Hello from Macau. Today marks the 27th anniversary of our arrival in Macau. Twenty-seven years of language mistakes and successes, cultural faux-pas and connections, enriching friendships, family milestones crossed, lessons learned, life lived. Almost half of our life has been in this city, this place. Speaking of place …
… “Place, like all things in life, is a good gift from God. Our calling is to come to know our places in ways that reveal God’s gifts to us and that evoke in us deep gratitude and rejoicing — which is to say, worship.” — Smith, C.C., Pattison, J. Slow Church: Cultivating Community in the Patient Way of Jesus. IVP Books, Downers Grove, IL 2014. P. 70.
Macau has been a place for seeing God’s good gifts, a place of much rejoicing and deep, deep gratitude. As we have gotten to know Macau over the years, thanksgiving has been a constant refrain. Thanks for being called to “taste and see” the goodness of the Lord in this place. Thanks for years of stability and opportunity. Thanks for friends whose hospitable love and care goes beyond reason. Thanks for a place to be at home in a sometimes crazy world. Thanks that in Macau we could practice hospitality helping others feel at home. Our years in this place called Macau have truly been a good gift from the Lord. Join us in giving thanks for all these years.
But now we are being called to some new place. Tomorrow we leave Macau to see where the Lord would send us next. We leave this place of blessing and grace with heavy hearts, mixed feelings of grief and hope, trepidation and anticipation, the sad tears of parting and the glad tears of joy for all the good graces this place has revealed to us.
Please pray with us for:
Health and Safety as we travel in the USA for June and July,
then to England on 1 August for a 5 month sabbatical.Wisdom for departing words.
Eyes to see the gifts of God in whatever new place we are called to know.
Thank you for your prayers. May the Lord bless you with a place to know and worship the Lord.
“Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshipped him; but some doubted.” Matthew 28:16-17 (NIV)
Macau housing area at night.