I loved reading your letter and it is so refreshing to hear someone say they love their live! You are one who has heard the applause of heaven, and chosen joy instead of grumbling! YEAH! I'm reading a book by Max Lucado right now with that title, THE APPLAUSE OF HEAVEN. It's great to think that God is our cheerleader he loves us so much!
My boys are 9 and 5. Tyler finally came after we'd been married 8 years and has his dad's head for math and his mom's artistic temperament. We didn't want to go through the what-ifs of infertility again, so we adopted Cameron, who is practically perfect except that he is so tactile & sensual, we'll have to lock him up at puberty and arrange an immediate marriage! Both boys are bilingual...we all now speak Chinese!
That is something that until 1996 I had never even considerred and I'm still kind of trying to figure out what my place is in this Chinese world. I do have this deep sense of conviction that there is a reason, so I persevere at a bit of language study to keep up with Tyler and review the easier words with Cameron. It is NOT EASY to learn Chinese!!! Singapore's national language is English, but all children take "Mother Tongue" in school, and for Singaporeans this is either Mandarin Chinese, Malay, or Tamil (an indian language). They take school pretty serious here, and we are the only caucasian foreign family I know who has children in the local schools taking Mother Tongue (virtually all Americans put their children in the American School, or homeschool). We work pretty hard at not putting too much pressure on the kids and having fun, and it is working for now. It helps that both boys are NOT shy, and have a healthy self-confidence (Ty's is a bit TOO healthy).
There's a lot of aspects of living overseas that are fabulous, and others no so great (biggest being missing family & friends, missing convenience, familiarity, and the terrible heat and humidity here!). My husband Jim and I felt that our lives had been pretty cushy and we needed the stretch of living overseas to deepen us through some hardship (imagine, wishing hardship on oneself!). We still have a lot of growing to do, as we have seen sides of ourselves come out in the pressure that we didn't know were there!
But the main reason we live overseas is because of our conviction that Jesus was who he claimed to be, and he didn't lie when he claimed to be "the way, the truth, and the life" and that "no one comes to the Father except through me." In college I became really convicted about Jesus' last words to "go into all the world and make disciples." The last words of anyone are pretty important to pay attention to -- and these were the last words of a man who had just proved by resurrection that he was the incarnation of the living God! There are so many people who haven't even heard his name yet, let alone have had a chance to decide to follow him or not. It's not very popular in these pluralistic days to be so "narrow minded," but the Bible is pretty clear on God's jealousy about being the only God, and Jesus' claims to offer eternal salvation through his sacrifice on the cross.
I'm glad to live in a generation where missions and missionaries are more grace-full and we don't go around beating people over the head with our Bibles. There's a lot more intentionality about loving people, serving people, blessing people, and along the way sharing our convictions about Truth. So that's the motivation for leaving the comforts of US. We found Singapore to be a place where both Jim and I could use our unique strengths (his in leadership devleopment and mine in theatre) to be part of God's kingdom work in this world. Just a couple of little specialized cogs in the work He's doing around the globe.
And it is amazing to live by faith...individuals financially support us as God leads them to "partner" with us...that still blows me away (even though it probably shouldn't - we have always supported other missionaries and still do - it's just kind of suprising when you're on the receiving end!). We've been taken care of financially thus far, and have had the money to live like the average Singaporean, make visits to the USA every 18 months, and go back to China on school holidays every year and a half too, AND HERE'S THE BEST PART: like many Singaporeans: we have a live in domestic helper! That's the GREATEST perk of living here! Someone else does my laundry, ironing, and dishes and house work. Isn't that strange? We live in what looks like a clean inner city ghetto - a high-rise concrete building -- in a grove of otehr high-rises -- but all the professionals who live around here, without extended family living with them, all have foreign maids! Very strange! We were without this kind of help the first 9 months here, and without a car, and honestly my life felt like a prison sentence in hell (it is very hot here and the apartment isn't airconditioned). God did a lot of stretching for me that first year (as in "my identity is NOT in what I accomplish for him, but who I am in him") but I am so glad that we have a helper now so that I can have the liberty to do something besides hang the laundry out to dry (and get mildewed in the humid weather!).
So, I get out and do some coaching, performing, writing, teaching in using drama as part of worship, outreach etc. I won't go into it all, but I'll copy a short monologue I'm helping a woman work on this week. I wrote it for an Easter pageant the year Tyler was born.
OK. Enough from me this morning!
It was great to hear from and about you. Send me your address sometime.
Blessings and continued GREAT joy,
K!Mberly
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