Category: Church

Comments and activities related to our church, which is Community Presbyterian Church in Louisville, KY

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Vanessa- an update

Vanessa Liu, our Chinese guest for Christmas, left yesterday, and we miss her so much!  As planned, we took her to the Creation Museum in Petersburg, KY last Wed.  The exhibits are both comprehensive and impressive, and Vanessa mostly listened, kept her Chinese dictionary at the ready, and seemed to enjoy herself.  She saw and heard many things that were new to her.  At supper the next day, we had a long discussion about “faith in evolution” vs. faith in Christ, and she restated her commitment to evolutionary beliefs.  Those are, we believe, the major impediment to her conversion, since she has been taught them constantly since childhood.  The good news is that she now has the other side, presented thoughtfully and respectfully.  In addition, she participated in giving and receiving gifts (I got a quill and ink set, for instance), attended many church services, went dancing with us on New Year’s Eve, spent several hours discussing his trip to China with our cousin, John Graham and even did some target practice.  As we parted, and some of us were close to tears, she stressed that she wanted us to visit her in China.  I hope we can! 🙂

Here are some pictures of our adventures together: Continue reading “Vanessa- an update”

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Our gift from China at Christmas

We have a special gift with us this Christmas.  Vanessa Liu, our daughter’s Chinese roommate at OSU, has come to stay over the holidays,Rene & Vanessa at Christmas 2008 and in only a few days she has become dear to our hearts.  (Here she is with Rene, her friend from OSU who brought her down.)  We talk about China & America, the ways our two cultures are different or the same, and why we do all the things we do.  She has been helping clean and decorate some, she went to the ornament exchange with the CPC ladies Mon. night, and yesterday she had fun feeding the chickens.  She will join us in gift giving and receiving on Christmas day, and be at a big family dinner this Sat.  Though she doesn’t understand much of it, she has also joined us in corporate & family worship.

This Sun. evening past we had Continue reading “Our gift from China at Christmas”

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Valentine’s Day, Courtship and Flowers

Beth’s Valentine rosesAfter a violent storm last week (no power for 2 days, trees down, 7 barns gone) it’s been great to have some good weather and to enjoy some flowers on the special day for love- Feb. 14th. Beth and I celebrated with some friends from church at Porcini’s last night. It was very good food (shrimp for me), great conversation and loads of laughs as 3 new couples were gathered up front for the “Cathy Mitchell version” of the Newlywed game. For those of you who attended, you know what I’m talking about 🙂 For the rest, imagine trying to guess your spouse’s answer to some trivial question about your honeymoon while everyone else (who already know the answer) stare at you, grinning from ear to ear. Beth’s Valentine roses- in the sunlightApparently, Beth & I have managed to avoid the spotlight for these annual events, so Cathy has sworn to get us up there next year. <note to self: begin planning west coast business trip for next Feb….> We’ll see!

Now, for the curious among you, who have noticed a word in the title Continue reading “Valentine’s Day, Courtship and Flowers”

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Happy New Year (Guo Nian Hao)

Happy New Year friends and family!

No, I have not mistaken the time, for the new year has just come around and up here there is much celebration. I am talking of course of the Chinese lunar new year which was on Thursday, Feb 7. The Asian community at OSU had many parties and it felt a lot like international new year, only all in Chinese ;)> This year is the year of the rat Continue reading “Happy New Year (Guo Nian Hao)”

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World Magazine vs. New York Times

It appears that I am the official recipient of a “fuss” (see below :-), and in response to both my news-aware daughter and anyone else who might be getting a daily dose of “liberal”, I offer World Magazine. It is an excellent source of news and commentary, both timely and with an eternal perspective, from a consistent, Christian worldview. It’s a natural fit for some of you; for others, who have no particular religious faith, I especially recommend it because it is a source you can trust to do one thing well– present an alternative perspective to the NYT and all other “mainstream” media. Why would you want this? If God is no more important in your life than the score of last week’s football game, why should you care? Oddly enough, there is a very good reason– civic responsibility. To be specific, the quality of life your grandchildren will experience will be directly affected by the cultural foundation we all lay today. If all you read is the NYT, your part of that foundation might well be rabidly, lopsidedly secular. In reality, the founders of this country, along with the majority of great men and women since, were not atheists and were either believers or at least church goers who had bought the Reformation worldview.  Whether  you agree with it or not, understanding the moral framework which produced the greatest democracy in human history is a goal worth spending some time to reach.

Here’s an example.  Good from Bad… Homosexuality: The cultural mainstreaming of homosexuality is liberating those seeking to escape it is an article which addresses a failure of the church, an unexpected consequence for the radical left and good results which come from misguided (at best) intentions.  You will never see this in the NYT, because they abhor it’s implications.  You must have a subscription to read the whole thing, but “just a taste” for $5 online isn’t a big investment.  It might make you mad, or it might really help you, but it will never parrot the NYT’s line of thought.  Try it, then come back here to let me know what you think…

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Speaking in Tongues

Dear Friends and Family,

Sigh, every time I write to you I want to burst into the typing of exotic and foreign words that come so often from my mouth during the week. I just wish you all could understand them. You know, when God confused the languages at Babel, it was because the people were united against him in rebellion by one language. Now, in this present age, would God want all the world to speak one tongue? What would change if the whole world all spoke the same language? What would it be? Arabic? Chinese? English? (See I’ve planned it all out, either way I come out on the top since I’ll be able to speak all those languages :)>

But now, the language barrier is a barrier for the spreading of God’s word as well. Think of all the millions of hours and thousands of days spent by committed missionaries to translate God’s word into a different language so that those people can be saved. Communication is a funny thing, and that’s one reason I like it so much.

With communication in mind, I’d like to tell you a little bit about my last potluck at the IFI’s Friday night bible study. I met some new people (as always), and we had a wonderful bible study. After the bible study we broke up into our small discussion groups. My discussion group happens to be composed of Tom, the leader (American), me (American), and then four Chinese and one person from Singapore. We were discussing in Luke 9 where Christ asks Peter who Peter thought he was, and Peter says “The Christ of God.” And Jesus told him not to tell anyone. So we started discussing Continue reading “Speaking in Tongues”

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Contemplating foreign stuffs :)>

Dear friends and family,

School is now in full swing. Classes have more or less straightened out and clubs and sports teems have started up again. I survived rugby practice from a not so unreasonable 11:00 pm to a questionable 12:30 am. The practice was very good, things just started going downhill when I had to ride home on my bike in the torrential wind and rain. Even more not good was not getting to sleep till 1:30 am, and then getting up at a glorious 6:45 the next morning for math class. Boy, you’ve just got to love college *grimace*.

As far as classes go, I just realized that I have had only one “american” teacher for the past three quarters. All my teachers have been Chinese, Taiwanese, Korean, Malaysian, Moroccan, Yemeni, and one from Ghana just to make things interesting (Ghana is on the Ivory Coast in Africa by the way). What does this mean? It means Continue reading “Contemplating foreign stuffs :)>”

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A small respite

Dear Friends and Family,

We have a small respite this week. Monday is Veterans day so we have a three day weekend. Which means……more time for homework! Really, I’m serious. First off I want to thank all of our brave men and women who have served and are serving in the armed forces who have/are putting their life on the line to preserve the freedom of America. Thank you!!!

Friday night, I went to see “Three Short Plays” (Medea, English Therapy, and Vendetta Chrome) at Ohio State’s Drake Theater. The reason for this was because English Therapy was written by Nancy Gall-Clayton, a resident of Louisville KY. I do not know Mrs. Gall-Clayton personally, but a good friend of mine who is a friend of hers was so kind and thoughtful as to send me a ticket. I was accompanied by Debbie, my Taiwanese conversation partner, who upon hearing I was going to see a “real, live American play”, promptly bought a ticket and announced she would be going with me. She said she quite enjoyed the plays too, though she didn’t understand English Therapy very well. It used a lot of tricks and twists of the English language to create comedy, and Debbie is not a native english speaker.

Thursday night I had the pleasure of Continue reading “A small respite”

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Property Stripping

Sounds like another environmental horror, doesn’t it? Perhaps some big corporation yanking all the resources out of a small community and leaving it bare, or some natural disaster brought about by us, the rich, white, Protestant brats of the developed world (according to our friends and neighbors, the liberals). That’s what I would have thought, but … no. The truth Continue reading “Property Stripping”