A few days after the party I had dinner with my friends Frankie (a Christian) and Michael. We talked about the party and then we just talked about God, Jesus, and the bible in general and after a little while it became obvious that Michael believed, he just needed to ask Jesus into his heart and so he did just that. It was cold out, it was raining, and I was tired but it was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. Michael had his head bowed and eyes closed as he talked to God in his own language and accepted Jesus into his heart. Now Frankie and Michael are best friends and brothers.

I want to thank you all for your support both with prayer and financially. I have really been blessed by you all. However I am in need of some more support for these remaining 60ish days. I have been on the minimum budget over the last few months and would really appreciate some more financial gifts. Please pray about it and if you feel like you are able to, please send me some support.  I will be thankful for any amount that you can afford to give me.  Thank you so much for all your prayers and support that you have given me over these past seven months. God bless!

My buddy Frankie got saved! It was absolutely amazing. There were two short-term guys staying at my place getting the Asia experience so they came with me to meet with Frankie on that day. It was really great to see how God has really touched his heart since I first met him not so long ago. When we first met, Frankie was a Buddhist. Not only was he that, but he was very quick to mention this and let me know that he defined himself as such. This quickly changed as he told me he had pain in his mouth. Naturally, after hearing this, I prayed for him. He was touched that a foreigner would do this and a spark of interest was ignited for learning about the Bible.

The next week I met with him and another friend named Michael for a Bible study. It was one of the short-term guys and me that went to meet them. For the next few hours (I lost track) we went over the last 5 or 6 chapters of John. Every word. Five verses at a time. We stopped and thoroughly explained everything. They shot questions at us like crazy. We somehow got through the whole thing and made the bus to go home. A few days later we had a Christmas party for our friends, Frankie came and we had a great time. I wasn’t able to personally sit down with him and talk but it was a real blessing to be part of his first Christmas.

The next time we met was the day before New Years. Two visiting short-term workers were there. We started off going over another chapter in John but it quickly turned into us explaining to him what faith is and a few other key aspects of being a christian. For another 2 hours or so we talked and then there was only one thing left to do…

 We prayed in English and in his language. Frankie joined the family. It was an amazing experience. I am so blessed to have been there to see it. A little more than a week later Frankie got baptized! I was honored to be the one to pray over him then baptize him. He shows so much love in his heart it amazes me. The Lord gave me some words about him starting a Bible study next semester and he was very excited about it. I can’t wait to see how he does it!

Alone.
So what happened was this; Some of the higher ups knew I needed to renew my visa but:

1. They knew of a cheaper way
2. They didn’t want me to take out a whole day of me being me in C-town
3. They knew I would want to spend the night in G-Town.

So that’s what they decided to do…But they weren’t able to do the cheaper thing so I had to go…one day after I was told. I mean seriously, my plane left about 23 hours later. I was told how to find the bus, what to do at immigration and customs, how to find the bus again, and that I would have to ask a stranger how to find the bus office.

Get on a plane, check. Get bus tickets and find the bus, check. Get through immigration and customs, check. Realize that the bus you took is not the bus you were told to take!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!??? Check.  Pray and get to the right place anyway, check. Find out that the wrong bus took you closer to the bus office back to the airport you need to go to, check. Eat at Burger King, check, check, and check. I am proud to say I have passed through the threshold into manhood!

Fun facts about my trip:

• A friend of mine from CT that’s in another city was also doing the same trip
• I waited outside the airport in C-Town for about 45 minutes waiting for the workers to unlock the doors. It was negative 12 billion degrees outside…Celsius!
• I left my place at 3:45am. The power went out while I was getting ready in the bathroom and a light bulb broke so I had to clean that up using only the light from my phone.
•  One guy at customs didn’t believe it was my passport…beards can change a man.
• Burger King was AMAZING!!!!!!!

We have a Christmas party coming up, please pray for that. We have some awesome things planned and our friends should be blessed like crazy. Oh, yeah and guess whose dressin’ up as Ol Saint Nick, THIS GUY!

With Love,

Sheldon

Now it’s that time of year between Thanksgiving and Christmas and we are trying to just enjoy ourselves and spend time with friends, which is much harder than I thought it would be because they all have finals or post-grad exams. Sometimes I forget how stupid I am compared to my engineer, computer wiz, etc friends. Even through all that though, my friend Silas has been Saved. It’s amazing to see how God has transformed him. His heart goes out to those who live troubled lives and have not heard the Gospel. It’s so awesome to see how God changes him every week.

I have another friend who, for the most part, has been meeting with me alone and not Columbo or Acorn. His name is Henry, he is studying to go to America and his English is about as good as mine. I have taught him quite a bit about the Gospel but the things that have really drawn him to God are seeing the way I carry myself (he says he has never met anyone with so much peace in their heart), my testimony, and prayer. Everytime I see him he tells me how he feels closer and closer with God and more and more comfortable talking to Him. It’s really great to see him being drawn into God’s loving arms. I wouldn’t be surprised if by the end of the month both Silas and Henry were baptized.

 I have some Prayer requests that I would like you all to bring to God for me;

1. I have dedicated myself to learning the language the best I would like to be able to learn to read without much trouble (it’s very hard)
2. My friends. I would like for them to experience God on their own.
3. I would like to see a house party built up on the campus.

Thank you all and know that you are in my prayers. God Bless!

What I really wanted to write about today are the events of the past two or three days. Ever since probably the second week here Columbo and me have been spending a lot of time with our friend Storm and we have only recently seen that time spent with him show. He now enjoys to Pray, his favorite term being Heavenly Father. While to of our other friends; Jackey and Jude (both dudes), have said that they would be interested in having a bible study. How were we to know that Jackey’s dad has been a Christian for 10 years and Jude is looking for truth but has not had a chance to search. Columbo and me have spent so much time planning and strategizing with Acorn but in the end The Lord is in control and brings those to us whose hearts are ready. It is absolutely amazing how some of these meetings happen too. When we met with Jackey and talked about the bible study Columbo wasn’t feeling good and we were just sitting down at the English corner (Columbo didn’t feel well and I was tired and just reading) and the first time we met with Storm was an accident, I meant to text someone else and instead had a brain fart and texted Storm, thank God for that mistake (Seriously, thank him. He caused the brain fart).

But y’all would much rather hear about the funny stuff so here’s my Sunday night: Columbo and I had dinner with some friends after church. It was very good. So afterwards it was late and we were tired so we decided to take a taxi home. Enter taxi driver number 1. He refused to take us. About 45 minutes went by. Enter taxi driver number 2. He agreed after we told him where we wanted to go (I’m about 75% sure we said it correctly) and we were in the cab for about 20 minutes when he pulls over points to the dash where the amount we owe him is and points down the street. Confused, I pull out the amount. He shakes his head and points down the street. He then pulls me out of the car (physically) and I go to the trunk point to it (we had stuff in there) and he shakes his head and points down the street yet again. I, very, very, very confused, finally look at my surroundings and see… (Drum roll please) a gas station filled with cabs. I finally understand that he wants us to wait where the cabs roll out of the station for him so he can get gas. Proud of myself I walk down the street completely forgetting about a very, very, very, very, VERY confused Columbo. He then goes through the same thing I did until he gets it and catches up with me. Afterwards we got home safely, praise Jesus! Afterwards we went on campus and had an intense prayer walk, it was AMAZING!

Now that I got that out of the way I can report on the friend front. I played basketball several times this week with different groups of people (one time it was with a bunch of Buddhists). I met some cool people got a few numbers ( one guy was my height and had pretty descent English) and set up some meetings (one to play basketball with the tall guy I talked about and one to play badminton with four guys Columbo and me met at a milk tea place). On Thursday Columbo and I met several different people at several different points in the day (playing basketball, just walking up to people randomly) and it turns out one of them is roommates with one of Acorn’s friends, what a small world. We then saw three other people we played basketball with and set up another game with them. This made me very happy. I feel very encouraged about how things are progressing.

The first two days of this adventure was absolutely insane. The leaders “sent us out like lambs among wolves” by making us do a scavenger hunt throughout the city.  No, they did not give us a map or teach us any Chinese in order to talk to the taxi drivers.

I, along with Columbo, got ripped off and lost out of our minds.  Even with all that I couldn’t truthfully tell you that I didn’t love every second of it and that was just the beginning!  After those two days of scavenger hunt madness the real fun began. Prayer walks, getting to know my campus, fried noodles, and a cathedral-like apartment sum up the day or two as I adjusted to my new life. Columbo and my fearless leader, Acorn showed us how to start conversations and make friends like a veteran. One dude we met named Andy somehow got us to dance while he videotaped. Columbo did the robot and I taught Acorn how to do the foxtrot. It was pretty insane. He then asked us to sing…so we did, we sang my favorite worship song “Mighty to Save”.

A day later we met two really cool guys, Leo and Hyde at a pool hall. They loved to play basketball so you know Sheldon had to see for himself how they played.  A few days later we played and they were pretty good, especially Leo.  Columbo and I then had our first friend dinner with them and we had a great time!  It took probably about two hours or so and we talked about everything from society to music to God and of course our favorite movies and TV shows.  We ended it all by taking some pictures and said goodbye as they have to head to their colleges (one on the other side of town and the other in a different province).