books

I have a selfish request. I would like to have books about Jonathan Goforth and books for learning the Madarin language.

I have read "Jonathan Goforth: An Open Door in China" by Janet and Geoff Benge so any other books by or about him would be appreciated.

Any language books will be greatly appreciated.

I know this is a selfish request, but if you do send them please mail to:
Eton House International School
LaRee Croy
Dongguan Dynatown, Dongcheng Dong Road
P.R. China 523013

I'll leave you with some quotes from the book.

Jonathan then preached from the story of the loaves and the fishes.

The story tells of how more than five thousand people followed J-sus to hear Him teach. As night approached, the disciples wanted to send the crowd away because they had nothing to feed them. Just then a young boy came forward with five loaves of bread and two fish. J-sus blessed the food, broke it into pieces, and told the disciples to distribute it to the crowd. Everyone had enough to eat, and afterwards there were twelve basketfuls of leftovers.
When Jonathan had finished retelling the story, he said, “Now, let’s imagine for a moment that the disciples fed the first two rows of people. When they were done, instead of moving on to feed the back rows, they went to the front and fed the first two rows a second and then a third time. After a while, people in the first two rows were so full they turned away when food was offered to them. All the while, people in the back two rows were fainting from hunger.”
Jonathan paused for a moment to let the congregation think about what he had said. “My friends, aren’t we doing the same thing when we put most of our time and money into giving the Bread of Life to those who have heard it so often while millions of people in China are starving for the g-spel message?”

Jonathan also said "The G-d of Hudson Taylor is ours."

The G-d of Paul, David, Timothy, John the Baptist, Moses, Noah, Joseph, Elijah, Ezekiel, Isaiah, John, Job, Mary, Abraham, Ruth, Mary Magdelene, Oswald Chambers, C.S. Lewis, etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., is yours as well. Take heart in that. It is the Almighty we serve.

Boo how (no good)

Microphones plus my computer plus China equals boo how! (phonetic spelling for "no good"). Maybe if you just subtracted China from the equation it would be how how (good good). I'm bitter about the microphone because first of all, I've been here two months now and I haven't been able to call anyone. Reason number two is as follows...

Rachel and I went to Carrefour (similar to Walmart) today to exchange our boo how microphone. Two hours later....still there. I had to be a bit rude with him after the first hour. I'm not exaggerating either-- we were there for two hours trying to get our money back. In the end, they gave us another microphone. However, it doesn't work on my computer either. At any rate, it was an adventure and definitely a memory.

This past week went very well. Rachel and I had pr-yers answered right and left. And not just pr-yers, but little desires. I've never seen them answered so quickly. It's like they're tangible in a sense. For instance, we've started a new schedule in the afternoons with the kids who don't nap. This new schedule requires Rachel to teach my 3 year olds and I in turn teach her 2 year olds. This has added stress to our day because the age difference really changes our lesson plans and we don't know how to teach the different age group because we're used to our own age group. So Thursday we ended up not teaching the different age groups and Rach was ecstatic. When we got home, Rachel had an IM from her friend Traci in Shanghi saying she had pr-yed that afternoon that Rachel's afternoon class with my 3 year olds would be cancelled and that she would receive extra encouragement that day. One of the other teachers sent her a note that same day telling her she was pr-ying for Rachel that day, which she has never told her through a note. Ugh, it was amazing. And today another one happened! On our way to Carrefour Rachel nonchalantly said she'd like to see Kendra, a Chinese worker at the school. Lo and behold, Kendra runs into us at Carrefour 2 hours later when we're about to finally get our new microphone and leave. If we hadn't been at Carrefour for those 2 hours we wouldn't have seen her and He couldn't have blessed Rachel so tremendously. He is so good.

I have a request since I wrote all of that...if you pr-y for something specific , please let me know so I can let you know when He answers it. It is so encouraging to know when pr-yers are answered for you and me. I know they're being answered, but I'd like to know specifically if you don't mind sharing :)

I know I write a lot of funny anecdotes and don't get very personal since this is visable to everyone in the world, but I want to share something today. I'm a bit lonely over here. I look forward to the reunions that will take place. My friends are amazing people and I miss you all so much. I could write something I miss about each of you, but I'm afraid I'd leave someone out because it's late and I'm falling asleep. Please know that I love you all and I appreciate you all a lot. I'm not alone. It's going to take more than an ocean to separate me from all of you. I trust that. I take heart in that. I cling to that.

permanent starch and a haircut

An interesting fact about my life in China: my clothes are permanently starched. We wash our clothes and they come out stiff. Ironing is quite easy. They stay pressed and the process is much shorter.

Enough of that. Onto more important things...like hair. Okay, hair really isn't more important, but an update nonetheless. I got my hair chopped off during my trip to Yangshuo last week. It was almost to my belt, and now it's just below my shoulders. Quite a change, and I love it. There are pictures on facebook if you're really curious.

Speaking of pictures, can someone email me or send me a facebook message to confirm if the picture I tried to post is visable? I'm going to keep trying to post pictures on here in the hopes that they are visable.

Yangshuo was beautiful by the way. Google it for pictures. The geography is crazy. It's a little town where there are mountains of rock formations. We went on a hot air balloon ride (that adventure will be posted when I have more time) and got to see the splendor of it all. Listen to the song, "Indescribable" and you'll know what kind of images I saw. It was such a blessing to see His work.

School is going a lot better. Another American teacher has come to help me and Rachel. She worked at Eton House last year so she is a great resource. She and her husband were miss-onaries in the Phillipines for 17 years before moving to China 3 years ago. Amazing woman to say the least. The kids are growing on me and I hope I am doing the same.

I have a pr-yer request if any of you have the inclination...my college loans are really weighing on me, especially because I'm not earning much money here. Please pr-y for peace about it first of all, but also for the debt to be erased. I know the money will come but it does weigh on me.

I miss you all a lot. Things continue to get busier so I apologize for the lapse in communication on here, email, facebook, etc. Thank you all for hanging in here with me. And "mad props" to Teub because he asked me to do so since he's flagged my blog and reads it a lot :)

I love you all and I'm pr-ying for you as well. Keep looking up. That's where the miracles come from.