Second semester is here...

Dear friend,

I can't believe the first semester of this school year went by so fast. It certainly didn't seem like it was going by that fast at times, but it also seems crazy that it's already over. Things are going well on this side of the world. Our internet is finally working normally again... DSL here is slower than America anyway, but a transcontinental line was broken during an earthquake right after Christmas, and that slowed things down nearly to a stop. I couldn't access email or US websites for about two weeks. Then some of the connections were rerouted to satelite, which was still painfully slow. So it's nice that speeds are almost back to normal now.

I'll try for a 2-3 paragraph update on the last couple of months:

Christmas: It was great this year for those of you who haven't heard through other updates. Our team had an evangelistic Christmas party during which 53 students heard the gospel and 17 accepted Christ as their Savior. It was a really cool experience... two students shared their testimony and one also presented an outline of the gospel. He did an incredible job. The party was on Dec. 22, and it was a great early Christmas present. Then I spent Christmas eve and day with my friend Graham and his wife Ashlei in a city about an hour flight north of where I live. They were so gracious and kind to me, and I had a wonderful time spending Christmas with them.

January: This is a time when students start exams and become pretty unavailable. Most students leave to go home for a six week break for the Spring Festival when exams are over. Around October, we always look at January and think 'Man, I will have a lot of time to get things done in January when the students are gone'. But actually, that time fills up pretty fast too. We had several days of intense planning meetings, I caught up on some reading I needed to do, and I also got to do something that I really enjoy: Our company ownns an apartment in our city that needs to be sold... the apartment is not in a great state of repair, but over the years has come to be in an excellent location in town. So I volunteered to help remodel the place to get it ready for sale. While this certainly has been more challenging than a similar project in the US, I just really like to do this kind of stuff. And it has been great for my language skills--well, at least for learning words like crown moulding and about plumbing. It was neat to see the Lord provide that kind of opportunity for me even here.

February:  I was able to get some rest in Thailand, and I also got to attend an awesome conference for people who work with recent college grads and young professionals.  When we 
got back, the country was right in the middle of celebrating the traditional New Year's holiday.  I 
had been looking foward to some good local food, but had to wait nearly a week for the restaurants 
to open back up!  Pretty much only foregin restaurants and businesses were open.  Even the vegetable markets were mostly closed.  

As a result, I have had all the KFC I can handle for a while.  

I confess that I started writing this in February, and now it's already March.  This first week, there are some visitors here from America.  I'm a little sad that I don't have any visitors this year, but it's still been fun to meet other peoples' friends and families.  It really is a HUGE blessing to have people you love visit you here, and I am glad that a lot of folks are getting to experience that now.  It's also fun to watch people during their first time here because things that have gotten very "old hat" for me kinda come alive again through people who are seeing the (cool, fun, weird, gross, random) stuff for the first time.  Some of my favorite pictures I've ever taken here are still the 
ones that I took my first week, because everything was still so new.

Prayer Requests:

1. Pray for students who will be coming back to campus this week from the New Years/Spring Festival holiday.  Pray that they will arrive safely and that they will have good time with the Lord as they readjust to campus life.
   
2. Pray for us as we meet with the returning students that we would be able to encourage them and that we would be encouraged by them through stories of how the Lord has worked in their lives over the break.
3. Pray for the weekly fellowship which will be starting again this Friday.  Pray that students would be more excited than ever about their relationships with the Lord and about sharing the hope that is found in Him with those around them.  
4. Pray that we would have many opportunities to share the good news of Christ around the upcoming Easter holiday.

Thanks so much for praying!

Brian

Not Driving today

This isn't a prayer request, just a story. A little background might be helpful before I tell it... I don't currently have any ambition to buy a car here, but last year I got the idea that it might be an educational experience to try to get a drivers license here. Cars are available for rent, and who knows when it might be useful to be able to legally drive one? US/International licenses cannot be used to operate a vehicle because of a treaty that is or not in place, however one must have a license from their own country in order to apply for a license here.

Today was the big day. I convinced my teacher to take me to the place where licenses are obtained, although neither one of us were certain of its exact location. As she drove along, I mentioned that in America people can take drivers education at the age of 15 and so I had been driving for 14 years. Then I asked her how long she had been driving. She looked pensive for a moment and then said, "Well, I bought my car in March, and got my license after that." "March of THIS year??" I said, probably a little too incredulously, and she said yes. She is over 40.

"Now, let me think... ah yes, I'm sure that the drivers license place is in this direction," she said as she turned onto the elevated highway--not exactly the directions that had been given to me by a friend who had been earlier. She said she wasn't sure of the exact location because she wasn't driving when she went to take her test (did I mention that was in March of this year?!). When she exited the highway, she again seemed to be guessing at which way to go, but a minute later we were turning into the largest drivers license facility I've ever seen. Proud of myself for being smart enough to bring a local along with me, I was sure it would be smooth sailing from there.

When we got into the building, there was a reception table with two ladies sitting at it. They were surrounded with people asking questions about licenses (and I mean literally on all sides--folks were even around the other side of the table tapping them on the shoulder while they were trying to answer the ones in front of them). My teacher squeezed through the crowd like a pro and asked one of the ladies what we needed to do. "I need to see his passport," said the lady. I quickly produced the passport. She looked at it, probably not understanding very much of it. I gathered that as she handed it back and said "What country is he from?" For those of you who are passport holders, you'll know that "United States of America" is printed on the front of our passports. Step one: check.

Then she asked to see my American license. She looked at it, still with the blank stare, and handed it back. Step two: check.

Then she said I would need to have a health exam. On inspection of the very thorough (everything from AIDS test to ultrasound--I am not kidding ) health exam papers I had brought along from my most recent visa application, she said those would be insufficient. I would need to have an exam there. It would cost $1.50US. "No problem," I said, although I wasn't sure exactly what else they could examine me for.

"Oh, and we need his ...mingzheng." I'd been understanding everything that the lady was saying up to this point, although the lady was directing all comments to my teacher. "Huh?" was all I could manage. "Do you have your ...mingzheng?" my teacher asked. Turns out that my ...mingzheng was a piece of paper verifying that I had registered to live in my apartment from the police station. I had brought a big plastic folder full of all kinds of documents, but I was pretty sure that the ...mingzheng wasn't among them.

"Well, he can still take the health exam, but we must have the ...mingzheng," the lady said to my teacher. So off we went to the next building for the health exam. The exam turned out to consist of two men sitting at a desk. One man entered my license info into a computer and asked me if I could see an object on one of those pieces of paper with a lot of colors and shapes on it. I told him it was a panda, and with that I passed the health exam.

After that, we went back to the lady and asked if a nearby police station might be able to provide me with a copy of the document I needed (the one I registered at was 40 minutes away). "Maybe," she answered in a noncommital tone. "Where can we find a police station?"-teacher-"Go ask the guard,"-lady.

At this point, I could type a lot more about the six people who each gave us incorrect directions and the three people in the police station whom it took to direct us to the lady who in the end could not help but I'll wrap this up.

After being rejected at the police station, I asked if we could go back to the drivers license place and see if they would just let me take the test today and bring the paper back later to get my license. I could have come back on my own later except 1. I needed my teacher to help translate the test (all in characters) and 2. Foreigners are only allowed to take the test on Wednesday and Thursday.

When we got inside and my teacher fought her way to the desk and asked about the test, the lady looked at her like she was crazy. "NO! the ...mingzheng is the most important document. If we don't have that, we can't do anything. All the other documents are not important. We could do it without them. But we cannot do anything without the ...mingzheng." As we walked out, I asked my teacher if she really thought that I had brought my ...mingzheng and forgotten my passport and US license if they would have given me a license. "No, then your passport and US license would have been the most important documents!" she said. At least she was keeping her sense of humor :)

And that was that. I felt so bad for my teacher, who had taken the time to drive me to this place on the outskirts of town in her own car. I offered to buy her gas numerous times on the way home, but of course she adamantly refused to accept any money. As I got out of the car over two hours from the time we started the adventure, she waved goodbye and said "We'll try again next week!"

Well, that's the story of the afternoon. Hope you enjoyed it. Everything else here going great. Hope all is well wherever you are!

Brian

The table in the window...