Happy New Year

As many of you are just now starting to celebrate the New Year, Mai Kao and i are right now recovering from ours. this new years eve was one of the best we've had.

to celebrate the new year mai kao and i attended the evening service at our church and it was a total blessing for us. here are are few things that i have come away with from this service. bear with me, i dont want to get preachy, but these are a few things that God has really laid on my heart to share with those at home.

1. Psalm 27:7-14. look it up. regardless of our struggles, be vigilant in your prayers. be confident that you will indeed see the goodness of the Lord while you are alive. wait eagerly, expentantly for God to answer your cry for help. 2008 was a year that brought us a lot of heartache... this was a passage that has really helped us to pray about those heartaches.
2. our pastor said something simple that totally blew me away, "the Lord only expects from us what He Himself gives us." So when he tells us in the Songs of Solomon that we ought to desire Him, it is in fact because He desires us. when he demands from us loyalty and devotion, it is because He has always been totally loyal to us and devoted to us! Amen! many times we say God only gives us what we are able to handle, but we never look at it from the other perspective of God only wants from us what He gives us. be confident in the fact that God is on your side. He calls us to be more than conquerors because He has already conquered evil! we can do all things in Christ Jesus our Lord.
3. last night part of the worship was led by the youth group. i was filled with tears as i watched young people jump for joy as they sang songs to glorify God. we work with kids everyday and we love it! being able to shape a young persons life is a great thing. being able to shape a your persons life to love the Lord passionately is an even greater thing. as we watched in amazement seeing these young people's passion and maturity in the Lord, we were reminded of how much we love to see the Youth worship. i love how they worship with reckless abandonment, with innocence. this is easily one of my favorite things in life.

I hope some of these words encourage you this new year. please remember to pray for us.

josh out.

Christmas

Merry Christmas. We hope you are with the people you love. Or at least, with people who love you. Merry Christmas to especially these friends:

Isiah. Vipat. Boi-oh. (Our "if we were at home, they would be our Christmas Day crew")

Minnesota: Mom, Dad, the monkeys, bros and sisters. Laug Jacob and the Yangs.

And Johan &PJ.

Illinoise: The Changs (we miss you and love you), Vangs, Maiku & H, TS&Ah, Xay & TD X.

The girls: Tshab & PF & Nouster. And Pheng.

Stewart Ave. Shout-out: Judy and Jimmy.

The other fam: JonahB, the bros and TDs, and Mommy especially.

With lots of love, Josh and Mai Kao

Uncle Xeng and the Chinese Double take

its christmas eve here and mai kao and i have two things we've been wanting to share with you all.

#1 - at least 40 percent of the chinese male population looks like uncle xeng! every corner we turn we see an Uncle Xeng clone. its too funny. so far the two people from home that have the most twins are, Uncle Xeng and Puj Laug Vern. not trying to bash looks, i think they are both fine looking human beings, but it's pretty funny that if you consider that China is 1/6 of the worlds population than that means that 1/12 or 1/14 of the worlds population are twins of Uncle Xeng and Ligs. i know, it is indeed a huge revelation.

#2 - the chinese double take (mai kao's and Josh's favorite past time). whenever we are in public we speak English, well, because we're American. but whenever we do so, we always get curious Chinese people looking hard at us, totally confused that two totally looking chinese people are speaking English so well. you see the common public perception here in the EAst is that if you are american you are basically white, so when a non whitey speaks english perfectly, they are completely perplexed. after a while the novelty of hearing someone speak english in public wheres off and they start to mind their own business again. HERE is where the double take comes in, sometimes you cant express everything in English so you have to use Hmong, all the sudden mai kao and i will start speaking Hmong and those curious chinese people will stare at us super hard this time trying to figure out what we are... you can only imagine what gears are turning in their brains. total and utter confusion...you see, for chinese people, if you dont fit the public perception their initial reaction is not about trying to figure it out, it is total confusion. so nowadays, when mai kao and i are out we make it a point to speak many languages to vex as many chinese as possible. its really a funny game we play...

josh out.

p.s. Merry Christmas
p.s.s. QUIZ "Keep the change you filthy animal!" what movie is that line from?

Message to Geu

Don't you dare give away Naruto spoilers!!!!

AHHHHHH!!!!

A Mai Kao Post!

Wow, it's been a long time since I've posted. Sorry to everyone else who has to suffer through Josh's posts about his hobbies!

It's already Christmas, and I'm so happy because my students know that Christmas celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ. If there's one thing I'm thankful for, it's that I can freely and openly say that in class, and there is no offense taken or feelings of exclusiveness. Most of the kids actually are interested about learning the story of Jesus' birth, and understand the symbols that they see now!

I always like Christmas because it begins my favorite part of the Christian calender... going from Christmas to Lent to Easter/ the Resurrection.

Last week in church, the whole service was a Christmas play put on by other members of the church... adults, kids, and youth. It wasn't great, but it definitly was inspiring. You guys should go to another church near you (if your church doesn't have one) and watch a Christmas play. It'll remind you again of how great Christmas is. Jesus is real! And even non-Christians celebrate Christmas...! Even if it's for not the true reason, I don't care. There is still hope that someday, they will understand the true meaning of it all.

Have a good weekend, friends!

the groove

i've decided for the best that i wont buy any more MTG singles online and have them shipped here until i get back to the states. i've been reading a lot about new decks and want to play them, but really, what is the point in me having these ultra competative decks here playing by myself? there really is none. if i was home then it'd be totally okay, however, being 10,000 miles away well, its not really that smart. so i've confined myself to just buying packs and trying to get cards the old fashioned way. in the end it will have benefitted me more b/c it will have forced me to play cards that i wouldnt have otherwise played.

we are starting to get in the groove as far as teaching goes. things are starting to get easier and i'm starting to really get the hang of classroom time management. kids are crazy as always, but so am i. sometimes its hard to tell who is crazier in class, me or the kids.

christmas is coming and we are thinking about home. friends, church, family, the works.
can someone send us pictures of all the kids from home via email or some way other than xanga? for some reason we can't get pictures via xanga.

merry christmas,

josh out.

OK...i confess...i'm in love with Prison Break. and my top 10 as well.

there you go. i've gotten it off my chest. now i can talk about it freely. wow, what a relief to finally let it out?! currently, i'm near the end of the 2nd season. its getting pretty good again. nothing beats the first season where they are actually still in prison trying to break out, when everything was just a little simpler and a little complex all at the same time. the badguys in the first season are so much more cooler than the 2nd season. those of you who watch know what i'm talking about.

life has been pretty good for mai kao and i. the other day we woke up and walked around town and realized we really like living in Shanghai. its a great city to live in and a great place to save lots of cash. its like living in downtown Chicago but with the costs of living in Dixon. serious, it can be that inexpensive if you try...which we do a poor job of doing...but it can be done. when all is said and done, i will miss this place and season in mai kao and my life.

mai kao's cooking is off the hook!

these are some upcoming trips that mai kao and i hope to embark on this upcoming year. traveling around asia is pretty cheap if you can get over here.
1. vietnam (for the 3 week vacation in late Jan.)
2. S. Korea/Japan trip
3. Australia/Malaysia? hopefully
4. Israel...if we can afford it.

oh one more thing. last week we got a christmas tree and decorated it. we love it so much, we leave the christmas lights on all night long. in this season we are glad to have each other, but we miss our friends dearly. when sarah left to go back home, it really reminded us how much we love each and every one of our family members, cousins, nieces/nephews, friends who are closer than family, and church. keep us in your prayers and remember us when you are celebrating something.

josh out.

this next part is for the magic guys...if you dont want to read about magic you can skip this next part. its been inspired by the outlaw Xaycho Kong. my top 10 favorite magic cards. in no particular order.

1. Reveillark - i was never really a fan of reanimation until Reveillark. i've always known how cool reanimating something was but never how devastating it can be to your opponents. this guy is super annoying, when he is cast your opponent is caught in a Catch 22, do they kill him and let two creatures with devastating abilities come back into play? or do you let him fly over and smash you in to face for 4? either way you lose.
2. Avalanche Riders - possibly my favorite creature of all time. it took me months to find 4 copies of this guy the old fashioned way of going to stores and trading friends. how cool is coming into play, destroying any one land and then getting a creature with haste in return for R3 cc? probably way cooler than anything you've ever imagined for in a magic card! he's got an echo cost, but thats nothing a good blink cant take care of...he he. if land destroy ever makes a comeback as a viable deck, i will be on that train...
3. Mystic Snake - i love creatures with CIP (comes into play abilities) especially ones that get rid of stuff. this guy counters anything and you get a creature! his only downfall is his casting cost, but i've always been a fan of blue/green ever since the days of U/G madness.
4. momentary blink - who would have thought that making your creature leave play for a split second would be so cool? this card can be used for evasion, and cool tricks involving comes into play abilities...see the three creatures above!
5. Stasis - never has a card been a lock all in itself. its a hard to play against and play with, thats why i like it. i like cards that make me a better player, cards that force you to stop and think for a bit. with this card you have no choice but to stop and think about your slow death...b/c all your permanents will never untap again! too dirty of a card, thats precisely why i like it.
6. lightning helix - my favorite burn spell of all time. i am never sad to draw this card...ever.
7. shepard of rot - what? all your favorite cards dont have to be tournament staples. i've always loved how suicidal this guy is. with my suicide zombie deck of the onslaught era i posted nearly a 60% draw percentage with this guy...what i mean is whenever my opponent thought that they were going to win, i would tap this little bad boy and kill both of us right there on the spot. you dont know how annoyed my opponents would be that no one won.
8. wild mongrel - i love this creature. it ranks up there with tarmogoyf as one of the best 2 drops ever. period. your opponent is trying to shock it? you just discard a card to it to give it +1/+1. okay then, so your opponent tries to terror it? well, you forgot to mention to your opponent that you also turned it black! how annoying! i rode this guy all the way to game 3 of the finals of a tournament i once played back in St. louis.
9. Pavement - Terror Twilight, okay so this is not a magic card. its an album. i ran out of cards to post on okay? if you havent listened this album, you should. enough said.
10. oh i finally thought of another one...Makeshift Mannequin. instant speed reanimation. ridiculous with mulldrifter, persist creatures, and shriekmaw. in fact, many decks are tier 2 based just on the mulldrifter/shriekmaw/Mannequin interactions. thats just how powerful it is. also, a good budget card. if you noticed all my cards on my list arent expensive, except for maybe the reveillark. for the most part i;m a budget player so this card fits in real nice for me.

okay peace out for real.

josh out.

p.s. christmas wishlist
1. a black/white eventide deck. not the precon but a fully constructed one.
2. glen elendra archmages
3. poopy face.

JOHAN's done it again!

he has inspired me to start writing again. through all his videos he posts and his passion i've got the bug...God bless you Johan!

so far i have two verses i like that i feel i can share with you all and two choruses i like that i feel are congregational. unfortunately, they are all for different songs! dang it....

i've always had the problem of writing tons of parts and never being able to put the finishing touches on them...either by writing good lyrics with no good melody or vice versa or just not having a compelling enough chorus. but i'm plugging away.

i was doing some random worship surfing on YOUTUBE and found a webcast that has phil wickham himself teaching us to play his worship songs. what an awesome guy! in an age where you have to pay websites to get chords with lyrics from christian sites (b/c of copyright issues and money) we have a guy like Wickham who throws all that aside and gives up his "secrets" selflessly. in the end its about worshipping God. these songs have no copyright, they are all used to glorify Christ, the true owner of worship, and its songs.

hopefully, i'll have some finished goods to post on youtube for you all soon.

josh out.

Sickness and a Worship Tour?

3 boxes of kleenex, two rolls of toilet paper, half boxes of chinese cold and infection medicine, many 5 minute hot showers later...i am beginning to feel like i'm not part of the walking dead.

thats what i've felt like the last week...like i'm not really alive...as if my body was rotting away. i know it sounds kind of weird, but in this country you are never really healthy. its like you are in a constant state of rotting and sickness.

when i get sick, i dont get small sick, its like the real sick kind of sick that all you want to do is sleep until your back aches of sleeping and then you get up take a hot shower or bath and then go back to sleep kind of sick. where you all you want to do is sleep until you wake up not sick kind of sick. thats how i get sick.

its kind of difficult at work too b/c i've found out that i am the lecturer type of teacher and so i havent been able to lecture, so my students have been kind of weirded out by that too.

i've been practicing my magic skills and hope to come home and still be competitive. my goals are to attend at least one Grand Prix next year. if bleu permits maybe two, depending on location.

coolness. worship went well. i was sick the whole way through so i didnt really feel it, but i know God is doing good work so i am happy with it. JC you da man! one thing though, i really miss playing with the band. there is nothing like when the whole band is worshipping and the power of three electric guitar meet the POWER OF GOD! ha ha! thats funny! but true. look forward to leading worship once we get back. i want to embark on a worship tour across region 4 and 6 when i get back with the band. it would be super cool to use our vacations on the same week or two and go on a tour playing on different nights in Hmong towns across the regions. all former band mates invited. Jimmy and Johan could be our key speakers! super cool. i really think that can happen. give me feedback on this...if this is plausible. i think i would be so memorable.

josh out.