Okay now I've been back in the States for awhile. This is what is different. Many people I talk to see the excitement and say, "yeah everyone who comes back from a short term is always pumped like that." They say it as if it is some mountain top experience or something. It wasn't a mountain top experience. I didn't experience much in terms of emotionally with my relationship with God. I don't know. Go on a short term and find out what that experience is like. I feel like I'm not allowed to have too much excitement. My excitement indicates to them that there is no substance.

I just got back from macau. I havne't written in a long time so let me tell you about the gospel camp in HK and then the macau trip. The gospel camp was like a retreat, 2 nights and 3 days. It was really disorganized but it was interesting. I got to hang out with the kids a lot more. David, Chris, Amanda, Nikki, Rachel, all raised their hands to accept Christ. It was cool. David was in my class. The rest were in thomas class. I think I bonded a lot more with them at the camp, but then we had to leave. I didn't think it was that hard to bond with them. It was actually pretty easy. ONly 2 and a half weeks and we bonded. At home its not like that dude. Working with the jr high for a year and a half I still didn't really bond with them. That sucked. I taught my guitar workshop. That went okay. The first lesson was kinda lame, but the second lesson was good. I tried to teach GDC the first lesson, but it was too hard for them. So the second lesson I taught E and then slide up for A B and I even taught them F#m. That went a lot better. I met this girl named Amy who taught at the Carmel church. She just graduated from UCLA and she goes to CBC West LA. Amazing huh? She's pretty cool.

Macau trip was really interesting. When I went to Guangzhou I already wanted to come back to China. Now I totally want to. The people in macau are so much poorer than the people in HK. I told my students about the clothes and how I got a pants for 69 dollars and how cheap that was. They were like, dang that's expensive. They buy clothes for like 30 dollars or something and thats the most expensive they'll buy. What is that? Thats like 3.50 US. Can you believe that? Thats crazy. They were much more attached to us in the period of 1 week than the students in HK were in 2 and a half weeks. Everyone felt it. It was like, they opened up so quickly. I felt like the Spirit worked much faster in macau than in HK. There were so many students who had never heard that jesus is alive. They've never heard the whole gospel story. Amazing. My heart really went out to them. If I coulda spent more time with them, man it woulda been over! I felt a lot more spiritual warfare in macau too. Just getting off the ferry, I felt like something was different. I felt like something was definitely going to happen in Macau. It was weird. And dude, macau was totally different than HK. People connected so fast with their students. There were doorpost altars everywhere throughout the city. only 1% of macanese are christians. Wilson hit his head and lost his memory short term. That gave our team a scare. He kept going to the restroom like every minute. He forgot that he just went. He kept looking in the same places for his watch. At least 20 times. He cracked the same jokes over and over again. It was strange. Our living conditions there were not as plush. I totally felt like I, as a Chinese American was uniquely positioned to reach out to these kinds of people. They listened to me so much just because I was american. Even though I don't have mastery over Chinese at all, I'm sure I can learn to be fluent in a year living here. I could probably be fluent in cantonese in a year, not to speak of mandarin. Steven K told me a white missionary couldn't say he was fluent after 10 years of living in HK. Thats crazy. I read a book that said it takes a typical westerner 5 years to become fluent in Chinese. My pronunciation is bad, but not as bad as bobby or kristina or the other white people on our team. Bobby said he would have loved to work closely with the house churches while he was in beijing, but he wasn't able to because a white person would attract too much attention. Also they don't trust white people as much as Chinese people. I so feel like Chinese-Americans have the best of both worlds. We are able to gain audience with Chinese because we are Chinese, and they respect us because we are american. Its so crazy. I think God is totally calling our generation, Chinese Americans to minister to the Chinese in China. A large percentage of Asians are Christian. I heard from a professor in Rex's class that it was 50 %. Thats a crazy large amount. We're blessed with money and opportunity. We are a ton richer than the people here. WE have a ton more opportunity. My students in macau kept telling me that I was rich, just because I had ridden on an airplane or held a 100 dollar bill. 100 dollars here is only 12 dollars in HK or Macau. Good thing they didn't see the 500 dollar billS in my wallet. Much less the American money I had. If you speak english well in Macau, you are already upper class. I so want to go back to china now. I am going to learn mandarin fluently and hopefully work on my cantonese. I want to be able to speak all three eventually like my dad. If I can't do that, at least speak mandarin fluently and have some broken cantonese. I was speaking mandarin with a student in macau named Gary. He speaks mandarin also, so I was like totally going off. It was so much easier for me to speak mandarin. That was really encouraging to me that I could at least carry on a pretty decent conversation about sushi, going to china, learning english, who likes who, what is expensive what isn't, that kinda stuff in mandaring without too much trouble. It was awesome. When i shared the gospel in both of my classes, I wrote the chinese words for "perfect" and "gold" and "believe" on the board. It wasn't that hard. I don't think chinese will be unsurmountable for me. Maybe its just that I have daily exposure to it for 16 hours a day right now that I can learn faster, but hopefully I'll be able to get somewhere so that when it is time for me to go to China, I'll be able to read, write and speak Chinese.

Dude when I get back to America, you guys are all going to hear from me in much more detail. We're going back soon and then debrief and then I'll be home. It'll be awesome. You will all hear in much more detail how YOU SHOULD GO TO CHINA! It doesn't even have to be as a normal missionary. It doesn't even have to be like long term. You can be a teacher and spend every summer in china. You can go for 1 year and then come back. You can go for a year come back and then go for a year and come back regularly. I don't know what I want to do, but we don't even have to raise support and stuff. If you speak fluent english, you can get a really good paying job in China. Not comparable to US jobs of course, but enough to totally support yourself in a third world country. English teachers make a lot of money too. I want to bring people on a short term mission back to china very soon. I not only have a heart for china, I have a heart for Chinese Americans. Specifically I have a heart for Chinese Americans to bless others through the blessings they've received from God. We are blessed to bless others. Gen. 12. My students in Macau may never encounter another Christian in their entire lives. That breaks my heart. Well they will I know, because I'm praying for them, but many may never. The ones that do only spend a short time with them. Even the 1 week we spent in macau was awesome for them I think. They really saw God's heart. Don't diss short term missions man. Short termers can do a lot in a country that has very little Christian influence. We shared the gospel so much. So much opportunity to share the gospel. (man my english has gotten worse. I am speaking in fragments now.) If there is a short term mission to macau every year, oh man that would do so much. Praise be to God. He works so much. The harvest is defintely plentiful in China. There are so many who are so ready to hear the gospel. If they just heard it, they would accept. God only calls us to sow and reap. reap and sow. Thats all we gotta do. God does all the work. He does everything in between. We dont' have to worry about convincing people. It is so awesome. There are so many people who have never heard. All you do is you gotta tell them, and they'll come to the Lord. Half of our class in Macau expressed interest in God after we told them the gospel. Many of them wrote to God "I believe you forever." "Please let me come to you." We had them write a letter to God after they heard the gospel message. It was crazy. Please pray for macau. Please pray for China. Please pray about coming to china in the future. I now totally know the meaning of "the harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few." The harvest is not Christians. The harvest is in harvesting non believers. The workers are not youth advisors or pastors. The workers are evangelists and missionaries. Not to diss discipleship, there is a huge place for that in the bible and jesus ministry and the church, but I think that verse specifically talks about evangelism and missions. PRAY PRAY PRAY.

Daniel

I just got back from guangzhou. dude I totally want to go to china. It was a really interesting experience. We visited Samuel Lamb's house church. His house church is 3000 big. Its probably the biggest house church in china I think. they have 4 weekly services of like 750 each or something like that. It was raining so hard when we went to the church. So we were walking to the church with umbrellas and stuff (I now own two.) Then we get to this place where the water is totally flooded. We can't continue unless we go through the water, so we go through. We walked to the house church through a flood! The water was higher than my knees! Dude it was awesome. At the church, Samuel Lamb spoke in cantonese but it was translated into mandarin. I could pretty much understand what he was talking about! I was so happy that my mandarin at least isn't so bad! Dude in Guangzhou, although everyone still speaks cantonese, everyone speaks mandarin also! Its so cool. I felt so much more free than in HK. A lot of people speak english here though, so its okay . Hardly any people speak english in Guangzhou. I so want to learn to read Chinese. During the sermon, I wished I could read his notes. I am learning a few words. I can now read "my" as in buy. I can read "my" as in sell. I know the word for "jia" as in "jia chien" as in price. I learned how to write some cantonese words too that I don't think you use in mandarin. I learned to write "mm" as in "no" or "not." I learned to write "hai" as in "yes" or "is." I totally want to learn to be fluent in mandarin and read and write chinese well. I want to come back to china. Guangzhou was definitely more poor than in HK. Some areas of Guangzhou are nice, but if you walk just a little ways, you usually come across some shanty shack looking places. A lot of people lived in like shanty shack type places in HK. After the flood subsided coming back from Samuel Lamb's church, we a few dead rats. We went to a restaurant that had live frogs, cockroaches, bees, snakes and other weird stuff to eat. We didn't eat that stuff of course, but ya know. Samuel Lamb had been imprisoned twice. He rejoiced in persecution because every time he was released from prison, his church grew from it. It was totally interesting.

We also went to a TSPM church the next day. It was in cantonese so I couldn't understand hardly any of it. I only knew that the lady who was preaching was preaching on the woman at the well from john chapter 4. I thought it was really boring so... hahah.. probably because i couldn't understand any of it. I ran out of film so I didn't take any pictures in Guangzhou! How sad. There were a lot of things I wanted to take pictures of but I couldn't. Guangzhou is an interesting place. Dude, I totally want to come back to China now. The only thing I would miss is people. Its hard to move to a new place and make deep relationships. If I had a wife to take along, I think I'd be able to deal with the dirtiness and everything. hahah. I don't know. People are probably still asleep on Sunday morning back at home. A lot of people are at the church retreat. I wonder how that is going. Write me and tell me! I'll be home in 2 weeks. My missions trip is over half over. I miss jamba!

hey everyone, I'm doing pretty good here. I'm at the netcafe again. oNe thing I've been learning is that I'm here to serve and not to be served. Most of my team speaks fluent cantonese, so they just speak cantonese with each other, and I'm left out. I kinda sit there at meetings and don't say anything because they're all speaking in cantonese. I can't understand a word. Once in awhile they'll realize it and speak and english, but it always goes back to cantonese. So they treat me like a kid because I can't keep up with their conversations. I was feeling really left out and dumb because of this. I was getting pissed off actually. On top of the fact that I am kinda weird/eccentric and people don't like making a fool of themselves over here. A lot of the group games we do that have to do with making fun of yourself don't work over here. But I act strange a lot... so they basically just think Im weird. So I was getting mad about this, but I realized that i am here to love and give love and accept others, not to receive it for myself. So that was really good to realize. Peace

The beggars here are all really old ladies. Its sad. There are no like young beggars. There are no male beggars.. or at least none that I've seen. The beggars I've seen are all old ladies. Kinda sad. THere is no way they could work. YOu look at them and you know they're beyond being able to work. This morning I went to a church service. It was a pastor from korea. He is chinese but born in korea. He spoke in mandarin and it was translated into cantonese. He was talking about how everyone in korea united in prayer because of soccer and everything and he was saying how all chinese all over the world should unite for the gospel in china. We should overcome the barriers of civl war, all the different dialects, and just go for the gospel in china. So many Christians in china don't have bibles and stuff like that. So many don't even have the chance to hear the gospel. He talked about this white missionary who said that if he could have it his way, he woulda made himself with black hair and yellow skin so he could work more closely with the chinese. The speaker talked about how there are so many missionaries with a heart for china all over the world. WE chinese should unite in prayer and go into china and preach gospel. Bobby, my roomate was talking about how he would like to work closely with the underground church and train up pastors and stuff. But he as a white person couldn't because it would be so suspicious. He told me that I could probably much more easily work with them just because of the way I look. He spent a year in Beijing teaching english. Probably the same year David was in Beijing. HK is a really busy city and there are a ton of distractions, so pray that I would keep focused on God. Thanks! write me email guys. danthedart@yahoo.com

A few things I forgot to mention about Hong Kong. Bamboo scaffolding! The city is full of it. All these big buildings are built with bamboo scaffolding! Rush Hour 2 is for real! hahaha. Everyone here has bad teeth. Its not that their crooked, its like they're really brown. Everytime I go outside, I'm stunned by the buildings. There are so many of them so close together, so tall.

It is finally friday! It is 8:36 pm. I just took a really long nap. I think its harder for me to develop a relationship with the kids because I have this language barrier. They can't chat with me. They work so hard just to talk to me. The other teachers I think are developing more of a relationship with them. I don't know how I can show the kids that I care. Please pray for that.

Last night, I read Psalm 18:19. I read chapter 18 and was hit by verse 19 again, just like I was a few years ago. It was a good reminder. "He rescued me because he delighted in me." It is so reassuring to know that God delights in me. Last night's worship was good. I just felt like giving God the glory for delighting in me.

Today everyone is going out. I think I'm going to go karaoke with some people at 9:15. Thomas might be there. I'm connecting with Steve my roomate more. We've been talking just a little bit.

I am leading a guitar workshop for the gospel camp which is at the end of the two weeks. Please pray for that. I don't know what i'm going to teach or if we're going to have enough guitars and its really tough to teach guitar without a guitar. Talk to everyone later. Stay in the presence of GOd! He is seeking after you! He loves you totally! Do not forget him. He is awesome. Turn back to him. He is always accepting of you. Dude God is so great, so strong and so mighty there's nothing my God cannot do!

It is 5pm on Thursday the 19th. I've tried to avoid going to the computer a lot and checking my email since that's all I seem to want to do. Today I think I felt the first pangs of homesickness and loneliness. I haven't made any really close friends this trip which is alright by me, but I want to be close to God. Pray for me that I will seek God's presence. That that would be utmost on my heart. I am running out of activities to do during class. I've never had to teach for 3 hours before. All the lesson materials that they give me are too advanced for the students so I have to basically make up everything on my own.

I bought some more clothes. I bought 3 shirts for 19HK dollars each. Thats about 2.50 US! I bought two pairs of chinos for 69HK dollars each.. thats like... 9 dollars a pair. The clothes are really cheap here. They are pretty good too. They have my sizes and stuff. I think I'm going to buy a suit. The blazer is only like 50US dollars and dress shirts are only 10 US dollars. So cheap. They're pretty good quality stuff too.

I have been learning a lot of cantonese words because they're all speaking so much cantonese. I am the only one from the states that is at my church. I haven't really had a chance to really bond with ppl. I don't know. I don't think I really want to so much either. People seem so different from me. It doesn't really bother me that much because I'm still having a lot of fun. But maybe it will later. I think they think that I am a bit too eccentric. People here aren't that crazy and I definitely am pretty crazy, so they think I'm weird. hahah. Thomas is very like... not laid back like a typical canadian. hahah. Not like Sam Ip. I think he likes his assistant Annie. hahah. He always talks to her really seriously and tries to find her when there is some free time. Annie has to catch a plane on Saturday to go to South Africa so she won't be here for the second week of teaching and he is always mentioning that. K write more later... gotta go. We have worship and prayer tonite.