Lights Out!

Good Morning from Beautiful Beijing! It really is amazing how nice the weather and how clear the skies have been the past few days. We have been spoiled and will be more than happy to keep the trend going.

Last night we hosted our first seekers' study for those interested in learning more about Christianity and improving their conversational English. We had eight guests join Susan, Katherine, Nash, and myself. Only one of our guests was a Christian. His name is LoiYi and he is from the local church. He came to help us with any translation needs and to witness as a Chinese national who has come to faith... it is one thing for a Westerner to share his or her faith, but an entirely different thing altogether for a native to do so. We are so thankful for his willingness to help us in this way! Last night our guests asked questions like, "Why would anyone want to kill Jesus, especially some of those who had followed him previous to his crucifixion?" and "What is the basis for God's standard of good and bad?". Each week we are going to have open dialog about these and many other questions with the goal of pointing them to the truth of Scripture so they can discern for themselves the implications for their lives.

Also, two more sisters have been added to the family of God as they were baptized on Sunday at Gary and Danita's apartment. It was an awesome time of celebration of new life!

On another note, we ran out of electricity last night. Yes, we ran out. You prepurchase units of electricity here at a bank and insert an electricity card into your meter to reload. Well, I had two thoughts yesterday to check the meter to see if we were running low and ignored both of them. So last night about 2 a.m. our electricity ran out. There is a 24-hour location at which to purchase more, but I didn't know the location. This morning Gary went with me and we are now back up and running. We'll definitely watch it more closely in the future.

Thanks so much for all of your prayers. We love you.

in Him,
John, Susan, and Nash