Blessed

I talk a lot about the Bible Study group that I attend on here...actually, I don't really enjoy these kinds of things.  It takes an extra effort and an extra chunk of time in my already busy week to go to the group meetings.  Sometimes I don't feel like socializing on a Friday night, after talking to students and coworkers all week.  Sometimes I don't have the creativity or the energy to think of a "po bing" - icebreaker or any other small assignment I have for that week's meeting.  And sometimes the last thing I want to talk about is faith on a Friday night - I'd rather veg out with a movie. 

But over the past several months, I have found this group to be one of the biggest blessings in my time overseas.  I wish I had found a group like this sooner.  Our faith makes us a part of a bigger culture than Chinese, American, Singaporean, or Taiwanese.  And we give each other so much encouragement and (for me, at least), a sense of family that we're looking for while we're away from home.

So, I was really touched by what one of our church members wrote in the e-newsletter this week.  Ellie is a member of my Bible Study and a Macau native.

 

 Oasis E News for Sunday November 24

Last week, a moment after stepping off a number 35 bus at about 11pm on Tuesday night, I suddenly realized I didn’t have my small pouch containing my cards, money and keys. We had used it to swipe when getting on to the bus, so I knew for sure that I must have dropped it on board.

A couple of minutes later an empty taxi came by, so we hailed it and set off after the bus. We stopped the first 35 we saw, but after a quick search realized this was not the bus we had been on. While we grabbed another taxi to try again, Christina dialed Ellie at home to ask if she knew where the 35 terminated so we could know where to go next. Ellie wasn’t too sure where the depot was, but she knew the 35’s stopped for a time near the middle bridge in Taipa. We thanked her and off we went.

Another bus search, a few impassioned prayers, and a fruitless half hour later, we headed home, with no pouch and feeling defeated. As I began to search for numbers to call for cancelling my cards, the phone rang. It was Ellie, and she told me she was holding my pouch. After receiving our phone call, and completely unbeknown to us, she had left her home late at night, taken her car and followed another 35 all the way over to Macau side back to the depot, where she managed to locate the right bus and my belongings. Now, at 12am, she was driving to our place to hand them to me.

What Ellie did really touched us, and reminds me of John 13:35, ‘By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another’. We often think of being a good witness to our unsaved friends, but as this verse reminds us, it is how we are together as a loving and caring church community that will make us effective in our witness here in Macau. I think what Ellie did was a great example what this is all about.

God bless,
James