Oh how I miss the comforts of America. I am getting used to using squatty potties and eating food that turns your mouth into flames. There is this one pepper called Hua Jiao that totally numbs your mouth. The first time I experienced the food in C-Town I accidentally ate some of these. My whole left side of my tongue went numb along with my lips. I must confess though that their food here is amazing! I love the flavors but not so much the spiciness.
I remembered from my last email that I was going to tell you about how I “swam with the dead.” This was one of the highlights of my life. Every year in Hong Kong there is a period of about a week in August where the plankton glow at night. So when you go out swimming at night it looks fluorescent and as you move the water sparkles and glows blue. It is the coolest thing ever. We were pretending that we were making fire balls with our hands and we would cannon ball into the water and watch the explosion of light. Another amazing thing is that you could spot the fish swimming in the water because the water would streak fluorescent blue. However none of the Asian people go swimming at night because they believe that for that week, hell is opened and the dead are set free. They think the lights are the dead coming back to earth for a period of time. It is crazy to learn these cultural beliefs that they have. So we were the crazy foreigners swimming at night. It was a blast!
Last week I made it into C-Town. It was very easy to go through customs but not so easy to fit all of our luggage into a taxi. We had a crazy time trying to jam things in. Right now we are currently staying at someone's old apartment. We are going to check out an apartment for ourselves and see if it works for us. Please pray that it is a nice apartment because the location is perfect for reaching our campus.
I have made friends with some of the Asian girl students and I am looking forward to seeing what the Lord has in store for them. It is so mind blowing to see how much little knowledge they have of of God and the Bible. One of them did not even know what it was. He has put on my heart one girl named Rose (I gave her that English name 😉 ). I had a chance to share with here a little bit about God and the Bible. I am not sure where she stands but I know she is not in the family. She is such a sweet girl. I know the Lord has great things for her. So please pray for Rose that Jesus would continue to stir things in her heart. When you are here you can definitely sense and feel the hopelessness and spiritually dead atmosphere. The culture is all about you. All about you making things happen, living for your happiness, and believing only in yourself. Also the pressure on the students is so heavy. The pressure to perform well and to make something of themselves so their family can be proud of them and so they can take care of their parents when they are old. It is such a sad thing to see how unhappy a lot of the students are.