When I started my staffing in February 09 It was what I would say "out of my comfort zone" If the year before that wasn't "out there" enough then this way! I knew it would be hard but that is where I learn how to rely on God and him alone. This is an on going process you see and no easy thing, at least for me that is. For the first few months I learned to do some of the jobs around the base. These would be house keeping, food run, Driving on the opposite side of the road to pick people up from the airport, and picking up the mail and other random things in town. Now let me tell you Hong Kong is nothing like anything in Nebraska! Especially coming from a small town! I had the previous year to get to know parts of the city so that helped. This all lasted till June. At the beginning of June there was a Big conference called Call To All that our base attended. At this conference they had listed all the unreached groups in the world. (unreached with the gospel). That way you could target an area that you want to go to. There were so many groups of people on the list. That week gave me more of a drive to reach the lost.
As soon as the conference was over we started FEET prep. Now feet is a dance and drama program that goes to several different nations and preaches the gospel! This would be my first year staffing the program. I wasn't on my own though, Phyllis, who is also on staff here, was with me. One of our directors lead the team while in Hong Kong, over seeing how things went. We did a lot of planing with two of our contacts and ex feet leaders Tryfina and Sophia. Who just recently started a ministry in Kolkata India. On this feet we went to the nations of India, Nepal, and Thailand. All amazing countries in different ways! Our team was made up of 13 participants and us two staff making 15. Then including our contacts, which would vary from place to place, around 20 people traveling around!
Outreach
FEET always starts in July. Normally we have about six to seven weeks of prep phase but not this year. We only had four weeks to do what we do in seven! This includes learning dance and dramas, learning how to give your testimony, learning how to preach the gospel, and many other things. We stuffed our things we had to have into our hiking backpacks and headed out to India in Aug. Our first stop and the longest place we stayed in was Kolkata for two weeks. We arrived in the middle of the night and the students were smacked in the face with the harsh reality of life in that city. The streets were filled with the homeless sleeping on the hard ground or carts that they owned, you could even find them on top of cars. A lot of the taxi drivers will sleep in the taxi that they drive people around in all day. We helped out with Tryfina and Sophia's ministry where they work in a slum. After our time in that city we made our way north. Going up to Darjeeling and places around it. North India is one of my favorite places that I've gone so far! The foot hills of the Himalayan mountains are so beautiful!
The next place we went was Nepal. This year we targeted an unreached people group called the Tharo people. The majority of them live in a place called Bardia. When we got there only 90 people were Christians out of the 900 villages that were in that area! When you think of Nepal you think of Mountains and cold, but this was the flat lands and HOT! lol Our next place was a bit more extreme! We got in a airplane that was big enough for our team and three contacts plus the stewardess! We then flew up north to Jumla. After arriving we then hiked for five hours with our two backpacks. I thought the foot hills were beautiful but the Himalayan mountains themselves were amazingly more beautiful! This hike wasn't easy, sometimes the road would be nonexistent. There would be a gap maybe 30 feet long or more because that part had crumbled down the mountain! There was a bus that went to different parts of the mountains but it took around 20 days to get where we were going, so we hiked. During our time in the mountains we would hike from village to village putting on programs, preaching the gospel to people who had never heard of Jesus nor seen white people before! At the end of our time there we hiked back to Jumla in the rain. It had been raining for the last maybe two days, so the path was muddy and slippery. Our next spot was Kathmandu, the capital. One of my favorite places. We went around to churches and schools mainly.
After that city we made our way to Thailand! Arriving in Bangkok to stay for a few nights before going up to Chiang Rai. We worked with The Home of Blessing. This is a place that houses kids who live up in the hill tribes and can't get education, with the school being right next door it works well. The food is amazing in Thailand! It's also the right temperature all the time! well at least in Oct it is! We finally got back to Hong Kong after our three month outreach on Nov 9Th. A week of report back and re-entry teaching and FEET was over.
The next thing at the base was a seminar that brought the founders of YWAM to our base. It was a good time and I learned a lot, especially on giving. Right after that was COR (Christmas outreach) a two week program for people of all ages to go do ministry in Hong Kong itself! There was a great Christmas brunch and dinner. That ended and the new year came, now it is the time of year that we have DTS start! Today was the first day. I am not involved with this program which gives me the chance to go home for a month! I go back home on Feb 7th!
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