13 Feb Macau Update from David and Melissa Kline

David and Melissa Kline are UB missionaries in Macau. Melissa sent this report dated January 17.
December always mean time with people and time in the kitchen, anywhere in the world I think. And Macau is no exception to that rule. David invited his ELP class over for dinner and I invited my class over for breakfast. Both events were filled with fun and good chances for relationship building. Time in the kitchen was spent baking Christmas cookies, peanut brittle, and Chex Mix. We put together around 30 Christmas snack bags and delivered them to our neighbors and ELP students as a way to spread the Christmas spirit. Later that week, we met one neighbor in the hall and she started to have a conversation with us for the first time! We pray that God will continue to open opportunities for us to share God’s love with those around us.

A week before Christmas my parents came to visit. It was wonderful sharing Christmas with them in Macau! We all traveled to Beijing and froze! We walked on the Great Wall, the Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square, and the Temple of Heaven. David and I would love to go back just to spend a few days hiking along the wall.
On Christmas Eve, all of the churches come together in Macau for a big outreach at Saint Paul Ruins (a big tourist attraction). It was awesome to see a few thousand people watching and participating in this Christmas Eve event!
After my parents left, we flew to Xiamen and then rode a bus to Quanzhou to visit some of last year’s Pui Va students. We had a great time visiting all of them and hopefully we were able to communicate how much we care about all of them. Most of the time we hung out with 14-16 of our kids and we probably saw around 30 of them total
Every where we walked in town people stared at us. A six-foot white male and a red-headed girl stick out in China. Our students were getting a little uncomfortable with all the stares and kept asking us, “Why is everyone looking at you?” All we could do was smile and shrug our shoulders.
We will be moving this April (or before) to another apartment. The landlord that owns this one signed a two-year agreement which comes due in April. We begged him to let us stay, but he has sold the place where he was living, so he now needs a place to go. We have really made this place home, so pray as we up-root and head for the next home. He did tell us of a rental apartment in the same building which has the same floor plan as our current apartment and, as of now, is in our price range.
Living Stone Church (at the ELP center on Taipa) will soon open its doors for the first time. We are excited, but pray mostly for Carlson Becker, who is the head pastor, and Michael Chan, who is our Chinese ministry co-worker. I am most excited not for the start but for the ability to have a “next step” for our students.