Home Again

Sunday, February 11: Our trip to China was very positive. We had a great time with Mark and Patty and got an opportunity to visit the Panda preserve. It was impressive. We met with 8 good leaders and discussed Pathways. They are very interested and want to start perhaps as soon as April. They are concerned about how they will multiply. The Chinese culture and the history of the church makes it hard for pastors to work together outside their established groups. This will be a significant prayer issue. 

We have been home now for 6 days and are still struggling with jet lag. We were not able to use our diet plan that mitigates jet lag and are really paying the price this time. Hopefully over the next week we will return to normal sleep and feel better.

Al

Sri Lanka to Thailand to China

Monday, January 29:  Our time in Sri Lanka continued to be tense. We found out that the students had not passed on the previous workshop because they did not understand it well but did not tell us that. We had a heart-to-heart talk and I think we got back on track finally. We resolved the issues with the previous workshop and continued with the current one, but had to skip parts because we got behind. 

Our hope is that going forward we will not have these problems again. The students have made commitments to that end that I think they are serious. They did come prepared for the preaching next session so that was good. Overall, we remain hopeful for the potential of this group.

We flew out to Thailand on Friday, spending the night in Chiang Mai at a hotel before meeting our friends, the Callahans. We are now staying with them for a few days and it is a rich and refreshing time. We are enjoying the perfect weather but bracing for our trip to China on Wednesday where it will be much colder, inside and out. We traveled up to a Lahu village on Sunday where I preached at one of my former student’s church. It is always hard to know how well it goes in a setting like this with all the cultural differences but we enjoyed the time and trust the Lord used it. Edie and I are using these days as our annual planning retreat and are making some progress on that. Hopefully, that will continue tomorrow.

Al