周庄 ZhouZhuang Day Trip

Today we went with a few friends from cell group/Expo outreach to Zhou Zhuang - a water town about 1.5 hours from Shanghai.



the town - traditional buildings and canals




a door with a message in Chinese encouraging people to believe in Jesus



the entrance to a park



Mirijam and Nica had fun shopping . . .



even in Zhou Zhuang it's impossible to escape the ever present Hai Bao (the World Expo mascot)


us!



we took a boat ride . . .



Nica and Ivy



the canals are useful for so many things . . . boating . . .



fishing . . . .



washing dishes . . . .



People at work - making combs from horns . . .



carving wooden buckets . . .



I tried some delicious local snacks - this is pumpkin flavored glutinous rice with a red bean filling




our group at the end of the day, getting ready to board the bus!

joe

A busy week in Shanghai

Hengshan Church where we attend



You probably can't see in this photo, but Sept 5th Nica lead worship at our church for the first time (and she did an excellent job)


Shanghai House of Prayer Seminar



On Thursday and Friday evenings we attended a seminar by Dr. Paul Hawkins from YWAM on Intercessory Prayer and Spiritual Warfare. The part that stood out to us the most was the importance of hearing God's voice.


Lunch at Anadola, our favorite Turkish restaurant



enjoying our lamb doners (a kind wrap)



Lord willing we'll be starting a new Alpha group this Thursday, so we are looking forward to what God wants to do with that. The sad news is Nica is leaving on me on Sunday for Canada and Jonathan and Annette's wedding.

That's all for this week!

joe

Out on the town on Saturday night . . .

On Saturday evening we ventured out for date night with our new vehicle - Nica's new bike! (Thanks Carol!!!)





The weather was relatively mild, so we had dinner out on the deck of Element Fresh. We enjoyed their humus and laffa bread salad.





Nica loves the humus at Element Fresh!




joe

Typhoon Kompasu

Wednesday morning the sun was shining and the weather appeared to be fine. When I arrived at school, I found out that Typhoon Kompasu was scheduled to hit Shanghai on so the government closed all the schools. However, we (the teachers) still had to go school. It only rained for an hour as the typhoon ended up staying out over the sea (as you can see in the map below).



The cool thing was Nica came over and had lunch with me at school then we went and worked from Starbucks together, so that was nice change of pace.