Arrived safely in Hong Kong.

I’m in Hong Kong now! I nearly didn’t make it to Myanmar (Burma) because my flight to Singapore some got cancelled, but I managed to buy another ticket with a different airline and make my connection in Singapore to get the flight to Myanmar. My adventures there are for another time, but I arrived in Hong Kong safely on Saturday 21st November. In Hong Kong my ID worked like a dream. It's certainly not out of date. I went through the automatic gate by putting the card into the machine much as you would a bank ATM or an entrance gate to a train. The gate opened and seconds and then all that was needed was a thumbprint and I was into Hong Kong. Oh that all things could be that easy!

Yesterday I went to St.Andrews in Nathan Road, my old church.

I saw the sign saying the service was at 11:00 am. It was about 10:00 am. So I thought I just have time to pop into McDonald’s (which is next door to the church) for breakfast.  I was just approaching McDonald’s when I heard a voice call out “Jimmy”. It was Stephen! He said the service time had changed for this Sunday as they had special service at 10:00 am. It was God’s perfect timing that he saw me! So we had a wonderful service with lots of information about St.Andrews plans for redevelopment. It seems that all the churches I know are having building programmes! After the service was a church barbecue, and then I spent the day with Stephen and his family. We had really good fellowship and shared about many things. Another day in Hong Kong tomorrow, so more news then. I’m typing this in McDonald’s over breakfast. I may have missed my breakfast yesterday, but I got it today and free WiFi connection to the Internet that I have missed so much in other places.

Here’s the latest. The free  WiFi connection at McDonald’s has some conditions, they want to know your e-mail address and your mobile phone no. Of course I don’t have a mobile phone here in Hong Kong so it won’t work for me. So here’s a tip - get your mobile phone unlocked before the trip and you can get a SIM card for about £10- at the Hong Kong Airport. So if you are travelling meeting friends it could be quite useful. And you could use McDonald’s 20 minutes of free WiFi per day as well!

Right now I am at the YWAM Base at Shui Tau Tsuen, Kam Tin in the New Territories of Hong Kong. They have an Internet connection they are letting me use. I have a nice chat with Nancy, and Joe is here. Nancy has invited me to dinner so I will meet Joe then.

Picture of Nancy Vallese  &  Joe Rystrom (Base Leaders) 

 &  Me by the 50th Anniversary YWAM Banner

It was quite a challenge to find their place after a few years, but I did and I found the old tree that they have here.  It's worth coming all the way out here just to see it.

Nancy has been telling me all about their YWAM Base  here. They have 41 staff here, and quite a few different nationalities, so they have grown quite a bit since I was here. They run 3 different Discipleship Training Schools, one focused on “Compassion”, one on China, and one on Performing Arts. They also run FEET, Far East Evangelism Teams, and quite a few other ministries as well.

Nancy, like many  was intrigued by my Obama book project. Pray she and none of you well be disappointed by the result.