2008-12-25

Yesterday
I didn't read or pray, we were on the train coming to Shiyan. It wasn't convenient (that is sad). I should have been more disciplined. I had the time.

Now we are here and have no Internet connection. I am praying the school will gladly restore the Brelands Internet connections or Brad will allow us to share his for a few days.

Our travels were fabulous! We made friends with the taxi driver that brought us to the train station in Beijing, gave him a Bible, and invited him to church. He works six days a week, 13 hours a day, taking Sundays off. I asked if he had time to come to our meeting, he said he did, and would attend the next Sunday.

Then on the train, we met a couple married for just four days. The husband is Islamic, the wife has no faith, but the husband says she is now Islamic too. We gave them a Bible marked with Proverbs, Matthew 5-7, Ephesians 5 (which they read right away), and a section on how to become a Christian.

We marked 7 Bibles with Proverbs, Matthew 5-7, and how to become a Christian. We gave them to the above mentioned people, a total of 5 people on the train.

Meeting us at the train station were Brad Forgy and Alex Wang, they are the faithful greeters of Shiyan. We went to our old home to find the TV has been missing for a month, being repaired, but otherwise the apartment was mostly as we left it (of course, minus a lot of stuff we gave to the new teachers).

We ate dinner at Brad & Min's... there were supposed to be other teachers too, but they all had something else to do. Min cooked a lot of food and was pretty sad that people didn't show up and stick around to eat.

We then went Christmas Caroling around campus. We met up with old students and made some new friends along the way.

John 21 - Acts 3
John does not include the "let this cup pass" prayer of Jesus, instead he has very lengthy prayers about the glory of God, unity of the disciples and all believers, and God's blessing and protection for Jesus' disciples. Why?

Power of a Praying Husband - Desires
Hobbies and interests are important for a marriage. If a couple has similar interests then they will spend more time together, if they are increasingly interested in he same things, then they are growing together.

Prayer
I am praying for our desires to be God's desires for us. We need to put his desires first in our lives, then we can grow in his blessings.