Tuesday, May 22, 2012

A Post Post

First time to see the ocean..or see the sea...
It is now Tuesday, a little more than two days after Sarah Heins, Audrey, and I left our friends and teammates at Hong Kong International Airport. When we arrived a little before nine on Sunday morning, we knew we'd have plenty of time to check them in and get back to my parents' side of the city for church. However, their flight was delayed...by five hours.

Travel, let alone international travel, is not easy. Most of our team is not accustomed to being at the whims and wills of others - a.k.a. airlines - in order to travel. Most of us are not used to 15 hour flights. I don't think that's something that you ever get used to. It's something that you learn to embrace.

One of the defining characteristics of this team is that we've been able to sustain each other throughout this entire trip in order to make the most out of every situation. Whether it was nature or nurture or by the grace of God, every meal and every large assembly and every new meeting of people was treated as an experience to embrace and not a reason to complain.

Last night in Hong Kong (Star Walk)
Hannah Uden liked to quote Russel from "Up!" We'd be sitting on the top of a double-decker bus and hear a voice say, "Adventure is out there!" That's the kind of attitude that surrounded our group during the trip, and it served us well as we served others.

And when our time of service was over, we learned that adventures sometimes come to us...in the forms of five-hour delays and needing to rebook flights from Chicago to Kansas City after the flight landed in the States. (Time-zone complications. If I knew how to explain it, I would.)

As in everything else, the team took it like champs. Over two hours in line just waiting to check in the bags and the prospect of hours sitting in an airport weren't the reasons that tears were shed when we finally said goodbye. We'll just miss each other.

So now I'm sitting in at my father's desk in my parents' apartment, looking out across Repulse Bay on the south side of Hong Kong Island and musing about how different worlds are. This is true across the city as well as the ocean. We were told by some of the career missionaries during our dinner on Wednesday that they've had teams who come here and wonder why they had to travel all the way across the ocean and speak to the students about Jesus to realize that their neighbors at home need the Gospel just as much.

We won't all end up permanently overseas. We won't all live in our hometown in the USA for the rest of our lives, either. Still, no matter where we are int he world, we are missionaries to those around us in the way we act and speak and talk to people about Jesus. And career missionaries or not, we can take short term mission trips to keep reminding us of our constant mission at wherever home might be.

Saying goodbye to our hosts
Joel Scheiwe, one of the career missionaries in Hong Kong, said that he hopes that our experience in Hong Kong will be a commission to us as we move on with our lives. I pray that it will.

Thank you all for your support.

Louisa



Give the glory to God.

1 comment:

  1. Lou, I'm so glad you all had this opportunity! It must have been fun for you to introduce friends and classmates to Hong Kong. Reading all these posts has brought back great memories for me from my visit to Hong Kong, nearly seven years ago. I know God has blessed you and your team through this as much as you have been a blessing to all those with whom you worked.

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