And now it is retreat time
From our guest blogger, MoZiLLa…
Hello everyone – in a few minutes I am leaving with Charles who is kindly driving me out to Stanley for the Walk to Emmaus Retreat. Tess is already there as one of the table facilitators and from yours truly not only she but another friend (one of the gals who went to Shenzhen with us) have now got the throat, ears, nose and cough plague…. surely it was not moi who ‘shared’ it with them! Even now I still daily get an on and off sore throat, cough and plugged ears. Sturdy little bug this. (Painting at Left: Journey to Emmaus, artist unknown.)
For those who may not be familiar – the Walk to Emmaus gets its name from the time when Jesus met a few of His followers (after His resurrection). They were walking along utterly despondent that their Lord had been killed, this ‘stranger’ joined them as the proceeded down the road to Emmaus and they all chatted and talked about this Jesus who had been killed. It was only after Jesus had departed from them that they suddenly realized that this ‘stranger’ who had joined them was actually Jesus. Hence, the heavy meaning to the words The Walk to Emmaus intimating that we too can meet with Jesus as we travel along the road (of life).
I still have no idea what to expect but am quite certain it will be just what I need and will be a gift from Him and all these dedicated individuals who have prepared for this weekend for months and months with prayer, prayer meetings, planning, etc. etc. We are staying in, and the Retreat takes place in, a Catholic monastery and is totally ecumenical – rich indeed.
Blake is here!!! He arrived last night and it is sooooooo great to have him with us. The children are thrilled to have Grandad Blake here and he is busy answering endless questions, helping with Dora books, applying stickers, playing on the playground, etc. etc. etc. He just beams. So it is going to be a bit of a hiatus from this little writer but I look forward to being in touch post the Walk.
Blessings,
M
xox
on a junk, saw a junk, watched a junk
From our guest blogger, MoZiLLa…
Last Wednesday evening I was kindly included in an evening’s outing to Lamma Island. Some of the leadership from Union Church wanted to have a fellowship kind of get-together. A couple that attends Union Church co-own a rather spacious modern junk with 3 other couples and are generous in sharing the boat. We boarded in the "Fragrant Harbour" at dusk and the beauties of the HK shoreline and skyline were startling – the million lights winked and beckoned from both HK side and Kowloon side of the harbour. I found it breathtaking. It was from this modern junk that I saw a sight I have only seen once before – a real junk from the days of ‘old China’. The large sails were dark green and it was majestic as it swept past.
We dined at Rainbow Restaurant on Lamma – open air, full, loud, fabulous food. Other groups were cheek to jowl with us and as the wine flowed the standing and bowing and toasting grew ever more frequent as faces grew more florid by the minute. I rationalized with candor the fact that those nice little fish swimming just over there in those big tanks were suddenly part of dinner – "Now that’s what you call fresh"!! A facet of life here that charms me is the eclectic mix of nationalities. I sat in my chair, was wonderfully wined and dined and embraced the visual feast of Korean, Chinese (mainland and Hong Kong Island), English, Australian, American, Canadian, Scottish and mixes of the aforementioned. And of course the accents. They tickle my ears. It was a splendid evening.
The third junk happened last night – Tess and I slipped away around 6:30p.m. and went downtown to see the movie, "The Painted Veil". RUN – DON’T WALK – to see this movie. We were thrilled by it. The cinematography is breathtaking with the story taking place mainly in China as well as England; superb acting. A poignant tale by Somerset Maugham. Shall not say another word as I do not wish to ruin it for you all as I know you are going to see it 🙂
Charles is at the Men’s Walk to Emmaus this weekend since Thursday evening. He is charge of prayer and the Prayer Chapel. And next weekend I will be the novice Pilgrim at the Women’s Walk. I truly have almost no idea as to what to expect so….. won’t it be exciting to find out. Today Tess and I went to the ABC with the children where they played and played. We had lunch as well and generally did an excellent job of tiring the gang out 🙂 Now, tomorrow is Lita and De’s day off……. do you see where this is going?….. Charles does not get home until after 6 PM…… this leaves Tess and me ……. I think all of you who believe in prayer should do just that on our behalf…. or better still – for the children’s sake!!
My love to you all,
M xox
Forged in the furnace loyalties
From our guest blogger, MoZiLLa…
I could not wait until tomorrow to share this tidbit.
It is currently 2:20 PM… the time of day when naps generally are ending.
Naps in this house usually are successful for the triplets on weekdays as ‘school’ in the morning tires them out. Today…. not so much. Instead, they threw another party and when their mother entered their bedroom they had moved the two beds that could be moved, pulled out drawers and emptied their contents as well as liberally dispensing Thomas train track pieces on the floor. Time stood still as all movement within the room froze….. Tess fixed Jasper with a steely eye and asked, "Jasper, who did this mess"?
"Thela and Caryth," Jasper replied.
"Sela, who did this mess?" Tess asked… "Carys and JJ," Sela replied.
"Carys, who did this mess?" Tess asked… "Sela and Jasper," Carys replied.
I stood at the doorway and that is what I heard – I cannot tell a lie! Priceless conversation followed. There were wails of mortification that they had been ‘busted’ but very little remorse for the actual crime! Some of their comments to Tess had us unable to look at them as we fought back smiles ….. such as JJ’s last minute dead-man-walking attempt for clemency: "JJ, you know I have to give you a spanking for disobeying, don’t you"?
"No, how about Caryth"? was his manly reply.
I bid you adieu!!
M xox
ABC Swimming & The Peak
More from our guest blogger, MoZiLLa…
Sunday was special – I so enjoy attending and worshiping at Union Church with my family. Tess is still in the Five Step Recovery Program from having taught Sunday School to 3 year olds as the regular teacher was away 🙂
After church, we came home, changed and all but Tess and Carys left for the Aberdeen Boat Club – you can imagine the level of excitement for the children at the prospect of ‘swimming’ at the ABC. Carys was so tired and fell right into her nap – she and Tess joined us later at the Club. Charles
and I kept Jasper, Sela and Sebastian afloat as the latter was in the big pool with is dad and I kept my eyes darting from JJ to Sela. Of everyone, Sela truly had the best time all round – she was busy busy in the small shaded pool with her bucket and shovel while JJ felt led to spend most of his time in the foot bath (3’x4′) leading onto the pool deck 🙂 (Left, pink-eyed and tired but still happy Sebastian after several hours in the pool.)
By the way, Dad returned from his US business trip with one piece swim suits – see pics – for the triplets that, while not life jackets, provide enough buoyancy to help the triplets gain agility in the kids’ pool. Sela – and eventually Carys once she arrived post-nap – took to these suits like ducks to water and had a grand time with their new found water freedom. (At left, Sela looks like Dora-On-Steroids while wearing her buoyancy suit.)
Jasper and I had a ‘moment’ when he lowered himself into the kiddies’ pool and slipped on the stairs. Fortunately, I was watching him as he no longer had his flotation swim suit on. I leapt to the ladder and just as JJ slipped on the ladder I landed beside him in the water with an almighty splash as he floated spread-eagled and face down in the water. Scooped him up and with much spluttering he was just fine!! These moments either keep grandparents eternally young or head them to the grave with gay abandon and much speed!
Seb did well as got into the swing of swimming once again but this time without any flotation so there were occasions when his reach exceeded his grasp, so to speak. He has realized that more lessons would be a good idea to prepare him to be a stronger and safer swimmer. The weather
was warm and sunny and after Carys had had a turn at ‘swimming’ we enjoyed dinner before heading home and to bed with four happy, wrinkled kiddies. (Left, Jasper laughs while Sebastian jumps into the big pool.)
Yesterday I struck out on my own and for 2 1/2 hours I wandered around the paths of the rainforest. My goal was to hike to the Peak and the required pains and remarkable pleasures associated with reaching the Peak are worthy of mention. First, the pain – I think this might have something to do with my very young age….. but that path was unrelenting and unforgiving! I
tried to figure out the angle and was quite sure it had to be close to 45 degrees…. maybe a little extreme? 30 degrees? 15?Whatever it was it did not stop going straight up for a good half hour – but so worth it as this led to flip side of the coin – the pleasure. The view is delicious – the forest rolls away beneath your feet and waaaaaay down at the bottom is the Reservoir that marks the beginning of the hike. The South China Sea fans out to the horizon and great tankers filled with cargo move silently across it. It was humid and wonderfully warm and I discussed with myself how I really ‘do’ warmth better than cold! I entered the shopping centre for cold bottled water while other visitors from assorted nations milled around outside and soaked in the sun, tooks photos of one another, laughed and made exciting plans.
The bubonic plague that I seem to have contracted is not keeping me down – although I am going to stick pretty close to home today and see if I cannot tame the ongoing sore throat, coughing and now ‘goopy eye’. I am pretty cute to behold. But I am happy, content and feel very blessed.
Trusting you are all feeling the same – minus the plague. God bless you.
Love, M xox
Editor’s note: You are always cute to behold. That is why we call you Gorgeous Gran.
No Shame Shopping
More from our guest blogger…
Tess and I partook of two tremendous extremes with the first on Wednesday and the second on Thursday. As Charles was out of town on business travel he very kindly treated me and his darling wife to tickets to an oh so tasty luncheon with Nicky Gumbel on Wednesday afternoon. For those who might not be familiar with this name I will give a little background – Nicky Gumbel is the driving international force for Alpha from Holy Trinity Brompton Church just outside London, England. It is he who one listens to during the video tapes when partaking in the course.
An international Asia Pacific Alpha Conference just took place here in HK this week with Nicky as the guest speaker. I knew about it and knew I could attend the whole conference if I so wished but chose not to as I am attending a three day/three night Walk to Emmaus Retreat later in April (with Tess). So, attending this luncheon was such an unexpected treat from Charles and I am most appreciative. For starters, it was refreshing to be in a room with 60 Asian/expat fellow Alpha-ers. I spoke with a most charming young man who is orginally from Toronto but has come to HK under God’s leading and wishes to be used by Him in mainland China – he believes this is God’s plan for him. The willingness to share Alpha with others in the workplace, with neighbours, through church, etc. was inspiring. Nicky spoke to us during a gorgeous lunch – he was passionate and excited about how HK is surely at the crossroads of a Christian explosion in Asia and prays the Christians here will be able to model life without becoming ensnared in the "money, money, money" side of life in HK. We were given the opportunity to have our photo taken with Nicky so Tess and I trotted forward to do so. His lovely wife Pippa was by his side. I proudly showed them, via a map I had printed off the computer at Tess’ suggestion, where I lived in northern Canada and told them we have Alpha there. Delightful people. I thought as we left how I love the Christian faith – it is exciting and alive and secure.
Thursday dawned. And the two Lyons women were up and set out early – I nearly did not go as I had started coughing the day before. I never cough! And the cough proceeded to a sore throat that kept me spluttering all night and was feeling pretty saggy and achy by morning …. BUT! the chance to go to Shenzhen does not come often and as the early morning progressed I felt a little better… so off I went with Tess. Going to Shenzhen is a complex operation for the novice and even though I have gone a few times I still find it challenging as so much time passes between trips. It requires
buses, underground travel and a train ride and I love the train ride into mainland China as it offers me the time to eat my McDonald’s Egg McMuffin breakfast with oj! Such fun and I always feel like I am breaking all the rules 🙂 Such a rebel! Upon arrival in Shenzhen you are kept busy with checkpoint after checkpoint requiring forms to be filled out and money to be paid, etc. etc. FINALLY, you are through and Tess captured the spirit of the moment by saying, as we neared the HUGE complex where we shop, "I smell the smell of Free Enterprise at work!" And at work it is. I know I have written about Shenzhen before but it bears repeating – every sense is assaulted. And this visit afforded a new experience – an attempted robbery occurred 10 feet from us as we ‘sat’ squatting on stools in one ‘store’ looking at their wares. Oh my goodness, the shouting and reaming and physical strong-arming that went on. Not sure how it was resolved as I was trying not to stare!! 2 delightful friends of Tess’, Cora and Terry, came along as well – it was a rich experience and I ate my first ever Peking Duck at lunch. VERY rich and I only managed one piece. And my little Blake wishes to sample the joys of Shenzhen again when we arrives so more fun awaits.
I have been a very well behaved girl today and stayed in all day – did not even go out and climb the 144 stairs to Tess’ flat – my goal is to do that at least twice a day ;-( Not doing too well yet. Trying to get this silly throat under control. Tomorrow Charles arrives home and Tess and Charles have the joy of attending their church’s AGM within minutes of Charles disembarking from his plane!
Many hugs to all from lovely HK,
M
xox
Editorial note: Nicky and shopping in the same post. Hmmm…
Bittersweet Tears & Rain
God’s love takes us on journeys we do not wish to go;
makes us travel by roads we do not wish to use;
to take us to places we never wish to leave.
– Ashley Null
I am writing from a plane – on my way back to Hong Kong from the US – and regular readers will know what that means. Flood gates wide open, creativity unlocked, words flowing like a river. I’ve also spent most of today pretty busted up. A little hard since I lead a large portion of the meetings all Friday… in fact most of the week. I did so with emotions bubbling up from within. Today was a tough, tough day. Bittersweet and of course to the stoic type, those non-F on the MBTI scale, even more of a challenge when this unknown F has you by the throat. My dear friend and colleague Paul, HE is a big F. If he wakes up to find me like this, everyone will be wondering about ‘the guys’ in 14H & 14K!
The struggle within is professional. There is a sea change underway in my life. The tide is going out and a few days ago I gave notice at my company. I’ve known for a while that there would come a point in my current role – which is changing to help scale the company – when I’d say "this isn’t the right thing for me." That time has come. But my friends, this is not a casual move for me. Never before in my life have I devoted as much prayer, sought spiritual guidance nor surrendered myself to what I perceived as God’s will in my life. This was a divine decision in the business world.
One might say it’s easy to experience God’s grace in a church environment or context. I mean really, being of service while working with other Christians for the better good of the world? It’s a safe, relatively easy place to access joy. But outside that environment, accessing and surrendering to God’s will and direction is much more challenging. We fight against our normal human beingness all the time and wish that God would just give us the answer.
In 1982 I made a wrong turn when I was called by God. As much as I knew or suspected what I was turning away from, I mostly pretended none of it was a real calling. Twenty-two years later on February 23, 2004 when the triplets were born 14 weeks premature, I knew on that morning the personal, spiritual implications of that day: the Lord was disciplining me back on course. Since then I’ve fought with discerning the proper course for myself. Looking back now, I can see the last four years being a grand test of maturation. Therefore, about four months ago when a phone call came in and a seed planted in my business world, I went to work focusing my spiritual attention on what this seed might grow into from a spiritual perspective. Every move I made was covered in prayer. Any area where I had confusion, I sought spiritual guidance. Tess provided a lot of clarity in terms of keeping me on track when the human being urge tried to take over the spiritual urge.
I remember one day I took annual leave for the final set of interviews. That day, there must have been 35 intercessors around the world covering me and the specific geographic location in spiritual prayer and protection. I walked away from those interviews with one message from God: "if you come here you have professional HR work to do and a lot of it. That’s what’s waiting for you." But no personal preference from Him. No peace, no direction, no bolt of lightening.
"Argh, just give me the answer!" I creid out.
"NO… you didn’t accept the last answer in 1982, why should I tell you now?" The whole process was very Calvinistic as I continued to focus my spiritual attention on this seed. Then BINGO a few days later the fog cleared and the peace came in like a warm wind releasing sailors from a becalmed prison. I immediately wrote a letter expressing my commitment to the role. The next morning the offer came in.
Flash forward to this week, to today even, when I started the process of saying good-bye to colleagues – really, really good, talented people – who have seen me through thick and thin. Wow, it hurt. Oh my gosh it hurt. I turned again to the Lord, "why, why the pain. That wasn’t part of the original calculation?"
"First, my grace is sufficient for you – you’ll survive – and second, you would have calculated incorrectly had I permitted you to experience these emotions."
On so on that note – as I left the office in the US office for the last time – I got it. I had discerned God’s will outside the context of the typical church environment. In that moment the tears of sadness turned to tears of overwhelming peace and grace. Somehow amidst the complexity of my paralysis of analysis – kids make these things much simpler, I should have just asked Sebastian what to do – I’d managed to be obedient to God’s will, as if a test. That’s always a great thing to experience. It’s also what I’m supposed to be doing right now, maturing myself as a Christian. Right?
"That’s correct, Charles."
Grace… overwhelming at times. I am clear, though, I am being sent to a place where my gifts will be put to good use, tested, developed and sharpened. Along the way God rewards, too. In this case I’m being sent to a place I am very excited and anxious to go. The best part is knowing I am on the right path – lots of peace there – and maybe someday God will bring me full circle back to 1982. And I probably won’t want to leave.
So I sail on… cutting through the current of humanbeingness. Yes, by the way, Maureen is correct. In the middle of all this I gave up food for Lent… 45 days of natural lemon juice. Not a single bite of food other than two communions. The lessons of that fast are still bearing fruit and I am confident will continue to do so for a long time to come. Right now I am present to a very grounded peace in my life.
