therealityofgrace

[therealityofgrace]

A Time to Celebrate!

A Time to Celebrate!

As we launch into 2022, it’s easy to push through the wide open doors of new opportunities and run far and quickly without turning back. I have heard many mention that 2021 was the worst year yet, and they can’t wait to leave it behind BUT I am really excited to share some highlights because my 2021 was the year of MIRACLES!! I welcome 2022 with open arms, but I feel it would be a wasted…

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It’s easy to sit back and allow this season of Covid.19 to lead our lives. It’s easy to look around and see shops closed, curfews announced, restrictions in place and think, “well that’s fine, I will just sit and wait for this to finish…” but what if God is asking for our attention instead? What if this season is the season that God has the most in store for us? What if this season will produce the greatest fruit of our lives?

More often than not, I find myself pondering these questions. It IS easy to sit back and think, “well, if I was suppose to be doing something right now, there wouldn’t be restrictions so ill just wait”. But something has been burning away in my heart when I begin to think this way, and I can feel God whispering in response, “Yeah, but what if this is your appointed time to GO?!”

This year has been a wonderful year of preparing and planning and new growth. I shared with you months ago that my word for the year is “COMMIT”. It’s interesting that in a year that the world has shut down, the word commit is so predominant in my heart. Commit to what? You might ask. Theres nothing to commit to!! The world has stopped! This year God has been teaching me that commitment has very little to do with the outward action and far more to do with my heart. This year has been a year of Gods commitment to me and in turn, His showing me that even when ministries pause, programs stop, and the world is beyond fixing, there is a commitment that begs to remain. This is a season of preparation and commitment at a deeper level than ministries and programs. This is a season of preparation in our hearts and our spiritual growth so that when Covid.19 is complete, we are ready to run.

Amidst the Covid.19 craze we have been booming in ideas, creative working, planning new ministries, growing and improving our programs and reassessing and developing our personal spiritual journeys with God. This is our heart for our work this year; a deep and lasting commitment to God that says, “God, I have no idea how long this will last and what is going to result from this, but I am committed to preparing and growing so that I am ready with whatever you have planned when we are released from Covid.19.”

Enjoy the mid year summary below!! 

A Flourishing Garden!

When we were in our first lock down back in April/May, we begin growing some seedlings in small pots just for fun. We eventually realised we needed to plant them properly so we began resurrecting the small patch of grass next to the house. We have become keen gardeners and are growing a variety of fruits and vegetables!

So far we have Strawberries, Spinach, Eggplant, Korean Melon, Squash, Beans, Chillis, Basil, Tomatoes, and random flowers!! 

Praise God for the exciting and out-of-the-box idea he has given us to enjoy during this season!!

PS The snails are huge!! Some are as big as my hand!! 

Pain + Lack of Patience

Back in June I started to experience a lot of ongoing pain in my neck. I spent some time going to the physiotherapist but couldn’t find relief. Eventually I went to the hospital to seek some insight into the ongoing pain and discomfort and had a MRI. I have 5 bulged discs in my neck at the following vertebrae C3, C4, C5, C6, C7. 

New challenges have risen as I always want to do everything but often I am not wise in caring for my body at the same time. Please pray that God will heal and bring lasting relief to this pain. Pray also that I will be wise; that I will remember to care for my neck well and allow myself to be patient within the healing process. 

An Inspiring Summer

Many of our usual ministries, camps, and programs have been paused for a while as Hong Kong experiences yet another wave of Covid.19. We are still doing as much as possible to continue reaching out to the community but remaining wise and careful. In the meantime we are spending lots of time assessing, planning and getting creative with the ministries we feel God is asking us to continue. It has been a lot of fun planning and creating new ways we can reach out to Hong Kong even whilst in lockdown. We have seen God open many doors in the area of expanding key ministries. We have spent the last few weeks brainstorming how to run kids camps and exploring new ways to run our ministries and we are excited to see where God is leading our team in the near future. 

Our food bank is continuing to grow at a crazy rate. We are receiving more donations and items than we have ever seen come through before. We are receiving tonnes of food weekly and we are excited and in awe of how many new partnerships and doors God is opening. Whilst Covid.19 tries to stunt the work of God by cutting off community and creating fear, God is expanding, working and coordinating incredible things for us. I will have more updates in these areas soon!! 

Please pray for creative ideas for us!! We are excited to expand and bring more of God to Hong Kong but we need Gods creative ideas to continue reaching out and loving this city appropriately during this season! 

Financial Support

During this Covid.19 season, many people have experienced financial loss, and even within our team people have lost financial supporters due to the nature of Covid.19 and its strain on the worlds economics. Whilst I am incredibly thankful not only that everyone who had been supporting me pre Covid is still supporting me, but I have seen an increase in peoples generosity during this time!! I am so thankful for you all!! It is rare that a missionaries support wouldn’t decrease during a season like this and I feel like the lucky one through your acts of generosity. Your generosity is moving mountains in the spiritual world, as the enemy wants to keep people separated and thinking of themselves during this time, I am so thankful for all of you who are committed to supporting me and going against the urge to keep ‘just in case’ but you give regardless.

If you are not a financial supporter yet but would like to partner with me in this area, please let me know! Although my total amount of monthly support has not dropped, I still have need for an increase in monthly support. 

You can support me via one-off bank transfer, ongoing monthly transfer, direct transfer to YWAM Hong Kong or through Community Church Warragul or Drouin Baptist Church. For further details of any of these options, please email me at the.reality.of.grace.relle@gmail.com

For bank transfers please use:

Account Name: Larelle G Smith 

Account number:  100102769

BSB 704230 

I apologise for my terrible lack of consistency in sending updates!! I am working on doing better at this so feel free to keep me accountable!! 

I am grateful for you all and thank God constantly for all your love, support, and prayers. Please send me an email or snail mail anytime!! I would love to hear from you!! 

All my love,

Relle xo

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When God Says Prepare It's easy to sit back and allow this season of Covid.19 to lead our lives. It's easy to look around and see shops closed, curfews announced, restrictions in place and think, "well that's fine, I will just sit and wait for this to finish..." but what if God is asking for our attention instead?

[therealityofgrace]

Lei Ho!

As I sit down to write this update the only thing I can think of is that I am so thankful for you all! For your prayers, your support, your commitment to staying in touch and above all, your commitment to God. Thank you for being so incredibly encouraging to me. I am so lucky to have you all and I thank God every time I think of you!!

A year has come and gone and I am still terrible at keeping up with updates!! Just to briefly catch you up on some of my top highlights of 2019 (since I was terrible at keeping up with updates last year);

We were challenged (by our wonderful leadership!) at the beginning of 2019 to write the bible out by hand. Several of us took on the challenge and we finished the year in victory!! (Sort of!!) I completed all but 6 books of the New Testament written out using pen and paper! A surprising reward at the end of the year was a gift of a laptop bag, another provision from God, since mine had recently broken! I felt that God was encouraging me that by focusing on what was important by writing out his word, He took care of my material needs!!

Over the 2019 Christmas Outreaches we saw an abundance of people receive Jesus. We know this isn’t a coincidence that we are seeing this whilst HK is experiencing deep hurt, anger and fear. We had an amazing couple of weeks and really felt that God is taking HK deeper as a nation, that as they search for Hope and Truth in this hurting place, they will find Him.

I had a friend from home come to visit me for Christmas and we had a lovely time together. I was able to take some of the days off over Christmas to leave Hk for a quick, low budget, travel time for some R&R. I felt this was truly a gift from God to be able to travel, take photos, rest, sleep, explore and I returned home refreshed and ready for the new year. An extra gift from God: previous to the trip we had spent a lot of time looking at our budget and really pushing to keep the cost low. When we looked over our spendings, we found that we hadn’t even spent half of our budget. God was so good to us!! EXTRA BONUS My friend who come to visit over Christmas has stayed with us to complete a DTS training school with us for 6 months!! She didn’t come expecting to stay but felt God was challenging her to stay and experience a season with Him in Hk so she will stay here with us until June.

During 2019, I transitioned into several new roles including helping coordinate our Food Bank, coordinating all our translators and volunteers, and meeting and connecting with new charities and partnerships. It was overwhelming to start with but it’s been so much fun to be challenged with all these new responsibilities and opportunities.

The challenges were all part of the highlights for this year!!

P.S. Bonus Points if you can guess where we went for a quick R&R!!

Commit

Since I stepped into full time missions, God has challenged me to prayerfully pick a word for the year and to hold fast to it, as a promise that He will bring this word to life. 2017 began with the word CHOSEN and God taught me how valuable I was and a promise to the anointing He would give me in the future. 2018 was the year of VICTORY and God did personal miracles for many of my struggles, health and sleep. During 2018, 90% of my nightmares and sleep disorder problems stopped and I was able to understand and begin walking in the strength God gives us in order to fulfil His purposes. 2019 was the year of REDEEM and I saw God bring so much redemption to relationships, friendship, personal struggles, life foundations and most importantly to the way I love and see myself. Of course, each year the lessons and guidance and miracles that God has done is never complete and I will continue learning about each of these things for many years to come, but I have found that having a word from God for the year helps bring alignment and holds so much hope in the promises He has for me.

2020 is the Year of COMMIT. As soon as I realised what word God wanted me to carry for this year I felt overwhelmed. Commit is a very uncomfortable word. At least with the other years they are comfortable concepts. Chosen was about me being comfortable in God (God does the work). Victory was about God fighting for me (God does the work). Redeem was again about God bringing redemption into all areas of my life (God does the work)… but COMMIT? That requires effort on my part. I knew on New Years Eve that God was calling me into a year of hard work, increased faith strategy and self discipline in my life, and so far, it seems like a very uncomfortable concept!

BUT I guess God isn’t quite done with our word from last year; REDEEM. January has been a month of God flipping that understanding of COMMIT upside down and REDEEMING my understanding of what commitment looks like. God never asks for our commitment without already being eternally committed to US. This is what hadn’t clicked. Already, just in January, as I have prepared my heart for the hard work ahead, I have seen God show His own commitment to me in very real, unexpected and hardcore ways. Gods requirement of commitment to Him starts with His own to us. This was what I was missing; the fundamental understanding of Gods commitment to me. Now I am excited and eager to learn more and have God walk me through this year. God doesn’t require my commitment with the expectation that I will be doing it alone. He was committed to ME first.

Starting 2020

This year has certainly already been eventful! We just entered February but I feel as if I have lived 6 months of the year already. We have found ourselves in the midst of a WHO crisis with the coronavirus and are taking extreme precautions to stay out of any potentially infectious places. Other than trips to the markets (covered from head to toe in face masks, gloves, covering clothes and shoes and a good shower when we get home) we are staying at home.  Hong Kong has completely run out of face masks, gloves, cleaning supplies, bleach and any other items that would be required by the bulk public during a health crisis so we have ordered several months of supplies from our own overseas countries. We have even driven past cues of hundreds of people waiting outside pharmacies and drug stores to purchase what they need to stay protected from this virus!! We, as a missions base, have complete faith that God will continue to place a bubble of protection around us and we are not afraid or concerned for our health. We are being wise in where we go, we are continuing to work out of harms way at home and when cabin fever sets in, we are hiking up in the mountains or down to the empty beaches (its our winter!!) for fresh air.

We have complete faith that God will protect us. This is not the first crisis in HK during this season and although we are tired and have just walked through huge turmoil with the protests, we are confident that God has us all here for very specific and special reason. As someone put it the other day; “You guys must be some special people for God to have placed you here for this season in HK.” That said, please do pray for us. We are a little tired and some of us have been fighting headaches and pain and common colds for a while. The spiritual warfare is also quite persistent so please commit to covering us in these areas when you pray.

In the meantime, we are enjoying watching God move and we believe with complete assurance that God will continue to open doors during this season. We believe that when there is chaos and crisis, God will move. We know HK is experiencing deep crisis and chaos and we are excited to see what God will do in 2020. Please pray with us that we will follow Gods direction and trust Him with the doors He places before us to walk through.

Pray for this Nation!

The protests have slowed down recently and although they aren’t heightened in the media as much anymore, they are still being organised and HK is still participating in them. We have seen a decrease in violence, though, and have seen HK settle down recently, especially since the presence of the coronavirus. Pray for our PM, pray for our country up north, pray for Gods people to rise and become men and women of wisdom and authority for HK. We desperately need leaders who are wise, caring for the people and under Gods guidance. We firmly believe that God set HK apart from the nations around it many years ago and we stand in the promise that God is not yet finished with HK.

(This photo was taken flying into Hong Kong. It is such a beautiful place!!)

Prayer Points for 2020: 

As I continue to transition and take on new roles and responsibilities please pray that my level of work capacity and endurance will strengthen. Although I enjoy the challenge, I do often feel overwhelmed.

As of last week, I will also be transitioning into taking over the Base registrar work so I will need extra wisdom and brain capacity for this!!

Pray for my relationships, both those directly around me and also for all my friends and family back home. I do struggle to keep in touch for these long distance friendships so pray that God will continue to teach me the self discipline and how to be committed regardless of my energy or feelings!!

Pray for further breakthrough for HKs situation and safety in HKs health

Praise Points for 2020

Praise God, He continually enables me to do all the work set before me!

God continues to sustain me and teach me perfectly in the right moments and seasons and I am forever grateful for His grace and the grace of those around me!

Praise God for the miracles He is doing behind the scenes in HK

Praise God, He continues to restore my health and redeem my sleep problems and He is constantly looking our for me. I genuinely feel His care and blessings in my life.

That’ll do for now! Sorry for the long update but I have really missed so much not keeping up with regular blogs!!

All my love, 

Relle xo

Commit Lei Ho! As I sit down to write this update the only thing I can think of is that I am so thankful for you all!

[therealityofgrace]

Another Call

Dear Friends, I’m sure you have seen on the news and the internet the situation we are facing in Hong Kong at the moment, especially the frequency and intensity of the pro-democracy demonstrations.   I am sending this update as both an assurance of my safety and a prayer report.  As a team, we are very cautious to stay well clear of large groups and protests, and there are usually…

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Within our ministries, we run an experience called “The Poverty Simulation”. We facilitate a simulation that brings awareness and opens eyes to the truth of poverty in Hong Kong. Statistically, 1/4 of the HK population experiences poverty. We invite schools, organisations, churches, visiting teams and other YWAM groups come to experience this reality as an advocate for those in these situations.

This year we have had the opportunity to run many of the simulations. This year we have been busy fine tuning, planning, and running them for each team that comes. Each time we run the simulation, it requires hours of meetings, planning, set up, and coordination of roles.

We begin the program with facts and games about poverty. We ask the participants to actively seek answers to statistical question provided and then use these findings to initiate conversation about how this looks in Hong Kong. We often find that this is the beginning of their true understanding of poverty in Hong Kong and our participants begin to see that the poverty problem is far greater than they have been led to believe in the past. 

We then move into the simulation. We have spent many months screening and creating character cards for this use. The created characters cards are based on our friends we regularly provide for in the local area. We have based each character card on an individual and give identity to each character using true to life information (except for names). Each of the participants in the simulation are given a card that gives them a name, age, occupation, liquidity, daily requirements and housing arrangements. We ask the participants to take on these characters and as the simulation plays out, each one of the YWAM staff also play a role. We have a doctor, a job centre worker, a kiosk owner, a cardboard collector manager, landlords, triad members, and police. As the simulation plays out, we aim to give participants an experience that would closely mimic the situation of those who do live in poverty in Hong Kong. For example, if one of the participants is given a character card of a 76 year old cardboard collector, they then spend the simulation collecting cardboard, getting it weighed at the collection centre, getting paid, having to find cheap meal options, sometimes sleeping on the makeshift street and repeating each day all whilst acting to be 76 years in age. If one of the participants is a 40 year old cleaner, they also would have to use their broom or trash bags to walk the makeshift streets cleaning and picking up rubbish again in turn to receive a few dollars at the end of the day and find a meal they can afford and repeating for each of the days, whilst living as if they were 40 years old including rent, doctors bills if needed etc.

We have spilt each day into approx. 15 minutes so the simulation itself lasts about an hour. At the end, we spent some time debriefing and discussing the effects of poverty, things they realised about these situations and then discussing what poverty really looks like in Hong Kong.

Afterwards, we pack bags of food and non perishables with the participants and send them out to the local markets and key impoverished areas to distribute these items. The entire programs is about 4-5 hours and our goal is to firstly bring awareness of poverty, allow them to experience the reality of the poverty in the controlled simulation then have them respond to the needs by sending them out to be practical in the distributing and meeting the needs of the impoverished in Hong Kong. As we continue to have participants partaking in this simulation please pray with us. We need the people of Hong Kong to take an interest in caring and understanding how they can help the impoverished and bring comfort and hope to these situations. Please pray with us for more schools and organisations to have this experience and as a result begin bridging the gap for awareness of poverty in Hong Kong. 

The Poverty Simulation Within our ministries, we run an experience called "The Poverty Simulation". We facilitate a simulation that brings awareness and opens eyes to the truth of poverty in Hong Kong.

[therealityofgrace]

Li Hao!

It’s been a loooooong time since I have sent an update so there are many things to celebrate and share with you all!! My last update was 2 months ago and in the meantime we have been extremely busy with teams, outreaches and camps for our Hong Kong Summer.

Please buckle in! This is a long email full of things that have made these last 2 months busy!! I will spare you the long stories and details but will continue to send stories over the following weeks 🙂

New Food Bank 

In April we waved goodbye to our Holland Friends and began the work for our new unit. God gifted us with a beautifully big new food bank office and we spent the week setting up, organising, setting up more shelves, plumbing, building cupboards, installing air conditioning and making sure we were ready to use the food bank productively.

Since then we have been able to use the food bank consistently to invite teams to come and help us with packing, sorting and distributing food and long life items around Hong Kong. Of course, as always, as soon as we were set up, we began to receive donations in greater and greater quantities and have since expanded our food bank significantly.

Summer Camp 

Most of May was taken up by preparing for our D.R.E.A.M summer camp. We were busy creating English teaching materials, kids worship songs and choreography, planning games, buying materials, creating performance songs, choreographing performance pieces, designing, buying materials, and planning for the campers stage costumes and running training for the Youth Leaders that we invited to join us for camp.

D.R.E.A.M Camp is a camp designed by the Rainbow Foundation of Hong Kong and targets students who are underprivileged. They seek to bring transformation and impact into these students lives by giving them opportunities they would normally never have. D.R.E.A.M stands for Drama, Reading, English, Acting and Music. So, naturally, our camps focus is on teaching them English but we specifically have designed the camp to teach them via grammar classes, singing classes, performing arts, dancing and finally a performance on the last day with dance, singing and script.

(For more information about The Rainbow Foundation go to https://www.rainbowfoundation.org.hk/eng/index.html)

Yesterday was the conclusion of this camp and we were able to watch the students perform for their parents with all they had learnt this week. This year looked a little bit different for me as my role was quite different than previous years. I helped with the making, planning and teaching costumes. I was part of the design teams taking care of the media, photography, scenography for the stage and creating the books for their English grammar and Pronunciation Classes. I also helped lead and mentor the Youth Leaders as they helped with Camp as well as the training day and daily debriefs. This year my highlight of camp was working with the Youth Leaders. We have students from a prestigious Hong Kong Christian School who apply to be Youth Leaders as well as students from an American University exchange program. Our Youth Leaders are generally between the ages of 15 to 19 and are a huge part of the students lives as main point of contact, helpers, translators and encouragers.

This camp was the most enjoyable and challenging camp I have ever been a part of. During the week, the YWAM staff felt God was challenging us to step up into a new level of joy and anticipation for camp and as we individually responded to this camp continued to become better and better. I also felt God wanted to do a work in me during camp and as the days flew by, I found myself in many situations that God was clearly calling me to step up and continue in Joy and Anticipation fro what he had planned.

Although the camp is not advertised as a christian camp we were allowed to share the gospel with the students through conversation and we had several salvations throughout the course of camp!! I was also excited to find that some of the Youth Leaders were also christians. Praise God!!

Bringing the Elderly to the Kids

We tried something new and unusual last month. We found a local kindergarten that wanted to partner with us in having the students provide and learn to give to those who need. We decided to try something new and invited all our long term participants from our Friday night ministry to come to the kindergarten. We arrived early to help the students pack some bags with foods and non perishables to give to the elderly. Then the elderly arrived to spend some time with the little students in their classes. Afterwards the students put on a quick performance and then enjoyed eating cupcakes and giving away the bags they had prepared.

It was my favourite outreach I have been a part of in Hong Kong. I could see the joy in the elderly and the excitement of the kids come together and create a refreshing atmosphere for both the elderly and the kindergarten!! It was an amazing opportunity to bring the loneliness of the elderly and the excitement of the students together and create a joyful and loving experience for them all. The kids loved showing the elderly what they could do – some classes did painting with their guests, some did reading, some did play, some did singing and they all decorated cup cakes together in anticipation of eating them at the end!!

Please pray that we will have opportunity to do something like this again!

Visiting Teams

We recently had a lovely Korean Team visit for a week, as well as a Singaporean team and a quick visit from a Japan YWAM team. We were encouraged to have all these teams with us for a while. It almost tripled our numbers at the office and challenged us in many areas of planning, prep, meals, transport etc but it was an incredibly special and rewarding time. I felt the experienced deepened my excitement for the nations coming together and pointed my back towards the promise of heaven together. Our Korean blessed us greatly with cooking, cleaning, performance outreaches and kids ministry. Our Singaporean team mostly consisted of some boys who had previously been to visit us last year so it was exciting to see our friends again and have them here to help with one of our school camps, outreaches, and behind the scenes help whist the Korean team was here. The Japan Team stopped by to do ministry with us for a day and they helped with food bank, distributions and a dinner celebration!!

  Sorry its been so long since my last update. Please continue to pray for Hong Kong. It is quickly becoming unsafe and challenging for us so please keep us in your daily prayers. I won’t share via updates or emails or messages but please stay alert and aware of what is happening here so you can stand in the gap for HK and pray for us.

“Gods gives blessings so we can bless others.”

All my love,

Relle xo

Summertime Madness Li Hao! It's been a loooooong time since I have sent an update so there are many things to celebrate and share with you all!!

[therealityofgrace]

There is always something special about the small glimpses that God chooses to show us of His work. Sometimes we find ourselves in the midst of it as we look around and stare at Gods glory; desperately trying to catch it and hold it tight and remember it forever.

This last week has been incredibly special. Not only has God been moving and working in new and exciting ways through our visiting team, but He has gently been pointing out His own insights and highlights to me as we go.

God has been teaching me how to see the pockets of heaven and experience them on this earth in anticipation for eternity. I have felt God point out incredible beauty amongst the desperate needs Hong Kong has. God has been teaching me more and more about the anticipation of His movements and standing in faith to see his movements succeed.

Nothing else will ever point us towards heaven like the joy and excitement of multi nationalities celebrating all at once. Time and time again this week I have seen the lack of barriers between my culture and theirs purely because of the united celebration we experience through Jesus. Songs sung together at the same time in many languages; An old ladies hand on mine as she smiles and nods, not understanding my failing cantonese but knowing that what I say is bringing peace; A child’s squeal of joy as we pump hundreds of balloon animals and teach them how to skip rope; The disabled excitedly showing us their kung fu and dance party moves and they eat cookies and mnms. These pockets of Heaven have become what I seek and long for each day. To see with such clarity the unity and love we have together for Christ that spurs us on to reach out to those who do not yet know Him. I want to share just a few photos of these heavenly pockets God has shared.

  Last month when I was home, I shared with many of you the desperate needs for expansion we have for our food ministry. I tried to described the need we have for bigger spaces, more shelvings, a new unit or factory room to store food bank items whilst we sort and store for those in need.

It was a prayer request that has been on our hearts for months and months and we have asked you to pray continually for this expansion. We believed God had great plans for expansion and we asked you to also believe with us.

Well the time has come and we can say with complete certainty that Gods timing has arrived and the keys to our new unit were handed to us this morning!! We trusted for many months and spent many days preparing in faith knowing Gods timing will reveal itself at the right moment. Praise God with us and celebrate the new season we are heading into. Our food bank expansion is underway!! Thank you to everyone who diligently and prayerfully supported us through this faith journey. We truly believe God has some incredible doors waiting to be opened in His timing. This is only the beginning!! 

We will spent the rest of the week fixing, restoring, plumbing, painting, cleaning, sorting, repairing, moving and setting up our new food bank 🙂

  All my Love,

Relle xo

  Heavens Pockets of Perfect Timing There is always something special about the small glimpses that God chooses to show us of His work.

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The Heart Strings of Hong Kong

The Heart Strings of Hong Kong

This week we have seen some incredible transformations in the ministries and events we have been running. We have been hugely blessed to have received a big committed team from Europe. They are the biggest group we have ever hosted and are a range of ages from 19 to 60+ years old. We are excited and wait in anticipation to see where the next 10 days takes us!!

  I want to share some experiences…

[therealityofgrace]

Supporting Clarity

My Dear Friends and Family,

I am so encouraged by everyone who welcomed me back to Australia last month. It was an incredible time of sharing, celebration, and joy.  A huge thank you to you all for the care and effort you made to visit, catch up, listen, and celebrate the amazing ways God is moving in South East Asia.

During my visit, I spent some time seeking your feedback and I realised that my…

[therealityofgrace]

March Memories

March has always been my favourite time of year.Growing up in Australia, the leaves start to glow a crisp orange and red in March. It is the beginning of birthday celebrations in our family, and we begin to plan camping trips for the long weekends and Easter.  Living in Hong Kong the blossoms are bursting and flowers line the roads and sidewalks. It has a different season associated with it but…

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Highlighting Poverty

An old lady shuffles towards us wearing sandals and socks in the cold 6 degree weather.As the line grows longer I notice some are bare legged, some wear several jackets whilst still some are both hunchbacked and tired after working year after year collecting cardboard. They are here for a common purpose – to collect food. Their families rely on our food distribution to sustain them through the…

[therealityofgrace]

Shoutout to the Warriors

Shoutout to the Warriors

Thank you so much to each and every prayer warrior who has commited to pray through this year with me. I cannot tell you the pleasure and the privilege it is to walk (although thousands of miles away) alongside you all.

I know that sometimes prayer seems to be the most inactive and passive thing we can do to support one another. I also know that sometimes it can feel fruitless and void of change.…

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Impoverished + Thankful I met a beautiful elderly lady last week. There is a big difference between her and I.

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Where are the Prayer Warriors?!

Where are the Prayer Warriors?!

Calling all Prayer Warriors!! 

Do you wanna commit to prayer throughout 2019??

I am inviting 28 individuals/families/friends/churches/couples to stand committed in prayer together with me this year.

It will require one day a month for 11 months of the year. This is a grand total of just 11 days you are committing to!! EASY!! 

Well, how do we do it?

You can pick any convenient day each month. Each…

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Provisional Security

It isn’t often that I don’t feel secure in the provisions and grace that surrounds my life. Do I take it for granted? Yes. Do I feel so secure and so completely provided for, though, that I rarely think about the provisions I receive? Yes again.

God has been challenging me to find the provisions and needs that are being met and be actively thankful. It is easy to trust that God can and will and…

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Thanksgiving Update

I sent out a prayer request for the Thailand trip we were embarking on a few weeks ago. Thank you to everyone who has been a faithful and diligent interceder on our behalf. We greatly appreciate it and are honored that you would partner with us in this time. We have seen much fruit as a result of your prayers.

I want to encourage you all that through your prayers we were able to release 4000…

[therealityofgrace]

An old lady smiles at me and beckons me over to where she is sitting whilst waiting to start her food collection. She smiles, grabs my hand and pats it, then pushes a small paper candy into my palm. She lets go of my hand and nods her head, telling me its mine to enjoy. We don’t have any common language, but I tried my best to say “doh je” (thank you) in cantonese correctly.  She waves me away, giving me permission to continue setting up our stalls for the food distribution program we run every Friday night. She is one of the oldest “po po”s (grandmothers) in our feeding program but she is always one of the first to line up. She waits patiently as we unpack the tables and stools from the back of the ministry van and as we wheel carts of drinks, canned foods, snacks, breads, frozen dinner packs and various other goods over to our concreted distribution area.

Sam Shing Ministries

Sam Shing Ministries

Sam Shing Ministries

The Local Housing Estate and Food Distribution Program

I look up at the huge housing complex dwarfing our distribution and listen to see if Ki is home 2 stories above us. Ki is a primary aged Hong Kong student who joined one of our English and Performing Arts Camps last summer and made a commitment to Jesus. She lives with her mother and is part of our food distribution program. Since the camp last year, she comes to help us most weeks to give out food to each of the recipients who come. She loves to talk to the Po Po’s and Gong Gong’s (grandmothers and grandfathers) and explains to them the food we are giving them. She will talk to them about how to cook with the food and what the Cantonese names are for any of the food items listed in English. Ki is kind and welcomes each of the recipients with smiles and joyful greetings as she gives them their food. Ki is an example of the incredible way God works within our summer camps. I often watch amazed at the life and joy God continues to gift Ki with. She is young and still in primary school, and yet she comes to bring any love and joy she can to those around her. Tomorrow we begin our several weeks of summer camps for 2018. We have seen the fruit and the joy that inviting and bringing the children of our relief programs into camps brings and we continue to walk in anticipation and expectation of the plans God has for us this year.

Camp Preparation and Planning

This coming week we are partnering with one of the oldest churches in Hong Kong to run High Five. This will be an English and Performing Arts Camp that ends with an outreach to the elderly. We have approximately 65 kids who we will be teaching a variety of dances, dramas, testimony principles and gospel sharing with them to prepare them for their performance outreach on the last day. Please pray with us as we seek to share more of Jesus with them and as we prepare them and teach them their pieces for outreach.

The week after we have our biggest camp for the year. We partner with the Rainbow Foundation to run D.R.E.A.M Camp. DREAM stands for Drama, Reading, English Writing, Art and Music. The Rainbow Foundation seeks to reach the underprivileged and needy children of Hong Kong whilst teaching them valuable principles for loving themselves and life. This camp will be run at Noahs Ark, a theme park in Hong Kong that seeks to teach the story of God and Noah and bring biblical principles into everyday life. Our partners for this camp are very invested in the lives of those who experience disadvantages and continue to be great advocates for children in need. This camp will involve English lessons, singing, dancing, dramas, script writing, memorising and onsite activities at Noahs Ark with a performance and presentation on the last day. Each child leaves with a certificate of achievement, bringing them more confidence and excitement for their own giftings and abilities.

Day Camps with Noahs Ark and the Rainbow Foundation

Day Camps with Noahs Ark and the Rainbow Foundation

Photos from our previous camps this year. We continue to anticipate and come expectant for God to move in the youth and children of Hong Kong.

You can see more about Rainbow Foundation and Noahs Ark Theme Park here:

https://www.noahsark.com.hk/eng/index.jsp

https://www.rainbowfoundation.org.hk/eng/index.html

Lastly, Step Up is the local English and Performing Arts Camp (this is where we met Ki last year). It is designed to be a tool to invite children from the food distribution programs we run as we partner with a local church. We invite children and grandchildren of the cardboard collectors, grandchildren of the po pos who receive food donations and any of the children from the families who are in need of financial relief within our existing programs. The church partners with us at YWAM to run the camps and we use the church facilities to invite the local children from the poorer housing estates to be part of camp with us, as well as the children from the church. If the children from the local housing estates attend 80% of camp then they receive a refund of camp fees. This is how we met Ki and why Ki now invests her time and love into the elderly of her own housing complex. Since Ki began to help us each week, we see the power of the youth and children helping and investing into their own local areas to bring relief and love to those in need. Ki is taking initiative and bringing joy as she gives to the po pos and gong gongs in her own neighborhood.

Please join us in expectation and anticipation for what God is doing in Hong Kong through the summer camps this year. We are excited and pumped for the great ways God is planning to show up and we can’t wait to get started with camps tomorrow.

Pray for our team; for endurance, strength and joy as we love and enjoy the youth and children of Hong Kong.

Pray for our sleep, our energy and our love for those we are leading, that we will remember why we are here; to bring change to Hong Kong through mercy and love to those in need, and bring transformation to communities through a display of Gods Beauty through Performing Arts.

Pray that we can put all our time and commitment into these next three weeks of camps.

Please also pray for Ki and others like her who are babes in Christ; that she and others will grow in their faith.

  Isaiah 61:1-3

“The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners,

to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn,

 and provide for those who grieve in Zion— to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor.”

At our last “Funtastic Day Camps” imitating Charlie Chaplin to host the final performance.

  All my love,

Relle xo

    Serving Mercy, Summer 2018 An old lady smiles at me and beckons me over to where she is sitting whilst waiting to start her food collection.