Many missionaries are plagued by doubt. Not usually about the message. At...
From Shack to Sanctuary
Progress report: Tuesday I went with four guys to the realtor guy. I figured if every time I came with more guys, we might eventually scare him into giving us a good deal. But, alas, he said the owner couldn’t give us a lower price for the bigger house. We were all pretty disappointed, because […]
Pinnacle
Guy named Luke came to church last night with a friend that’s been coming for a long time. This girl’s been bringing a bunch of friends lately, so that’s pretty exciting in and of itself. Luke’s a real nice guy, and he listened in real intently. Actually our second service attendance was majorly down – […]
Godly Obstruction
Sunday morning here. Another hectic week. Pretty maddening, actually. Really tested my limits as a sane person. Ever had one of those days with a lot on your plate to accomplish, and though you tried as hard as you could, you couldn’t put a single thing in the “done” pile? Ever had three of those […]
Memorials Both Good Bad
Sunday we had a great number of first-time visitors – a few students showed up from the English classes that Ashley started last week, and some other regular attenders brought some friends for the first time. In light of the earthquake a couple weeks ago, we took a break from Philippians and I preached on […]
Time Concentrate
Packed week. I’ve been trying to catch up on my characters study – I missed a couple weeks of class, and the class moves at a good pace – about forty or so new characters a class, twice a week. There’s only so fast you can do that kind of work, so I’ve been trying […]
Step Away From the Righteousness
I think we had a couple of really good services last night. The services are finally starting to balance out, which is something I’ve really hoped to see. In the past, it’s kind of felt like a waste of energy to have the two services – a lot of people came to the first and […]
Ambiguously Suspicious
Had some stranger-than-usual drama this week. At our second service on Sunday, a Chinese guy and a Russian guy came into church late. One of our regulars had told me before the service started that he was waiting on a couple Christian friends to show up. After the service, I went back to say hi […]
While You Were Out
Since I haven’t really written about any church news for a couple weeks, I’ll try to do a brief rundown of recent happenings. A few weeks ago we had a really good week, arguably our strongest ever – both services packed and my Chinese didn’t fall completely flat. We had 75-80 in attendance that week, […]
Surveying The Land
Spent most of the day yesterday walking all over town looking for a building for the new location for the church we want to start next month. Easier than last time, because it’s not just me and S. Three guys from church came with me to comb the area we’re interested in. Don’t remember how […]
Lap Around the Sun
I’m pretty sure today marks the end of our first year in China. Supremely hard to believe – the changes that have happened in our lives seem to have happened over a much longer time. On the other side of the coin, though, I’ve been near oblivious to time passing. Especially the last six months. […]
The Gospel in China 
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