December 13th (Week 11)

Four days to departure! There are lots of celebration parties going on. We had a barbecue at the beach on Friday evening to celebrate the end of our work duty. It was a beautiful evening, sun was setting, lots of great friends.

Last night we had a ‘love feast’. A special, dress up dinner for our class at the Go Centre, the place that we clean every day as part of our work duty. Anyone with a talent was asked to prepare something for the evening. Jimi and I did a 'road trip' skit. Our wives poked their arms through our sleeves and our hands became our feet. Very funny when Jenny put sunglasses on my face and fed me apple sauce.

Each week’s lecturer is better than the previous week. This week we had one of the worlds leading mission strategists. He has his finger on the pulse of what is going on, where the needs are and where the threats are. The Joshua Project has a great website that tracks who the unreached people are in the world. We learned that wherever Christianity goes health and prosperity follows.

Fred had some amazing stories of God working through crises like the tsunami that hit Thailand in 2004 and right now in Iraq, Iran and Syria.

We had a great day at the beach today. Ryan played in the surf and has been hobbling around today without his boot. He is a bit hesitant about putting any weight on his heel. I want him walking and ready for our 24hrs in Tokyo! Here is a reminder of our travel plans. We fly on Dec 17th Kona to Honolulu where we pick up our flight to Tokyo. We will overnight in Japan and then fly on to Seoul, Korea (Korean Airlines’ hub) and from there just a few hours on to Hanoi, Vietnam. By this time next week the kids will be world travellers!

Please pray for safe travels, minimal delays and interruptions, no jet lag, good health and lots of energy as we hit the ground running helping out with Christmas celebrations in Hanoi.

Next blog entry will be from VIETNAM!