Monday, December 1, 2008

Another Good Day of Community Interaction

Sunday provided another good time of informal interaction with various residents of my town here. First, in the morning, I visited the breakfast shop run by the parents of Chris and Jerry (renamed himself as of last week), two of the new kids that started coming to my Saturday English activity 2 Saturdays ago. Two other boys who visited for the first time Saturday were also there. Since their parents run a rice shop right next door to the breakfast shop, I went back in the evening for a bowl of chicken rice and a serving of seaweed, supposedly good for the hair!

Before coming home, I stopped by to say hello at the seafood restaurant, where the Laoban told me for the first time himself that his wife was in the hospital. I'm hopeful that God will provide our team an opportunity to pray with her for divine healing in the name of Jesus Christ. On the way back over here, I passed by Lily (another of my Saturday kids) and her mom on their scooter and chatted with them at a couple of red lights.

Arriving back at my front door, Da2Guan1, the middle school son of the beef noodle soup shop I visit the most frequently, was waiting by my front door. He wanted to borrow a bag for his school camping trip. He also asked me to give him a bible in addition to the bible portion he picked up last time, so I gave him a 300 NT Chinese bible translated into modern Chinese. We also went through the first lesson of a evangelism/ discipleship/equipping course I've been taking recently but I don't think he was really tracking well with it.

Last but not least, Sakray came back over when he got off work from the seafood restaurant. In addition to asking me to listen to a few songs on his IPOD, he brought over some venison soup to share (I didn't tell him I had been to the same shop just the night before). He shared a few personal things and also invited me to join a group of his friends for dinner this Saturday before he heads off for basic training. Sakray also dropped by again Monday morning on his way to work as well, but we were having our team meeting.

Anyway, weekend visiting opportunities are more frequent than Monday to Thursday, so I'm thankful for the touches God gave me with different acquaintances again yesterday. In addition to our community service, proactively taking advantage of those kind of opportunities is pretty much the "main event" for us right now since we don't actually have a church at this time.