What an eventful few weeks it has been for our family. We flew out of Hong Kong at 12:55 am on Christmas morning. By 5:00 am we were in Korea on Christmas morning. Then we landed in Atlanta at 9:30 am Christmas morning. Ha, it was the longest Christmas we’ve ever experienced. We knew that flying back to the US for our daughter’s wedding would be adventurous, but we didn’t expect it to be quite THIS adventurous. #1 On the way from Hong Kong to the US we found out that Hong Kong had changed their mandatory quarantine time from 2 weeks to 3 weeks. Ugh! I’m sure the hotel business is quite thankful for the additional income, but I don’t think there is anybody else excited about additional time locked up in a hotel. #2 Two days before we were supposed to leave for Hong Kong, I tested positive for Covid. Thankfully we were able to change our flight without any trouble and we were able to get a full refund for our 3-week quarantine stay at the hotel in HK. We are thanking the Lord that I tested positive here in the US instead of once we landed in Hong Kong. If any of us would have tested positive in Hong Kong, we would have been removed from the rest of the family and sent to a separate hospital quarantine ward for a couple of weeks. It isn’t fun to have our return delayed, but we are grateful to deal with covid here instead of back in Hong Kong. You can pray as we seek to rebook our 3-week hotel stay in HK. The cost is quite steep for 2 hotel rooms for 21 days (around $6000), but it is all part of the process. Covid has changed a lot of things for a lot of people. Thankfully, we can all rest in the care of God’s sovereign working in our lives.
Wedding Bells
On January 9, 2021 (around 3:50 pm), I had the privilege of introducing Mr. and Mrs. Zachary Kirchner for the first time. I was honored to walk Sarah down the aisle and then perform the wedding. The ceremony was held at Faith Baptist Church in Easley, SC. Pastor Fuller and the church family did an amazing amount of work to make this day as special as it could be. There are some pictures below and I’ve also included the link to the wedding ceremony live stream. After their honeymoon, Zach and Sarah will be moving to Kentucky to start serving on the pastoral staff at Bluegrass Baptist Church, Lexington, KY. We praise the Lord for God’s leading in their lives.
Island Baptist Church
Churches are still not able to meet in Hong Kong so Pastor Johnson has continued to post sermons on youtube each week for Sunday and host zoom prayer meetings on Wednesday nights. We’ve also been able to continue our Friday night youth zoom bible studies.
The new location has been renovated and is pretty much ready to go as soon as we get the all clear from the government to be able to meet again. We are really looking forward to being able to be back together as soon as possible.