) and the church's real estate and facilities people here in Hong Kong. Luckily, all the lawyers I work with speak english but the different accents (Pakistanis, Indians, Malaysians, Chinese, Thai, etc.) make it a bit more challenging.

I've been working with the lead lawyer here on the challenges of setting up the church officially in Viet Nam. Although we have had missionaries in Viet Nam for almost ten years, we are now having to jump through a lot of hoops to get the church working on a more formal basis. I've been involved in setting up bank accounts and satisfying legal requirements for practicing religion in a communist country.

I'm also working on religious registration issues in several countries. I'm working with re-resgistering and properly using the church's logos in Cambodia. And I've been tasked with getting the church registered in Timor Leste, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Myanmar. 

To tell you the truth, I've never enjoyed working more. I can't wait to get to work each day. There is so much to be done. There are five lawyers  and three paralegals here now. And we could easily double the number of lawyers and still not have enough.

Well, enough of that. On to some pictures:

We visited the Buddhist temple of 10,000 buddhas. We walked up this very long, steep  road flanked with hundreds of these gold buddha (monk?) figures. Each one, individual and unique.

This is the indoor cemetery (urn wall?) for thousands of people. You can open each of these little doors and see pictures and information about each of these people.

This pagoda is part of the temple grounds at the top of the road.
You can't take pictures of the actual temple itself but there were there were literally thousands of little (6-8" tall) buddhas lining the walls. Our best estimate was 12,000!

We saw this shop today. We thought, "Oh good, maybe a great Italian sandwich place!" Wrong. It made and sold cakes. Go figure.

We were charmed by this couple on the train on our way home from a Stake Easter activity .  He was gently cradling his wife's head while she was sleeping. He was so careful and gentle with her.

And this is me on the train this morning. This is when I do most of my Chinese study.

We went to dinner this week with this couple who wanted to show us how to get to the coolest little mexican restaurant. Truly a gem, hidden down back streets and alleys. Can't wait to take you there when you come visit.

I met this gentleman last night. His name is Michael. He is a software engineer from Peking, China. He says he loves America (and Donal Trump?). He is also a great ping pong player -- he lives in our building. I'm going to go buy a Chinese ping pong paddle and play some with him. 

So, on our walk last night, Mom and I ran across this group of RC trucks and  their handlers traveling down the promenade. They even had speakers tied onto them with chinese pop music blaring. Always something new to see here.

Well, time to go. Happy Easter to all of you. We love and miss you so much. We talk about you every day. We love what we are doing here. But you are never far from our thoughts. Love you!!