Hi friends,

It’s been a while since we’ve last posted.  We are well.  Life in HK has been really busy with teaching,  making connections, going out to eat, shopping, looking for a church (which is another blog to come in the near future) and building relationships.

Last night, our family finally returned to doing Family Worship.  There have been “consequences” as a result of neglecting our precious time.  I’ll be honest, the busyness of life in Hong Kong can easily suck you in.  The pace of life, the weather, you name it.  And so, last night we began to read James.  It didn’t take long after we started to read that we stopped.  James 1: 1, 2 says “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds.” And STOP.  As a family, we talked about what trials are.  We shared that it’s like a test.  Team Wong has gone through many trials in our new chapter.  We’ve only been in Hong Kong 8 weeks.  That’s. All.

It was a sweet time to hear Malachi and Timothy share.  We talked about our trial of moving to Hong Kong, our boys miss our 4 bedroom home, the space, their own bathroom.  They miss their bikes and having the freedom to just go outside and play road hockey with their Uncle Duncan.  To be able to see their grandmother on a regular basis – thankful that my mom will be coming to Hong Kong in November.  Gloria misses driving and going to buy groceries once a week, sometimes once every two weeks.  Here in HK … it’s more like every other day, sometimes it’s multiple times a day.  I do miss my NGP family, colleagues, inside jokes that we share.  We sure miss our Harvest Durham family – SG, Ian’s preaching.  Harvest Family, don’t take it for granted.

So as a family, we are going through trials of various kinds.  We are encouraged though.  Thankful for the people in our lives, those who live with us on the 7th Floor at ICS, colleagues – now friends who are supportive, who prayed and pray for us.  God is faithful.

James didn’t start his letter by saying, “when you face trials of various kinds”, no he started by say, “Count it all joy, my brothers …”.  Wow.  This is where it matters.  We shared with our boys, that “Count it all joy” is a matter of the heart.  Malachi shared that “count it all joy” means – we need to be thankful.  Are we thankful?  Absolutely.  God has provided for us, more than we could imagine and we are confident that He’s not finished.

As we continue to seek Christ, serve Him here at ICS, we do have a number of prayer requests:  Pray for discernment regarding opportunities to lead / go on missions trips, finding a church to attend, pray for insight and wisdom in terms of what ministry we should get ourselves involved with – intentional discipleship / mentoring, Bible Study, outreach … the list goes on.  It actually does.  No jokes.  Pray for our SG that we started leading … a couple of weeks ago.  It’s good to be back at it.

Friends, we miss you.  Continue to love the Lord with all your heart.  We are also praying for you as well.  James ends by saying, “For you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness, and let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” This is our prayer, we we would continue have our eyes on the Lord.  That our walk with the Lord would remain firm, that we would continue to be more like Christ.

Till our next Blog.

You are loved!