Week thirty could be a turnaround for me in HK after my USA trip. On Monday I joined Doris' high school mates for lunch. They bought four 文法聖經 from me. I am slowly warming up to them, attending their lunch every other month. I learned my lesson from sleeping five hours the previous day at home in the noon time as a result of jet lag, so I decided to spend the rest of the day hours writing at the office. At night I joined a friend retreating here that I bumped into the previous night and our talk today was three hours till midnight. We bared our hearts and shared our thoughts. Friend said that I was there for him the last time he was on the island depressed and Doris was instrumental in turning around his marriage one coffee meeting elsewhere, so it made me think and gave me pause. He called it double friendship.
Tuesday was a busy day. I had to catch up to my Saturday sermon that I had put aside for weeks, if not months. By the end of the day the sermon was slowly getting in shape, but illustrations were lacking.
On Wednesday I stepped in the scales to check my weight. It started with a coworker's wife who said, Pastor you must have put on at least ten pounds. Sure enough I weighed 168 pounds from three weeks of Thanksgiving eating, friends' dinner, cold temperature, meeting snacks and no exercise.
Thursday I woke to a short dream of my wife with me and a younger colleague "A" sharing a meal at table 23 in Marie Calendars, a restaurant I visited in USA. To me it is nothing short of a blessing to feel her as she was. The hardest thing is to lose memories of her, which is the fear of all remaining spouses. The morning was supposedly a half day off but there were three meetings to attend, of which the first is department meeting. At the meeting I announced that I would cooperate with outside church events but not participate 合作但不參加. My coworkers would deputize for me. They are the best, God's angels for me. I have little energy or enthusiasm left for big events or vain folks around. My time is best spent writing, mentoring and theological missions.
On Friday I spent much of my time getting the Cantonese sermon translated and ppt ready for Saturday morning preaching, it was half hour past deadline 3pm when I finished merely the ppt. The disadvantage of preaching Saturday morning is that there is no Saturday cushion to work further on it. Because my sister in-law and husband could not attend Couples Fellowship that night I did not stay but went home to eat and pray. One of the things I looked forward to returning from USA is to continue the prayer walk routine that we enjoyed, even more than my morning swim.
Saturday sermon turned out much better than I expected. I gave an invitation and was shocked that seven raised their hands. I pressured the morning service team to buy lunch and we had a good time. At night a putonghua (pth) worshipper told me he attended the morning worship because he's got to work tomorrow. He said, Pastor, your Cantonese is better than your pth. I said, Shh, don't say so loud, or you'll lose your pastor to Cantonese side.
There were 137 baptized on Sunday. I and buddy Cheng split the work of baptizing and K was the speaker, no better team I must add. At the end of 68 baptisms I gave a couple from my Fellowship a big hug to howls from the congregation. It was natural to me after I'm back from USA. Hug first now.
Praise God; I had put on weight, energy to spare and regained my touch, for the moment. Hallelujah, He heals the brokenhearted and sets His people free, Merry Christmas all!
Dec 21
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