Just in case you haven't heard...

We're home safe! We'll be sharing about our missions trip tomorrow at church. We'd love to see you there.

CBCSD (We'll be sharing at the 10:45 service)

12335 World Trade Drive, San Diego, CA 92128

Can't thank you enough for your indellible support before and during the trip. We feel so privileged to partner together with you in England. We're looking forward to serve our King together with you for the rest of our days. He's worthy of our every breath and every day.. to Him be all the glory.

for His renoun,

CBC EMT~2003

God...the quintessence of good

Not xanga'ing (or writing for that matter) for 2 weeks can really take a toll on your creative juices. Eric and Dave C. attempted to update this earlier tonight but I think the task of xangaing about 5 packed days is really intimidating (especially after a long day of travel!) So I thought, "i'll take one for the team and xanga" Yeah talk about big time suffering for Jesus.  I actually sat here and typed and deleted 7 sentences before i typed out this title. I coudln't get myself to *highlight* and *backspace* this one... it was too true.. God is good. who can deny that

For the past couple days we were at this Theological Seminary in a city called Nantwich (like a sandwich made of ants.)  The site was absolutely brilliant.. lush greenery, wooden benches, manicured hedges, brick buildings galore... Dave Y. said something like this was to make up for not going to an East Coast school! Oh yeah, in the morning, we walk out and wake up to the smell of manure (alleged fertilizer for the grass). To Cindy's delight, it reminded her of Davis. basically in a nut shell, the place was Davis meets Yale.

[starting to dread the task of wrapping up memories and lessons ...aha! lists to the rescue!]

highs!

• learning a new accent. here in liverpool, they have this accent called the "scouse" accent.  example: the word "disgusting" (DIS guhs ting) became dees GOS ting. ok, it's not that big of a difference on writing. i guess you'll have to wait for my impression complete with facial expressions.
• productive days! we had a crazy schedule. we had planned activities from 7:30 in the morning 'till 12:00am at night. I've never felt so productive in my life.  Though this caused us to be super tired everyday, it was a great reminder that we desperately need God. ptL for being the GREAT SUSTAINER 
• skits - or as they prefer to say here.. sketches were so hilarious. You know how the funniest people are the ones that are usually the quiet understated ones? well at liverpool, there were loads of kids that were so normal at first glance.. but then the sketches really brought out the craziness in them that was itching to get out.  Good thing we have all the skits on tape!
• probing minds, honest hearts one of the treats we got to experience in liverpool was how eager the kids were to understand God.  Dave Y. and Eric's group actually launched into a full on talk about eschatology.  One of their kids asked "how did noah fit fish into the ark?"  Dave C. and I had the privilege of leading a seekers group and it was so neat to hear them share about their doubts about God.  They weren't afraid to say things like "i can't see him, i can't touch him"  I think God really honors (and desires!) honesty.  Only when we are honest with Him can he start to work in our hearts.  which leads to the next great news (quite possibly the best one yet..)
• new family members! Everyone guess what? You have 2 new brothers and a sister in your family!  Could you pray for them right now?  For them to accept Jesus was not an easy thing. A lot of times we talk about the cost of being a disciple.. but here these kids have to pay that cost very early in their walk. One of these guys actually said " my parents are going to kill me when they find out I became a Christian" : (  Many of these youths have nonbelieving parents... please pray that God would provide people to support them as they embark on this new journey
• sharing time on Wednesday night was boss (boss is a liverpool slang for cool) That night was real special for us all because we had a chance to not only be transparent, but vulnerable with each other. What a treat it was to be able to get a peek at what heaven might be like.
• orange juice at camp they would set out this huge table of orange juice every morning.  By then I was really missing california juice so any semblance of juice was cause for celebration.  Eric, Dave Y., and I took orange juice shots every morning. i think the record was at 4
• pot noodles Every night at 11:00, we would have pot noodles time.  pot noodles is what we would call cup noodles.  Except they taste a hundred times better.  I think it's because the pack more noodle per cup thus making each cup more like a meal rather than a pseudo snack. My personal favorite was the chicken corn. mmm... (side note, they have some hilarious flavors here.. ie. Bombay Bad Boy hahaha... there's nothing like British Humor)
• brown sauce i still dont' really know what it is, but it's so good on burgers.

lows

• Brit Bacon is actually ham. No crispy goodness... No residual greasy feeling... make sure Denny's doesn't get a hold of this stuff. 
• Salad Cream is what people here use for Salad Dressing. In the packet it looks like your typical salad dressing until you squeeze it out and find out that it has the consistency of mayo.  Not only that, it tastes like miracle whip.  One dinner, our team happened to sit together, no one touched the salad.  Nothing like America's obsession with having every salad dressing flavor under the sun.  Next time I'm coming here, I'm packing my hidden valley ranch with me for sure.
• rope burns all around! The first day we got there, we played this game where everyone had a balloon tied to one of their legs and then the other leg was tied to another person.  The point of the game was to be the last person with a balloon. Needless to say, a lot of us had purple rings around our ankles the day after.
• saying goodbyes. enough said.

I hope that gives you an idea of what we experienced the past couple of days :) Sorry I coudln't give you a play by play.. but you know me and how I hate to retell days. If you really want to know what happened, I'd be more than happy to bequeath you my retreat handbook complete with a time table, sermon notes from Pastor Luke, Dave C., and Nick! We are off to London to play tomorrow (i know, more suffering for Jesus) :P We'll be back Sunday night.

Thanks for fighting with us in prayer. You guys are the best supporters in the world. What a privilege it is to be in God's family with you.  We can't wait to tell you stories of God's goodness. 'till then...

candy for the rest of the happily asleep team

ps. for your information... P. Luke, Dave Y., Eric, Cindy, Dave C. and Nick are such gifted people.  God really used them to minister to His people using their special giftings.. you should be very proud of them. They represented CBC well : )

pps. Please send Pastor Kai and his family our love and best regards

Quick update for 09 August 2003:

• We met with some of the Liverpool church members in the morning to play badminton at 9am.
• After badminton, our contacts, Wai Lan, Will, and Gill took us into town to have lunch and do some shopping for supplies (and a few of us picked up some Liverpool Football Club merchandise also)
• After a LOT of walking around, we left the shopping area and went to visit the Liverpool Cathedral, erected by the Anglican Church in 1978 (started in 1901). This was quite an experience for me, as it was my first time seeing a great cathedral. The building was huge, with vast spaces inside, really amazing stonework and stained-glass windows. We just happened to catch an organ concert too, so we got to hear the 5,000-some organ pipes in action!
• In the evening, we attended the BBQ and met a good number of the youth from Liverpool Chinese Gospel Church. Seems like a good bunch of kids. We're all really looking forward to the retreat!

Special Prayer Request: Pastor Luke slipped and twisted his ankle during the BBQ and has difficulty walking. We pray that he'll be able to stand well enough to preach tomorrow morning and that he'll be able to walk well enough to get around in this country that requires much much more walking than in the USA!

(posted by Dave Yu. Nick Hsieh Revised Version, First Edition)

greetings from Liverpool!

we arrived here last night without incident via the national express coach (aka bus), which took four hours to bring us here from Milton Keynes. we were very sad to leave the COCM conference, and to add to the sadness the conferees were all very sad to see us leave too! at the beginning of our missions trip, we were all very anxious to get to Liverpool and minister to the youth there, but through the week at COCM, God showed us why He brought us there and even extended our stay an extra day. we will really miss the youth leaders we got to work with at the conference and wish them the best. please pray for them as they have all gone home to their churches and fellowships now to minister with all that God has shown them through the conference!

Liverpool is a large coastal city with a climate similar to San Diego (at least during the heat wave theyr'e in now). The missions team is split into three host homes for several nights before we go to the youth retreat on Monday. Today, we all had a great day of rest and relaxation. We will get to meet many of the youth tomorrow at a BBQ and we'll also be attending Liverpool Chinese Gospel Church on Sunday (where Pastor Luke will be speaking!). We also had a briefing tonight by two of the youth advisors. God is giving us plenty of opportunities to get to know the youths before we begin serving them at the retreat!

Again, thank you all so much for your faithful support of our team. God has been working through your prayers in amazing ways to use us in England. Here are some more prayer requests as we head into the next leg of our trip:

• Pray that God will give us special insight into the lives of the people that we will encounter.
• Pray that we will be able to rely on God's strength to quickly adjust to our new environment and be able to serve without hindrance.
• Pray that God will work in the hearts of the youth going to the retreat, preparing the way for our ministry next week.
• Pray that we will continue to be in good health.

God bless you at all home! We are eager to return and report even more of all the amazing things that God has shown us here!

(posted by Dave Yu)

It has been quite a few days since we have updated; so let's see what's been going on in the past days.....

On Monday, we met up with Gordon Cheung, a youth worker with COCM based in Glascow and just discussed the structure of how the COCM Essential conference would work. Around 2 PM on Monday, the youth leaders began to trickle in from all around the UK. Personally, I was amazed to see the extent and distance that these leaders were coming from. They ranged from Ireland, to Scotland, to all around England (Basically all of the UK). The age range of the leaders of this conference ranges from 15-25 with a couple older adults. It's hard to imagine that this is a leadership training conference for all of the youth leaders in the entire UK! I had no idea that we would be ministering directly and indirectly to all of the Chinese churches throughout the UK. It simply blows my mind that this is a national conference. Bert spoke at the evening session of ministry time and there was an awesome time of worship.

Each person on the missions team has his or her own small group to help lead discussions about Bible study, what they've been learning, and how they can improve their churches and fellowships. Here's the breakdown of the missions team (the small groups were based upon regions in the UK) :

Nick- Sheffield

David Chiu- Cardiff

Candy- Beckton

Eric- Scotland [FREEEEDOM!]

David Yu- Liverpool, Leicester, Croyden, and Somerset

Cindy- Belfast

(Bert- Norway, Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester)

Each of these regions has a different group of church(es) with different needs and maturity levels. I think by the time we finish this conference, we'll all have different accents acquired, which I think is pretty cool; however, I think Nick's southern is rubbing off onto the Sheffield people :P.

Tuesday Morning, Pastor Luke spoke on Philippians 1, and the youth leaders were very touched by the message. It was then followed up by another 2 hours of leadership training. Then there was lunch, which by the way, we're eating quite well, as the COCM missions conference chef used to work in a Hong Kong restaurant. After lunch, we split off into giving our 2.5 hour workshops. I know that all of the youth were blessed in different ways by the different workshops given on Evangelism and Missions, Prayer, and Icebreakers/Games. At night, there was more worship and Gordon gave a good message.

It has been fun to experience and notice the differences in American and British culture. Both we and the British Chinese are quite intrigued by our differences and find them quite fascinating. The British always seem to refer to time in reference to the next hour or previous hour. We also got into a politcal discussion about Blair and Bush....they say we can keep Blair if we like him so much. There will be more to come. David Chiu and Cindy did a swing dancing demonstration last night and British/American mind games were being played on each other.

Wednesday, so far.... Nick gave an awesome message on Humility in Philippians 2. The youth leaders found Nick very entertaining, yet still provocative in his message. Nick did his Southern thing, and it was a great cultural experience for everyone...hehehe.

Well, sorry for the long update, I hope all is well in the US ! I miss you all!

(Posted by Eric, aka "A4", to be explained later)