Cross Cultural Discipling MissionBenjamin & Karen Rees

June 2013

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Our Odyssey is UnderwayCalling our trip an “Odyssey” may seem a little pretentious, considering that our whole trip will last just over three months, but it sounds a lot more interesting than just saying “trip” or “journey.” Although our trip won't last as long as that of Odysseus, we will cover a lot more distance than he did and will see a wide variety of scenery and situations.

The Trip So FarWe arrived in the U.S. on June 4. Our final month before leaving was exceptionally hectic. Janeece England, who is looking after things for us while we are away, arrived on May 29. The next few days were divided between last-minute preparation for departure and orienting her – showing her around, telling her how to handle different things, giving her background about the church and what we expect her to do and not to do in the church work, etc.

On June 4 we flew from Hong Kong to Springfield, MO, via Chicago. Our daughter Megan met us at the Springfield airport, bringing her baby, Hadessah, with her, and I got to hold my grand-daughter for the first time. (Karen was here for the birth last December.) For most of the first month we stayed with Megan and her husband Matt Robertson at their house in Joplin, MO.

We really enjoyed staying there and getting acquainted with Hadessah. It has been a thrill to watch her development. Near the end of June we accompanied Megan when she took Hadessah to her six-month check-up at the cardio-logist. We were all disappointed that the hole in her heart is not closing on its own, but glad that everything is develop-ing as expected and there is nothing new to worry about.

Since arriving, I have seen all of my siblings. Karen has seen her parents and one of her brothers and his wife. We have visited four of our supporting churches in the area. We celebrated Fathers' Day with our kids, and have moved the remainder of our things out of Karen's parents' house in Arkansas as they prepare to move to a “seniors” facility in town. A lot of my “free” time has been spent trying to fill in the remaining details of our itinerary.

* Thank God for safe travel and for the good time we are having so far with family, supporters and friends.

* Pray that we will be able to get the final details of our

itinerary worked out soon.

* Continue to pray for healing for Hadessah's heart condition.

Itinerary For those who want to keep track of where we will be and what we will be doing, here is our itinerary as we have it so far (including dates already past). Most of the dates given are for Sundays when we have specific appointments. In the weeks between, we will either be in the general area of the weekend appointments or travelling between them.

Sunday, June 9 – (morning) Attended College Heights Christian Church along with Megan and family; (late afternoon and evening) missions presentation and fellowship at First Christian Church, Lamar, MO.

Sunday, June 16 (Fathers' Day) – Attended Fir Road Christian Church in Carl Junction with our son Matthew.

Wednesday, June 19 – Made a mission presentation at the midweek service of the First Christian Church, Gentry, AR.

Sunday, June 23 – Preached for three morning services at First Christian Church, Carthage, MO.

Sunday, June 30 – Spoke at the New Hope Christian Church in Cherryvale, KS.

Roughly July 4-16 – Canada (Toronto and Montreal) to visit former HK church members.

Roughly July 18-21 – Visit friends in NW Indiana, including one former individual supporter and a former high school classmate of mine in Hong Kong.

July 21-27 – Lake James School of Missions, Lake James Christian Assembly, Angola, IN. (I will speak on Friday evening.)

Sunday, July 28 – Eden Church of Christ, near Utica, OH.

Sunday, August 4 – Burlington Christian Church, Burlington, IN.

Sunday, August 11 – Northside Christian Church, Oklahoma City, OK.

Sunday, August 18 – Open. We will probably be in SW Missouri or nearby.

August 22 to around September 5 – In Oregon to visit two supporting churches, plus numerous friends and relatives. This includes …

Sunday, August 25 – Wi-Ne-Ma Christian Church, on the coast, near Cloverdale, Oregon.

Sunday, September 1 – (tentative – not yet confirmed) Jasper Christian Church, near Springfield, OR.

Around September 5 until the 11th – with my cousins David & Dian Ruder in Sunnyvale, CA.

September 10/11 – return to Hong Kong.

NOTE: If you are among the people we have written to or that have written to us about arranging a visit, and nothing definite has been arranged yet, please contact us ASAP. We would like to finalise the itinerary soon.

Complications along the WayAll my life, my habit has been to renew my passport just before it expires. I had been vaguely aware that many countries now require that passports have at least 6 months' validity left for overseas travel, but had not paid much attention since it has never affected us – until this time!

Just the day before we left, we realised that our passports will expire in November, only five months after our departure from Hong Kong.

The airline would not allow us to do online check-in; we

had to check-in at the airport on the day. But they did let us fly and the U.S. did allow us into the country since we are U.S. citizens.

Since we are HK Permanent Residents, we can enter HK with just our Hong Kong Identity Cards, but we are not sure if the airline will let us fly, or if the U.S. will let us leave the country, if we only have two months' validity on our passports when we leave in September.

Meanwhile, we will make a trip to Canada in early July. Canada does not impose the six-month rule on U.S. citizens, but does require proof of identity and citizenship. After this first few weeks, we will also be on the road a lot, with no fixed address for receiving new passports.

We considered various options, but eventually decided we had little choice but to renew our passports early and pay for expedited processing to get them back before we leave for Canada. This cost quite a bit more, we lost several months of validity from our old passports, and we were not able to leave for Canada as soon as we had first hoped, but at least we should avoid problems at the borders or with the airlines.

In another complication, my driving license expired in May. We have usually been able to renew it from Hong Kong, but we used to receive a renewal notice that we had to send back with the renewal application. By the time we realised we were not going to get that this time (we still don't know why), it was too late to do anything about it before it expired. So one of the things we had to do the day after we arrived was to apply for renewal, and then we had to wait a couple of weeks before we received the new card.

* Thank God that we were able to find solutions for these problems. Thank God that the new passports and the new driving license all arrived in time for the Canada trip.

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MEANWHILE, BACK IN HONG KONG

News from Home – Good and BadJaneece England, who is filling in for us in the church and house-sitting our apartment has been keeping us informed about what is going on in these spheres since we left. The news from the church is fairly good, praise God! The news about our apartment is not so good

The worst news is that our air conditioner has quit working and needs to be replaced. It is a large window air condi-tioner, so will cost quite a bit to replace. Decisions that need to be made are numerous, Janeece has no experience buying such things in Hong Kong, and there are communi-cation problems both because we are not there in person and because the English of the sales people and service people tends to be limited. We wish we could wait and deal with this after we get back, but Hong Kong's summer heat and humidity mean that this would not be fair to Janeece. So we are trying to get what information we can to make the best choice possible under the circumstances.

Soon after we left, she had to cope with workmen needing access to the pipe duct in our apartment because of leaking pipes in an apartment above ours. Recently she has been experiencing intermittent electricity outages. It's probably nothing to worry about, but since she has not been able to find out the reason, we can't tell her what to do about it.

* Thank God that most of the news about the church has been good. Pray that this continues.

* Pray about the need to get a new air conditioner. Pray that we can get the information we need to make a good choice that we will be satisfied with not only now but in years to come, and pray for Janeece as she will have the practical problems of ordering it and getting it installed.

* Pray that there will not be too many other problems with our apartment while we are away, that Janeece will have the wisdom and understanding she needs to cope with them and that we will be able to be at peace over them.

Recent Events in the ChurchThey say “one picture is worth a thousand words.” To save space, since this is already fairly long, here are some pictures of recent church activities, both before and after we left for the U.S.

Chinese New Year barbecue in February

Early this year we said good-bye to one of the founding members of the congregation, Rebecca Banawa, as she finally went home to the

Philippines for good after over 30 years in Hong Kong

Easter "Sonrise" service on a hill overlooking Hong Kong harbor

Prayer walk in the fog on the Ching Ming holiday, April 4

On June 12, Hong Kong's Dragon Boat Festival holiday coincided with Philippine Independence Day. The church held an outdoor

fellowship, and one of the older members, Ely Capaz, spoke on the topic of Freedom in Christ.

Most of the group in the church on Fathers' Day, June 16

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OTHER NEWS AND PRAYER NEEDS

My Wife, the AuthorIt took a little longer than we expected to get Karen's novel, The Ruby Ring, ready for publication, but it is finally out. Copies can be ordered from the publisher at their website – http://www.crosslinkpublishing.com/product_detail.php?product_id=126 – or from Amazon or Barnes & Noble. (Be sure to look for Karen's name as well as the title, because there are other books by the same title.) People in or near Joplin, MO, can also buy copies from the Ozark Christian College bookstore or from the little book shop at the College Heights Christian Church (as soon as the books arrive, in both cases). E-book versions (e.g. Kindle and Nook) should be available within a couple of weeks.

(In case anyone missed what I have said earlier, The Ruby Ring is a historical novel based on the life of William Tyndale, who published one of the first translations of the

Bible into English. This is the first part of a trilogy, so we hope it sells well enough to warrant publishing the other two.

Meanwhile, Karen also had articles published in both the May and June issues of Christian Standard.

* Thank God that the book is being published. It means a lot to Karen. Pray that it will sell well.

Health MattersWe had hoped to get full medical check-ups before we came to the States. This got crowded out by other things, but we don't know of any causes for concern apart from the things we have mentioned in past letters, which are all under control.

Follow-up examinations of the spot where I had the lesion removed last year have all been clear. Doctors never did find an explanation for Karen's weight loss, but they tested for all the likely possibilities, and found nothing to worry about. Meanwhile, her weight seems stable again.

Karen continues to take bone-strengthening medicine for her osteopenia, and I continue to take pills for my enlarged prostate and to keep my blood pressure down. Surprisingly, considering all the stress we have been under, my blood pressure has stayed mainly in the “good” range as long as I take my medication.

* Thank God that we are generally in good health, as far as we know.

* I have had some toothaches recently. Please pray that they don't get too bad while we are travelling.

Miscellaneous Prayer Needs * The Sri Lankan refugee couple we have been helping, Raja & Chitra, had a hearing with the U.N. High Com-mission for Refugees on June 26. We haven't yet heard the outcome. Pray that they will be granted refugees status so they can be resettled in some other country. Life is really hard for them in Hong Kong, and they are not permitted to work there, but they would be in danger back in Sri Lanka. Pray that they can go to to a place with a good church.

* Pray for the Canadian work visa for another of our HK church members to arrive. It is taking much longer than anyone expected.

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Benjamin & Karen Rees, CROSS CULTURAL DISCIPLING MISSION Address: 85 Broadway, Flat B, 5/F, Mei Foo Sun Chuen, Kowloon, Hong Kong.

HK Tel: (011) (852) 2742-6484. (Fax by arrangement at the same number. Call first.) Temporary mobile phone for while we are in the U.S.: 1-417-396-4913.

E-mail: reeshk@netvigator.com or reesmission@GMail.com. Website: www.hongkongmission.org Forwarding Agent: Penny Graves, 3300 E. 13th, Joplin, MO. 64801-5825, U.S.A. Tel. (417) 659-8105.