I am trying out something new, posting a video on youtube. Check it out.
Karl
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_PxrHf-X3k

or

Yesterday we went to the Karma cafe in old town for coffee. Our waiter was a young guy who was very friendly. I told him we just wanted some thing to drink and ordered espresso for myself. I asked if he could make Ida some ginger tea as it was not on the menu. "We have ginger cake" he said and "I thought that is a strange kind of cake". I told him we just wanted ginger tea and he said just tell him how to make it. So, I told him to slice some ginger into hot water and add lemon and honey. I kept repeating the word ginger (sheng jiang) as he was saying it with a funny accent and I wanted to make sure that he understood me, it seemed like he did and off he went to make the tea and espresso.
After letting Alianna chase after one of the mangiest looking cats for a while, our drinks finally arrived. Mine was a dark brown looking espresso that I am sure was made with already used coffee grounds. As I was getting over the shock of my bad espresso I looked over at Ida's drink and said "is that banana in your tea" she smiled trying not to laugh while Alianna was busily tried to suck the banana out of the water with a straw. He had brought Ida, hot water with slices of banana and lemon. I guess he had misunderstood after all. Well, Alianna ate the banana pieces and we tried to be good customers who didn't complain about every detail by saying that we enjoyed our drinks. A while later the young man brought out some free slices of banana bread for us, by the way he was beaming I could tell that he made it himself. I asked him and and he said that someone taught him but he didn't listen very well and when he made it the first time it was really bad so his teacher yelled at him and got very angry, so he studied again. Now he is able to make it himself. He is from the Bai minority in an area that is south of here about 4 hours. The Bai accent easily makes for some misunderstandings when speaking Chinese but this was one of the funnier ones we have had in a while. Although the proper Chinese pronunciations are very different for the two words with his accent they are similar. this is probably the farthest away from home that he has been and I am sure that all this western style food is new and very strange to him, even more serving foreigners who speak Chinese.
What a privilege it is for us to be here in this place as well. Our hope is that people like this young man will find the hope that doesn't come with a good job in the city but comes through a relationship with our Heavenly King. The challenge for us and you is how to live in the security of what we know is there, the promises and our call even when the economy is bad, money is tight and the political systems of the world are working against us.

How do you find the strength to trust God when your earthly situation abandons you?
Drop me a line and let me know, either by commenting below or writing me at karls@gati.info

Blessings,
Karl

Life in Shangrila

http://picasaweb.google.com/sappsinchina/LifeInShangrila?authkey=Rcs3rmVsvfQ

Photo links

snapshots from the last year

Alianna growing up

Here links to some of our photos over the last year. Hope you enjoy!

Hi Everyone

We are back in Shangri-La after two weeks in and around Kunming. This meant that we missed all of the action around here, which I think was probably a good thing.

Our time in Kunming was really encouraging. We went to the BCi retreat outside of Kunming. It was really good to network with other people in Yunnan and hear what they are doing and how their projects are progressing. At the moment we need a lot of ideas and help from others who have been down this road before.

After the retreat we went to a training farm that BCI has. It was a blast. We hung out with the agricultural experts (one of them who lives in Aman and often works in Iraq), fed the goats in the goat project and walked up and down the teraces. Alianna really enjoyed the goats. She wanted to be with them as much as she could. I fell in love with them as well. Maybe we will get Alianna a goat instead of a puppy and then we can just eat it when we have to go to overseas ;) That way we don’t have to worry about someone looking after it while we are gone. I just suggested this to Karl, but he doesn’t think it is funny.

Now we are back here and it is very cold still. It was a shock to the system again, because Kunming was nice and warm already. But our trusty stove is helping. We were only back in Shangri-La for a few days before Karl installed a woodstove. He spent many hours designing one and had it made right before we left, but didn’t have time to install it. It was quite a bit of fun to watch him design the stove and make a model out of cardboard. Alianna thought it was a great toy. Eventually he loaded the cardboard model on his bicycle and took it to a stovemaker to weld it for him. Great was his frustration when, in spite of the model and detailed explanation of how to make the stove, it still turned out different than he planned. Flaws aside, the stove works so much better than any local stove, which is basically just a metal box with a hole in the front (without a door) where you stick long logs in. Needless to say it is a smoky, sooty, inefficient business.

Karl has been running around, getting some stuff planted. The man he mainly works with has really been on his heart. He thinks the same, but is still in the beginning of his walk. There is still so much that he doesn’t understand and has questions about. He is also illiterate, which complicates things. The thing is that working with illiterate people forces one to rethink how we present the Truth. It is also important to present it as much more than just “principles” or a set of teachings on different characteristics of G and what we as his people are supposed to do, but rather as the story of Great Love giving all to completely change who we are... and the direction that our personal story was taking . This is where dis’ing is really important. I actually wonder if it isn’t what all of us need – deep and meaningful relationships with people to encourage us to walk in a deep and meaningful relationship with Him, rather than hour after hour of impersonal teaching. As Karl has found this week – by sharing life with others, hauling manure and planting fields, there is more than enough oppertunity to teach and just as much oppertunity to learn.

Alianna is doing well. She is speaking more and more and really understands a lot. Her favorite thing to do right now is make animal sounds. She does a pretty good rooster impression.

I wish that we could say that her skin is looking good, but unfortunately it got much worse after we got back here. She looks better today, but for a while there her back, chest, shoulders and arms were covered in angry hot, red, crusty welts. Life was really uncomfortable for her for a while and it was hard to see her struggle like that. She is so much happier when she isn’t so itchy.

We have been back in China for a while now. Our time in South Africa was busy but very good. We definitely didn’t get to see many of the people we wanted to. On our way to China we went to our conference in Thailand. This is always a good opportunity to network with people and be encouraged. This was also the first conference since the appointment of our new international director, so it was good to be introduced to him and his family.

Well, this is it for now. We will stay in touch and let you know how it is going here.

Much love

Karl, Ida and Alianna