Stan

 Dear Family,

This has been a very busy week. We picked Stan up at the airport last Saturday night and then took him on a whirlwind tour of HK. He was here from Saturday night to Friday morning. And it was go, go, go from the minute he got here. I had to fit some work in also; so it was a very busy week. We were all exhausted by the end of the week. We averaged about 10 miles of pavement walking everyday!

So, here are some pictures:

Picking Stan up at the airport Saturday night.

Sunday morning on the way to church.

Sunday afternoon at Kowloon Park. These are some Indonesian women singing from the Quran. We made friends with them a few weeks ago and now always stop by to say hello.

Another trip to Big Buddha.

Of course, Stan and Dad had to take some pictures. And Mom had to take pictures of us taking pictures.

The obligatory stop at the Apple Store.

This is a new friend we made on Peng Chau Island. He is the local junk yard artist. He loves to collect junk and then tie it together and give it a coat of paint -- voila, art!

We also had to stop at my friend's camera store. Here he is showing us a spy camera from the 1950s. Gotta love the shoes!

He had his friend (the local architect/photographer) take a picture of us and then published it on his Instagram feed.

This is our favorite place to eat. An old street restaurant with the best food in HK. And I think this guy in the red tank top has got to be the best chef in HK.

By the end of the week, Stan was an expert at negotiating the subway.

This is us on the peak next to the date scratched into the rock on the day that Matthew Cowley dedicated China to missionary work.

We did a session at the Temple Wednesday night.

And ate fried dumplings for dinner.

One morning I took Stan on an early morning walk through Hung Hom (our neighborhood). Here is one of the many outdoor meat markets.

And no neighborhood is complete without the local cupping and coining place.

And Stan was especially interested in the local hot dog buns at our favorite bakery.

The day before he left, Stan and I spent the morning at the 10,000 Buddhas monastery. Great place for  photography.

It was wonderful to be together again and to show him this great city!!

*******************

Then today on our Sunday walk on the promenade we came upon this crowd that had gathered. One of the fishermen had caught himself a .........

STINGRAY!!!

Amazing, there are always a bunch of guys (and gals) fishing off the promenade. But we rarely see them catch anything. So this was quite the event.

A closing thought: 

Every Monday morning we have a staff meeting for the lawyers and paralegals. We have a little section where we are invited to share our experiences with seeing the "hand of the Lord" in the work we do. Sometimes people share, sometimes not. This week while working on a difficult problem in Pakistan and realizing that we had just come up with a solution, I turned to Char and said, "I think the fact that we are even in these countries at all is a testimony of God's hand in the work that we do. The miracles are all the small daily solutions we come up with as we puzzle through the problems". The truth is, it really is remarkable that we even have a presence countries like India, or Vietnam, or Laos, or Cambodia or Pakistan (which is the fastest growing mission in the church). These countries work so hard to keep the outside world from coming into their space. Sometimes, we think we should look for the dramatic, when in fact, the on-going daily work of maintaining a church presence at all is the miracle.

We are so grateful to be here, contributing in our small way to the on-going work of the Lord as He gathers his children. And we thank all of you for supporting us in this work. You are the best and we love you for your help and blessing.

Well, it is bed time again. And, lots of work to do tomorrow.

Love you all, 

Mom, Dad, Grandma and Grandpa