Church at Kowloon International Baptist Church (KIBC)

We got up and found our way on the MTR (train) to KIBC where we enjoyed a packed praise and worship service very similar to ours. The people were friendly (not as much as TCF though, miss you all). The Sunday School classes were full and meaningful as well. They have just kicked off an intense NT reading program. Listen 28 minutes a day to CD or online in your respective language and have it done in 40 days. A lot of people were eager to get their CD's. It was good to see the focus on feeding the flock, encouraging spiritual growth and witnessing, and outreach. We ended up going out for lunch with several families from the SS class. Over all it was a great opportunity to find a productive growing church and make some connections for friendship. Praise the Lord!

Unique sites

They have double-decker buses in Hong Kong.

Very detailed artwork made out of an elephant tusk (In the window of a street shop).

Hanging out in Hong Kong

A Chinese pond display near the harbour.

The kids by an old maritime canon (It was fired to alert ships to the time of day). Boom, time for lunch.

After lots of walking, we enjoyed lunch at Thai Orchids restaurant with some of Mark's work associates.

On Monday afternoon the kids and I enjoyed an outing to Kowloon Park where we found a free Chinese history and archeology exhibit inside.

Kaylin standing in a artifact exhibit room. The floor was glass panels that showed lots of broken pottery pieces. It was a little odd feeling to walk on it. It seemed like it would give way even though it was sturdy.

Views of beautiful Hong Kong

This is the view from our apartment looking over Victoria Harbour to Hong Kong Island.

View of city street among skyscrapers.

Kowloon Park within a 2 minute walk of our place. It has a public pool, aviary and ponds, playground, mazes, exercise areas, and lots of fountains.

Hiaphong Street is a road we walk just about anytime we need to get anywhere. It takes us towards the MTR (train).

Trying a new fruit. Dragon Fruit!

There was a beautiful bowl of Dragon Fruit waiting for us at the appartment. The meat has the look and texture of kiwi. The taste is a little more bland though. We like it well enough.

A Day of Firsts.

PTL, we got a great nights sleep and the pillows and bed are quite comfortable. We left, what we are now going to start referring to as home, at around 9 am this morning with a fellow Ex-patriot, Elizabeth,  from the US for breakfast. To her credit, she tried to take us take us to a Chinese restaurant, but we were soooo hungry by that point we wanted something familiar and in English. Good old McDonalds. :) Pancakes, sausage, eggs, english muffins, hashbrowns, and the smallest size OJ's you've ever seen (about the size of Junior Frostys or smaller [I know that's a different fast food joint]). We then met up with two other VF Asia workers, Tara (another Ex-pat from US), and Sean (from Malasia, speaks Chinese). We walked around alot of Kowloon/Harbour City. The natives call it "high priced city." We toured a couple of outdoor parks, several malls, the fresh market, the Ladies Market (Flea market style, not just for ladies), the grocery store called City's Super, and a wonderful Thai restaurant for lunch. That about sums up our first day. Oh, we also got a bit of a nap to hold us over til bed time. We also got to Skype with the Long family this evening. We will miss worshipping with our TCF church family tomorrow. We also miss our family and friends. The Lord has really blessed us with an awesome place to live for the next few months. It's midnight here now. I better get some sleep if we plan on trying to navigate the train system tomorrow for church. The MTR train system is a whole nother post. Night.

We're here!

Mark's mom went with us to the airport to see us off and take our van back home for us. We experienced our first hiccup at check in when they said we needed to change our return dates due to not having passports. They didn't want us to be turned back by immigration in HK. They ended up temporarily releasing our seats and they got grabbed up. This caused us to have different seating assignments. On the first leg to Detroit, Mark was in the back with Kaylin, while I was seated with Lindsey and Andrew in three aisle seats directly behing each other near the front. First Praise!, The Lord worked it out that a lady offered to swap with Lindsey so she could sit with me. Andrew sat dirctly in front of us beside a gentlemen who let him have the windo seat. All three kids got to sit by the window like they wanted. Second Praise!:Once in Detroit we explained what happeded and a nice lady blocked 6 seats essentially for us right at the front of coach seating. That meant plenty of leg room for us to get up and move around without getting out in the aisle. It also allowed us to stretch our legs and use our carry on bags as leg rests. We each got about 3 or 4 hours of sleep. We arrived in Hong Kong at 8:45 pm on Friday (7:45 am NC time). It took us until about 10:15 to get through immigration and get our luggage. We then found our driver holding a 'Beverly' sign to take us to our new place. The views are awesome. We got to our apartment around 11pm. We slightly unpacked and went to bed (kids around midnight, me and Mark around 1 am).