Nine Month old Pentecostal Worshipping God...

Does this remind you of...

Trip to Hong Kong

I have been in Hong Kong and O week mission for the past month. My trip to Hong Kong was really interesting in a lot of ways.. It was quite bad for my spiritual life and I wasnt able to read the bible at all and I just felt like I was really dry spiritually. I was really challenged with a lot of temptations and stuff.. Hong Kong is such a pagan place in some ways. But it was also really good because I visited 2 churches and talked to a lot of my relatives whom I knew claimed to be Christians.

On my Dad's side, I have an elderly aunt who once told me she couldnt eat ostrich meat because the OT forbids it, so I was thinking that her church was a bit dodgy, but we talked about the Holy Spirit and evangelism and I think she sounds like she is a Christian, which is great. She goes to a church that is called an "Evangelical Lutheran" church. I talked a little to her husband who talked to me a bit about the scriptures that he likes.. So typically he talked about stuff like psalm23. I didnt even know what Psalms is in chinese, but I was like.. are you talking about like valley.. and darkness.. and shepherd..yeah I know what you're talking about! Both their kids (my 2 cousins) also go to their church, and their children are also going to church now though they are only 9 months and 15 months old or something. Here's a picture of my 9 month old second cousin (?) reading "Infants Bible Volume 1, Bilingual Edition":



My aunt on my mum's side is also a Christian, but she is still not going to church after bad experiences when she was younger but she is going to a weekly bible study that is apparently non-denominational but just seeks to read the bible. Talking to her two or three times, I still cant figure out if she does have faith, but I think she is a pretty passive Christian although she is a nice person and when I talk to her about theology, I think a lot of her doctrine is quite biblical.

I also have a cousin who is in Year 11 who is a Christian. She became a Christian about a year before me, although at the beginning I dont think she was that committed, but the last year or so I've really noticed her being a lot more obedient to her parents etc. I was really really sad in July when I saw her, when she told me she started going out with a guy from her church; same age same school. I just think going out with someone is just so destructive to Christian growth at that church. Everyone's different but I think a lot of HK people are still very childish in high school... and the first few yrs of uni..

But talking to her this year was great, she is now teaching sunday school, and while I was there, she went to I think a HK equivalent of a study camp for year 10's, where she was helping out. But we had a long talk about Christianity, particularly about false teaching; explained to her about the major false teachers, in my mind, which were pentecostals, liberals, and catholics. Apparently charismatics is quite big in HK now, with a few famous celebrities going to a few big rich churches. But my cousin had heard about them and said that they were dodgy and that they place too much emphasis on mindless singing.

And later on as we were talking somehow I mentioned the name Hillsong, and she said she knows Hillsong!! I was so disappointed; she said that she received a "Top 25 UK praise songs" CD from a friend, and the number 1 song was "Shout to the Lord". And she said she liked the song! - just shows how bad it is to publicly like a song written/published by false teachers/ heretics.

Heaps of other stuff happened in HK.. I went to church twice; one week to Evangelical Community Church (ECC) in WanChai, the week after to ECC in Tsim Sha Tsui. They were not bad, and the sermon was biblical, though stylistically it is different to what we are use to in Sydney. They like to quote a lot from famous evangelical authors - like Phillip Yancey; and then they start expounding the quotes!
The song leaders were a little charo, telling us to close our eyes and feel God or something, and they sang lots of Hillsong style songs; i.e., songs that say what amazing things we'll do for God. But they also sang In Christ Alone! so that was cool..
One weakness was that welcoming was non existent, but its hard for them because its so big (around 300 people or more?) and there are often strangers/tourists passing through.

There was also a massive sign on the top of a high rise that says:


"Jesus is Lord"

This was like a 30 story building, so its quite visible, but later I found out this was one of those rich charismatic churches! Queenie and I talked to one of them because they were doing some "evangelism" during the Chinese New Year Festival. They were giving out booklets with testimonies on it (but no gospel presentation). We saw them, and we were like standing there for ages, luring them to come evangelise us. A middle aged woman came to us and asked, do you have any religion? Queenie said, yes, we are protestants. Then the woman goes, Oh, ok, then she walked away...

What a strange church; who would be so disappointed at seeing another Christian.. I wish there was some kind of gospel presentation in their booklet or something, so that even though their church is quite dodgy, the gospel would be proclaimed accidentally in their work.

The only other thing I can remember about HK is that my Dad took me to a Shanghai old style hair dresser. I didnt know what it would be like, and when we went into the store, there were 6 old guys standing around; all of them were like 70+ years old. They used super old fashioned equipment that no one born after the 70's would have ever seen.. the strangest thing of all was when the guy was washing my hair; instead of putting me in front of a sink, he sat me in a chair, stuffed tissues in my ear, and poured shampoo and glue-like water onto my hair, and just started rubbing it, while I was just sitting on a chair, no where near a sink..

I also went along to a few Christian book shops; what is the bestseller?


Bestseller: Purpose Driven Life (A$10.50)

I thought it was really amazing when I saw it in HK, but then when I came back I saw a woman at CCC holding it anyway..
The Prayer of Jabez was also extremely prominent. I bought an ESV bilingual bible for my mum because she said she was interested in reading the bible. It was only 22$ hardback, which is pretty cheap for 2 languages!


My home in HK - after praying Prayer of Jabez

Just kidding! This is like a HK version of a country club kind of thing..




This is my apartment; its looking at Hong Kong Harbour, but from quite a distance..

Praise God that He has kept me safe during my trip, and Praise God for His Mercy towards my relatives.

testing 123

my cousin's baby and I