Goodbye Mainland China 再见中国大陆
Greetings everyone! I just wanted to provide a short update on our family and then get to the meat of this post! Daniel and Elizabeth are doing really good! Daniel is now officially a little over one month old and Elizabeth has recovered. Thank you for all of your prayers and thoughts! They helped us get through that difficult time, but now our family is doing well. Noah is even adjusting really nicely with his newborn little brother.
This is a difficult post for me to write, but there have been a lot of changes recently in China. I do not want to get political or anything, but most of those changes have occurred within the church here in Mainland. It has been extremely discouraging and heartbreaking to see some of these changes, which have begun to greatly impact our family in terms of how we want to live and raise our family.
Though our plans have changed over the past year, God has recently officially opened a new door for us. The second week of August, we will be moving to Macau. Currently we are living in Zhuhai, until the covid situation gets better in Macau. Unfortunately, things have become even more complicated because of Covid. If you all could continue to pray for us, we are going to need it. I need to go to Macau first to apply for my work permit and then I can apply for Elizabeth and the boys to come in attached to my work permit. We have been told that it can take anywhere from 1-2 months for this process to be completed. The good thing is that I should be able to come visit them in Zhuhai on the weekends and then Elizabeth and the boys will be allowed to come visit Macau for up to 7 days each time she comes into Macau. So hopefully this will lessen the blow with being separated from each other. Please pray that the process is faster than they said, my new school also said they are wanting to write a letter to help advocate a faster processing time for my family’s VISA process.
I had messaged a Christian school a back in November- December of 2021 in Macau, Macau Anglican College, and sent them my resume. They had no official openings listed on their website, but I felt that it was worth a shot. I was so excited when I found this school on the internet. Recently they contacted me back and we had scheduled an interview. It turns out, they eventually would be in need of searching for a social studies teacher! The current lead social studies teacher announced his leaving and the school reached out to me. I am extremely grateful that God has led me to this school and I am excited to be teaching at a Christian school! Though the name is Macau Anglican COLLEGE, it is a Pre-K to 12th grade school, that uses the Cambridge curriculum. It was set up by the Anglican Church in Hong Kong. This also means that Noah will be able to attend a Christian school!
Some of you might be a little confused with my opening paragraph and my third paragraph. Since Macau used to be a Portuguese colony, they like Hong Kong, have certain freedoms or abilities that do not exist in the Mainland. So even though Macau is part of China, they enjoy a greater sense of religious freedoms. This means they can have Christian schools, openly proselytize, go to church whenever and where ever they want, etc.
It has been a little difficult getting my head wrapped around the fact that we will be leaving Mainland China, especially since this will be the end of my 6th year since I first moved to Mainland China. These six years have been monumental in my life, so many GOOD things (gifts from God) have come out of coming to China; meeting my wife, having my two boys, working with our church, making new friends, etc. The good thing is that I now have a new VISA to come back into Mainland China, so it is not goodbye to Mainland China (especially Guangzhou), but a see you later. Since Macau is so close to Guangzhou, we prayerfully hope to be able to make the trek here once every few months.
branhow.com 