A Day in the Life of Sister Good

Sister Good enters what is commonly, but not affectionately, known as "the real world"

After two and a half weeks in Hong Kong, the fairy dust has settled down and Sister Good and Sister Street are settling down into a routine that is euphemistically referred to as "the real world." We have entered into the workforce, loosely speaking, in a foreign country while taking graduate credit hours—it's been a bit of a rough introduction into the school of hard knocks. I now have a greater respect for my father, who managed to get his doctorate while on staff at a church and playing Barbies with me. I am sure things will settle into a rhythm, but we would certainly appreciate your prayers as we search for balance. I thought it might be good to describe what we do each week, rather than just describing our random adventures, so I apologize for not regaling you with tales of intrigue (I'll save those for another time). Welcome to the life of Sister Good!

We are at Pooi To Middle School on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. Our primary purpose there is to be a resource with whom the girls can speak to either practice their English or talk about life issues. We have introduced ourselves via PowerPoint presentation to all of the form 7 classes (roughly the same age as high school seniors in the US), gone out for lunch with several groups of girls (the older girls can leave for lunch), attended the teacher and student lunch fellowships, and we also had the opportunity to present in an assembly to forms 4-7 about "eye on the goal," the school's theme for the year. We were able to use this opportunity to talk a little bit about our goals as they relate to faith—for me, knowing Christ more (see Philippians 3:12-14). We are also helping out with the English Activities Club, the English broadcast over the school's intercom system on Thursday mornings, and we have been interviewed for Clover TV (the school's English online television program). The girls here are really wonderful, and I enjoy spending time with them both over lunch and after school. On Tuesdays we go to work at the church. We use this time to plan for our Thai English class and the English Sunday School class we will be teaching. We also have a two hour lunch break every Tuesday, and we have eaten out the two Tuesdays we have been at church thus far. The first Tuesday the staff went to a dim sum meal, which is a meal in which numerous small dishes are brought to the table and everyone takes what they like out of the middle and puts it on their plates (one dish at a time). This past week we ate at a buffet restaurant in a hotel which had a mix of Chinese and more Western dishes—it even had salad available (not a common occurrence), which was a reason for celebration. In the evenings Margaret and I usually make dinner/heat up leftovers in the oven or on the stove (no microwave), do our homework until we're drooling on it, and then go to bed.

On Saturdays we teach an English conversation class with Thai women, and this is an absolute joy to do. They are very quick learners, and it is encouraging to see the immediate impact of what we are doing. After the Thai class, there are fellowships at the church, and we will join various youth fellowships for during this time. (This past Saturday there was a children's evangelical meeting, which we attended, but it was all in Chinese, so I don't really know what was going on. I think it's safe to assume they were talking about Jesus.) On Sundays we go church and usually end up eating out for lunch afterwards. I described the giant headphones and translation delay in my last blog, and that has continued, but now we sit in the balcony so we aren't quite as conspicuous.

Sister Good Goes on a Holiday

Fridays are our days off, so we use these days to explore the city. We also had a public holiday because of the Mid-Autumn festival, so we had last Monday off as well. I would describe the Mid-Autumn festival to you, but I don't understand it myself, so I recommend you google it. As far as I can tell, it has something to do with an ancient Chinese legend involving the moon, a woman who went to the moon, and a rabbit. People eat lots of mooncakes (a dessert made out of bean curd with an egg yolk in the middle…it has a similar texture and flavor to a sweet potato) and usually have a big meal with their families. We celebrated by going to our church's 70th Anniversary Concert in Hong Kong's cultural center.

On one of our first Friday off, we spent the afternoon at the beach at Repulse Bay. The beach had a warning sign up to let visitors know that although there are shark nets placed around the swimming area, swimmers should still swim at their own risk because it is possible for sharks to get through. That was admittedly a bit disconcerting, but we weren't overly daunted and enjoyed the afternoon nonetheless. We didn't spend very long at the beach because we had too many other things we needed to work on (and it started raining), but it made for a nice afternoon. We spent our Monday off at the beach as well, but this time we joined the Thai fellowship in a trip to the Gold Coast. We loaded onto a bus with approximately 60 Thai people for a sing-along journey to the beach. For you Veggie Tales enthusiasts, picture the opening scene of Jonah where they are all in the bus joyously singing to the guitar, except it was in Thai, not English, and we aren't vegetables, nor did we crash and meet vegetable pirates. It was fun and kind of humorous, considering, as usual, we had no idea what was happening. When we got to the beach the Thai people had a fellowship time, including a gospel presentation, and eight people accepted Christ at the end of the presentation. After the fellowship time, we had the lunch which had been prepared that morning at the church. My first bit of papaya salad was so spicy it literally brought tears to my eyes. With my second bite I could feel my nasal passages clearing. By the third bite my palette had adjusted and I actually started to enjoy it. I love spicy food, and this was definitely spicy. The other foods I ate were like eating candy after the burning sensation from the papaya salad (okay, that's an exaggeration, but the papaya salad was definitely the spiciest thing there; the fish salad was reportedly spicy as well, but I seriously didn't notice). It was all delicious—I love spicy, Thai food! After lunch we got in the water. This beach, too, had up shark nets, but it was in a less commercialized area and had much nicer sand. It was a very pretty beach. It is interesting to be out in ocean and look and see the beach, mountains, and skyscrapers. Hong Kong is quite a place of contrasts, which I am sure I will continue to discover.

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