New Direction

Sonrise Service on the Great Wall, Easter 2014

       Some of you have been in recent contact with us while others may not have heard of our recent news. We went to a conference last October and it was there that the Lord placed a desire in my heart (Joe’s) to pursue further education in theology and apologetics - a long time passion of mine. I applied earlier on this year, and we just found out that I have been accepted to attend OXFORD University in the UK this coming Fall! This program is actually rather difficult to get into and is quite incredible: we are informed that they only accept a selected number of people, and the students will be mentored by and work closely with a number of well known Christian authors and speakers such as Ravi Zacharias, Alister McGrath, Os Guinness, and John Lennox. 

Throughout the last year, before the opportunity for Oxford even came up, I felt an increasing sense that God is leading us into a time of spiritual “upgrade.” When I got accepted, we realize that this is an incredible opportunity that could only be given by God. So we are selling everything we own and hoping to move to the UK at the end of August. We have been doing ministry in China for twelve and six years respectively, but now we sense that it’s time to move on to this next stage.  

This brings us to the reason for this letter. You are receiving this letter because we believe that you really care about the Kingdom and have either touched our lives or been touched by our lives/ministry in some way. We would LOVE for you to partner with us as we step out on this faith journey. 

Would you prayerfully consider….

1) Praying for us - We desperately need people to pray for us regularly.  We have heard from many differing sources that the academic load for this course is very substantial.  Please pray for the strength and perseverance to get through this course and to do it WELL.  Pray for health and community while we are in Oxford.  Also please pray that God would move powerfully through us and that we ourselves will get the spiritual “upgrade” that we feel God has called us there for. 

2) Giving Financially - We need you to PRAY for our finances specifically! We trust that God will provide for us as we step out in faith to follow him. Please pray that our eyes will be opened to see all that he has prepared for us! We are praying that Joyce will find work in Oxford to support our time there. Would you consider giving towards our study and living costs while we are in Oxford? If you feel led to support us financially, we have included detail info at the bottom of this email. 

Oxford has given us a deadline (end of June) to show proof of funds  or at least a pledge of funds to cover the fees for the entire year. The total cost is VERY substantial.  Should you feel led to give toward this need, could you please let us know before June 15th  how much you’re prepared to give? We are grateful for any amount of contribution.

3) Connecting Us with Your Contacts in the UK - Neither Joyce or I have ever been to the UK, let alone live there! If you have friends or family members with whom you would be able to connect us, please introduce us! We promise we’ll be good and won’t cause you any embarrassment :)

Once again, we really sense that this is where God is calling us.  This will be a season of upgrade, both spiritually and intellectually, in order to equip us for the next stage in our ministry.  We humbly ask that you would consider supporting us in some way.  Thanks for your time and we look forward to hearing from you soon.

With much love,

Shoeless and Joyce

Click here to give financially via PayPal (credit/debit card).

(If the above link does not work, copy and paste this link onto your browser:

https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=LECXL6KBNVV6Q)

If you would like to give via bank wire transfer, please let us know and we will gladly send you the necessary information.

For more info about the program at Oxford, check out these links:

The School at Oxford: www.wycliffehall.org.uk

The RZIM Program: www.theocca.org

Mid-Year Update

An update from us is long overdue! It's been a roller coaster type of semester for us. Let's start with one of the highlights of our year first:

February – Thailand youth conference

For two years in a row now, we have been invited (as Team Triple J!) to lead the youth part of a M conference in Thailand. It always happens around the Chinese New Year time and we jump up and down for this opportunity with open arms – anything to escape the bitter, long winter here! This year’s destination was Chiang Mai – what a tough life for us!

These annual Thailand conferences are always special because it’s the one time in the year that many of these M kids get to come together for a steroid boost of spiritual nourishment and community connection. Our fellowship is so supportive that they allowed us to take time off our regular schedule to do this. Many of these kids live in remoter places in Asia (i.e. Mongolia, NK0rea, Midwest/Western Chna, Japan, etc) where thriving youth groups are not readily available. These teenagers’ parents have committed their lives and families to kingdom work overseas, so many of these kids have lived in several places and seen quite a bit for their ages. Though young, they are very precious. We head out with an expectation to minister to them, but we are encouraged in return. Plus we get to do crazy stuff we can’t do around here like morning sermons in the pool, cannon ball contests, and late night monopoly deal matches.

March – Joyce’s birthday, Cissy visited

I turned older and wiser again this March. Felt really special and loved by friends and family around the world. PLUS, my little sister visited us for a week! We had way too many good meals to celebrate the occasion.

April – Emerge Pure Youth Campference

We blogged about the Emerge Camference last year, and we did it again this year! The theme this time was on Purity in every aspect of our lives. It was a tough subject to teach on, but that’s exactly why it was so necessary – we rarely tackle the difficult subjects at chu/ch! This year, 6 powerful speakers dug deep and challenged the kids to join us on a journey of purity, to live in such a way that G can readily shine himself through us whenever he wants to. We want to be pure not only in our actions, but even more importantly, in our thought lives. There’s never a better time to start than when we were young, and we were so encouraged to see how the HS transformed many lives that weekend.

May – Joe’s birthday, new gig, and end of school year:

For Joe’s birthday, his best bud for many years was in town and we had an unforgettable get together. Old friends are like old wines – we relish every sip we get!

In our community, there are more than 5,000 school aged kids and most of them are unreached - as busy as we are, our youth group only has about 150 kids. So for the longest time we have been pr/ying about an "in" to schools around our community so that we can have a better platform to reach kids at school. G answered our pr/yer this year in a miraculous way: Joe is now hired as a part time strength/conditioning trainer at Chna's largest international school! The school is about 5 mins drive away from our home, and we get to spend 2 hours at the school every day! Sometimes I tag along as well to make the weight room less intimidating for girls. It's only been 2 months, but this is a great complimentary add-on to our ministry. As another bonus, Joe gets to start and coach what's most likely Chna's first cheer team here at the school! Here's a video of the middle school cheer team's first performance this Spring (Joe is hiding behind the girls on center stage):

June is the end of the work year for us and we always find it a bittersweet month. While vacation is on the horizon, we have to bid many of our dear (but crazy) kids goodbye. Many of them are on their way out to college, and another bunch of them are moving away. Our community is just that kind of community where the whole congregation changes out completely every three years. There are many tears of sadness as we bid them farewell, but we thoroughly rejoice to see how G has transformed their lives. The best part is that we get to witness some of it!  

2 Years already!

On May 15^th, we celebrated our 2^nd anniversary. Words cannot express our gratitude and joy to our Father for such an amazing (read: wild) journey.