Developing Christ-Centered Leaders in the Emerging World to Reach the Unreached

Oct. 1st was National Day here in Hong Kong. This is a holiday that commemorates when China became the communistic People’s Republic of China. Most people are off work on this day and so we took the opportunity to have a holiday as well. We went to the lake and had a little picnic. It was a great day! Nobody fell in, and we even ran into some friends out there!

Rebekah Hope Clark was born on February 27, 2009 in Princess Margaret Hospital in the Lai King area of Hong Kong. She was 4.2 kilos, which is 9lbs. 3 oz.  There were 30 other babies, all Asian, in the nursery when Rebekah was born (and their mothers were in the same room as Rebekah’s mother), and Rebekah wasn’t the biggest – she was the third biggest. The hospital doesn’t measure height here for babies, so we had to wait until we got home to pull out the tape measure. She turned out to be 21 inches long, according to our efforts.

We will have a lot of firsts with Rebekah, even though this is our third child.  She is the first of our children to come home from the hospital with us in a taxi! She is the first to not have a baby crib (as it won’t fit in our little house). She is the fist to not have a carseat (since we are like most of the population here and don’t own a car). 

Rebekah is now two months old and fitting well into the daily life of our family. She is a lovely baby, and Sarah and Hannah smother her with love, literally:) She is officially smiling and laughing.  She doesn’t like to be alone, but sits quietly most of the time when she is in the room with the action.

As Mommy continues to emerge from the fog of being a new mom again, hopefully the blog entries will become more frequent. Thanks so much to all of you who sent notes, emails, and gifts of congratulations. Every one of them brings encouragement to us as we are so far from y’all. Thank you.

We experienced our first Chinese New Year here in Hong Kong. We have always been traveling during this holiday before and not in the country, so we were glad to be here for it this year.  It is the most celebrated holiday here and lots goes on during the two weeks of festivities.

It starts at a different time every year since it is based on the moon and not the sun like our calendar. This year it started during the last week of January. And this year is the Year of the Ox. So there are gold cows with long horns everywhere.

Chinese New year has lots of tradition behind it and some of the icons are:

1. the lion dance – a great show of two people in a lion costume doing acrobatics on top of really high pedestals.

2. tiny orange trees – there are tiny mandarin oranges on little bushes everywhere and they are so sweet and cute.

3. fresh flowers – they go overboard on beautiful fresh flowers and put them out everywhere. It is lovely.

4.  peach trees – these trees are brought in to every public area and put up before they bloom in hopes that they will bloom right on New Year’s Day. The flowers are pretty and pink.

5. red packets – this is the part that is like Christmas a bit. Everyone gives red little envelopes full of money to kids and single people and workers (guards, secretaries, employees, bus drivers, etc). And red packets are hung as decoration everywhere.

6. fireworks – the fireworks are magnificent and are over the Victoria Harbor on the second night of the holidays. We stayed with some friends whose apartment looks over the harbor so we could view them live and up high!

We enjoyed participating in a lot of these events. It was a very nice holiday.

As far as the baby goes, I am being admitted into the hospital tomorrow so the doctor can try and turn the baby since it is still breech. If it works, I think they will induce this week. If it doesn’t, they will hopefully schedule the C-section for this week.

Jay will post updates on his facebook, and we hope to email something out as soon as possible when the new baby arrives.

There are very good reasons why we haven’t updated the blog in over 4 months! Well, even if they are ‘good’ reasons, I will offer them anyway 🙂

Jay was in the middle of kidney stone pains and ended up undergoing 3 surgeries before it was all over. I was so sick with this pregnancy that daily family survival was difficult. And then we traveled to the States for the months of November and December.

We are now back in Hong Kong, and it is COLD. We didn’t know it ever felt this cold in HK since we have never been here during the winter before. After we returned it took us about a day to break down and pay the money to buy a little fan heater as there is no heating in the homes here.  Then when the temperature dropped again, we bought a radiator type heater. It gets pretty cold up here on the 27 floor with a wall of windows facing the ocean and with porcelain tiles covering all floorspace.

Jay is completely kidney stone free now and I am feeling much better after getting my diabetes, anemia, sinus problems and acid stomach all treated. I did have to go to the hospital for 2 days here last week because the doctor thought my sugar levels were too high. It was basically a 2-day diabetes test. They threatened to put me on insulin injections unless I maintained a very very strict diet. I promised so they let me out of the hospital. I was all ready for the next 5 weeks of strict dieting, but after two days I have struggled! At least the hospital experience helped to prepare me for what is ahead – the ward of 8 non-English speaking women in labor, the communal bathroom, the unidentifiable food with only chopsticks available, the meat  (slimy, jellylike soup) for breakfast, and the beautiful pink attire.

The baby is still breech, so we are praying it turns in time. The doctor wants to induce by February 26th.

The girls are happy to be back in their own home with their room and toys and such. The miss their American friends so much though, so we are working hard to meet up with friends here and plan playdates.

Thank you to all of you who made our time in the States so wonderful. We had a great holiday there and miss you very much.