Hello

Pictures!!!

I have such great friends: Mikka, Me, Dana, Tricia

This is packing day with Les, Amy, Katie, and Tricia (Pat)

More packing: Heather, Les, Me, Amy, and Mandy

Such a nice group photo:) Richard, Leslie, Tim, Me, Charlton & Zach

As I am still experiencing technical difficulties and everyone loves pictures, here are some pictures of my friends from Arkansas! (You cannot see our feet, but I promise we are all wearing shoes.) Sorry that I do not have anymore pictures of Macau, so the pictures and the actual post are going to be completely disconnected.

Since my last post, I have been working toward making my apartment more, well let's just say welcoming and leave it at that. Progress has been made. After hours of scrubbing (ok maybe not hours) I now have a white bathroom sink. Everything received a large dose of bleach, so even if surfaces do not exactly gleam they are germ free. Sarcasm aside, the apartment is actually beginning to feel like a home, which is a great feeling. And although unintentional, that last statement was a great segway into the next topic.

Feeling at home. I know we have all heard that saying (please forgive me for this) "home is where the heart is", and I suppose like all sayings they are categorized as such because they are so true. Home, for me, has changed physically. But this physical change has brought a greater awareness of the fact that this world is not truly our home. The Lord is our home. This fact has never been clearer for me than moments when all I want to do is hop on a plane and say forget it, this is too hard. There are times when all I long for is the familiar sight of my dog running up the drive way to greet me or the sound of silence. There are times when I long for the comfort of a friend playing with my hair or someone offering a shoulder to cry on, maybe even a hug. For me those things have always been "home", they given me a sense of comfort and stability. Now they are all the way around the world.

At this point you may be thinking that I am homesick and missing everyone, and in a sense you would be right. But it is more than that. There is a sense of joy in leaning on the Lord more fully. In chosing to go to Macau to serve the Lord I knew that I would be required to give up some things, namely the things mentioned above. I also knew that in taking this step, I would be more dependent upon him than I had allowed myself to be thus far in my short life. But in just the small amount of time I have been here, the Lord has blessed me beyond any of the sacrifices I have made. Away from the things that are familiar and safe, the Lord has revealed to me new facets of his personality, and what an awesome priviledge it is to be able to know the Lord. Being utterly dependent on the Lord also provided me the opportunity to experience the faithfulness of the Lord. The Lord has shown me that he is home. No matter where I may be, he is always my home, always there, and he always provides. The Lord has shown me his faithfulness in small tasks as well as large ones, and sometimes I think the smaller ones have had a more profound impact than the larger one.

I find myself having a difficult time truley expressing the feelings that I have right now. I am having one of those moments when words are inadequate. They cannot express exactly what I am feeling and experiencing right now, but often times that is how it is with the Lord. Words are not enough. So, yes sometimes I do get sad, but I also know better the meaning of joy. Sometimes I am having to learn so many new things and change so much about myself that all I want to do is shut everything out, but I also understand more of the Lord's strength and more of my weaknesses. Sometimes I want to go home, but I understand more deeply that the Lord is my home. I pray that you also may know the bittersweet joy of sadness, a sense of strength in weakness, and homesickness in the Lord.

Prayer requests:
There are several students that attend the bible classes at the center, but are not believers. Please pray that the Holy Spirit would work in them to lead them to faith.

Please pray for our team, as the "newness" is beginning to wear off and some of us are experiencing some difficulties.

Please pray for Sunny, she is a student at the center who is a new Christian. Praise God! Please pray that she will grow in her faith to the glory of the Lord. Please pray that her husband would also come to faith.

Thank you once again for all of your prayers; they are essential. "He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to delive us, as you help us by your prayers. Then many will give thanks on our behalf for the gracious favor granted us in answer to the prayers of many". (1 Corinthians 1:10-11) Bye for now! All my Love!

Cassie

Success!!

It is amazing how now, when I am completely out of my depth, I have learned to take pleasure in small victories. In my last post, I wrote of the difficulties I was having in navigating the streets of Macau; so much so that even finding my own apartment was proving to be an elusive goal. Being completely out of my element also brings into focus how completely dependent I am on the Lord in accomplishing even the smallest task of the day. Such was the case with my first attempt to find my own way to work.

The adventure begins in my apartment. As I leave, I say a quick prayer to the Lord that he will keep me from getting so lost that I can not get back home and that along the way I will not be ran down by the millions (at least it seems like it) of mopeds that are buzzing around the city. Down the four flights of stairs I go and out the door. Ok so far so good. I have now successfully made it to the street. I follow a hand written map that was quickly scrawled on a scrap of paper by one of the veterans here in Macau. That scrap of paper, which holds all of the answers to my current dilemma, shakes in time to the tremors that have over-taken my hands. The first 100 yards of the journey are fairly uneventful, however, that quickly ends as I come to the first of many intersections that are scattered throughout my journey. More success. I made it across the street. And so the process continues until I finally make it to the English Center where I work. Praising the Lord and rejoicing I hurry into the office to tell my co-workers of the success I have just had. They are so kind and celebrate this success with me.

This is just another example of how the Lord strengths are seen in our weaknesses, because I am certain that it was not my navigational skills that got me to work.

On to other topics, many people have been curious about my living arrangements, so below are the much anticipated pictures. Please keep in mind that at this point little has been done. Just consider these the "before" pictures.

This is a picture of my living room and the big comfy, American matress that I mentioned previously. As you can see the only things that occupy the room at the moment are a bed and table. The sofa and TV are on the way!

This is of course my bathroom. It has a western toilet and believe me after using the bathroom in mainland China this is definitely one of the nicer features of my apartment. A "squatty" (minus toilet paper) is most common in mainland China.

This is my kitchen which has the room for the most improvement. I probably will not be doing any cooking for some time.

This has to be the best feature of my apartment. This is the view from my balcony. My fourth floor apartment overlooks this square and every morning I awake to the sound of the water in the fountain.

Hopefully I will soon be a bit more settled and the apartment will start to feel more like a home. I will post some "after" pictures when the process is complete. That is it for now. I pray that everyone is well. May the peace of the Lord be with you!

Where to begin??

Well, first of all... I made it!! I arrived safe and sound in Macau on Tuesday just so everyone knows. My computer access has been somewhat limited up to this point which is why I am just now posting something.

As I said, I arrived in Macau late on Tuesday night, went straight to my apartment and proceeded to sleep for about 12 hours. The next few days were followed by Orientation. A.k.a., leading all of us around Macau like children because we are all completely lost at this point. Macau has a very interesting street system. There are no "right turns" or "left turns", everything circles around itself and twists this way and that way so much that I still am not exactly sure where I live! For someone who does not profess to have a sense of direction, navigating the streets of Macau is definitely going to be a challenge. The team here in Macau is great! They are so patient with my ineptitude in finding my home and they let me attempt to lead but inevitably they have to point me in the right direction. As you may be able to tell, being dependent on others to even get to work is a difficult thing for me, but I have faith that soon I will remember where I live!

On other topics, this weekend we (the team) traveled into mainland China. It was a great experience, as the mainland is different even from Macau. In mainland, the people rarely see "foreigners" so they were very interested in us. Any opportunity they had, they would try to engage us in conversation. There was some very interesting conversing taking place!! I was also able to experience a Chinese massage. It was great!! Maybe on of the highlights of the weekend. Two hours of massage! AHH!!

I have not done just too much at this point. My apartment still needs work as I currently sleep on a matress in the living room floor. The matress however is a nice, comfy American matress. The Chinese sleep on very thin, hard matresses. In fact, the first time I laid down on one I thought it was just the box springs and that they had forgotten to put the actual matress on the bed. But nope, I was mistaken. The hard thing I was to sleep on was a matress. So anyway back to the apartment, I still have some organizing and cleaning to do, but it has an incredible veiw of the cathedral square with a fountain.

Here is an interesting side-fact for you, and also a little advice if ever you decide to visit Macau or China. Bring your own toilet paper, because it is not provided for you. This is a lesson I had to learn the hard way! I have yet to visit a bathroom facility in which the toilet paper was provided for you. Apparently it is not the "done" thing around these parts.

Well, that is all for now. In the future, I hope to post pictures along with the posts. However for now that will have to wait. Today, my day off, my plan is to find my way from my apartment to the English Center. I will give you an update about the outcome of that endeavor. Until then peace and love!

What do we lack??

The time is fast approaching for many of us to leave, myself included. For me it is a frantic rush to acquire the things that I can just cannot live without while in Macau. You know important things like a digital camera, and now I want an iPod, (things I can obviously not live without) and often I have found myself thinking, what do I still lack?

Skip back to a conversation I recently had with a friend. She was retelling a story she had seen on the world news of a man from Niger. He and his family were nomads and without food. In order to survive they were forced to eat their camel. Instead of questioning the Lord about why he and his family did not have enough food to eat, he was asking the Lord to forgive him. This story shamed me.

That man possessed the thing that I lack, a brokeness before our all powerful Lord. In my pride, I operate in this life with a sense of entitlement, as though I have done something to deserve all of the wonderful blessings that overflow in my life. My skewed vision of the world cannot be farther from the truth. What do I have to offer a God who bought my life with the life of his son? What do I have to give back to a Lord that gives me everything I have? Nothing. Now back to the question of what do I lack... nothing. The two do not seem to go together do they? Such is the grace of our Lord, that in our nothingness, we have everything. We lack not one single thing that we need in this life if we have our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

In I Corinthians, chapter 13, the famous verses about "love" are found. When I read thes passages, I sometimes put "God" in the place of "love". It makes sense because "God is love". " If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing." (c13,v2). When I read the scripture in this manner, the nothingness of a life without God is illuminated. However, as I go about my life, I know that I lack nothing, because the greatest love of all has found me in Jesus Christ. "Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God - this is your spiritual act of worship" (Romans 12:1). What response can I give to this love, but to offer all that I have, and this is not even of my own power but through my Savior.

So in response to the question of "What do I lack?". Everything and Nothing. Praise be to God for my nothingness.

Call it whatever you like

Hi everybody!! I have not posted anything for a while, but sometimes the creative juices just cease to flow. Anyhow, I have now acquired a digital camera (lots of fun!!) so be expecting photos at some point. That should be exciting, huh? And just in case anyone was wondering, I will be departing the country in 10 days and some extra minutes. I pray all is well with everyone as many prepare for their adventure. I pray also that the Lord would watch over your preparations and give you peace as you serve him. May the love of Christ lead you.