NEWSLETTER: Autumn 2013

Greetings from Hong Kong! Our LCMS Asia Pacific team has gathered here to enjoy some fellowship with each other and to meet with members of our region’s new leadership team. 

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Well, Thanksgiving has now come and gone and we are well into the Advent season, but please allow me to keep the Thanksgiving season going, because I have much to be thankful for:

1) I am thankful for God’s relentless love for me. 

“Oh give thanks to the LORD, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever! Let the redeemed of the LORD say so, whom he has redeemed from trouble and gathered in from the lands, from the east and from the west, from the north and from the south.” -Psalms 107:1

As the psalmist writes, no matter the physical or emotional place I have wandered to; no matter the trouble or brokenness or sin I have found myself, the LORD of the universe has and continues to gather me in.  I am grateful to be counted as one of the redeemed.

2) I am thankful for my wife.

“An excellent wife who can find? She is far more precious than jewels.”...”Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised.” -Proverbs 31:10;30

God has shown his love to me in an incredible way this autumn season. He has blessed me with a wife who is charming and beautiful, but who above all loves and trusts the Lord. Coco Yang Wei and I were married on October 26 at Shanghai Community Church, followed by three reception banquets: 1) The evening of the wedding ceremony in Shanghai, 2) the following weekend in Coco’s hometown of Yangzhou, and 3) two weekends after that, November 16, in Merced, CA -- where my brother Jon and his family live.  Through all these celebrations, we were surrounded by our wonderful family, friends and spiritual community. We have enjoyed more fun, love and joy than we can handle. We are truly blessed.

You can see photos of the Shanghai ceremony and reception here:  https://vimeo.com/78506328

3) I am thankful for my LCMS and CWEF teammates.

“How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion, ‘Your God reigns.’” -Isaiah 52:7

This past weekend spent with most of our LCMS Asia team has reminded me of what a blessing these men and women are, and what a pleasure it is to serve with them. Several of our team members are completing their time with us in Asia and are returning to the places in the U.S. where God is sending them next, including:

• John & Susan Mehl; John has provided leadership and guidance as our much-loved regional director.  
• Fung Lo and his wife Kalia, who has been working with us as CWEF’s Cambodia country director.
• Meredith Wright and Faith Behnke, who have been working with us as CWEF service coordinators in China.

Please join me in thanking the Lord for them, and that he would send more co-workers to serve with us here!

4) I am thankful for the work God has called us to.

“Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us, and establish the work of our hands upon us; yes, establish the work of our hands!” -Psalm 90:17

After such a long time of wedding planning and celebration, I am now catching up and settling back into my work with CWEF.  It is great to be back. This past week, I had the joy of attending a ceremony at Target Corp.’s sourcing office in Shenzhen, China to accept a grant renewal. Since 2009, Target has partnered with CWEF to support the education of 50 young women from poor families in Guangdong province.  I was joined by our CWEF Guangdong office staff (Dolphin, Lynn and Faith), as well as Jen, a young woman we supported through high school and who is now attending university, along with two current high school scholarship recipients (pictured above).  It was a joy to see the warm and supportive relationships our staff have developed with these young women. Together with our partners, CWEF has sponsored the tuition needs of over 700 students in China’s Guangdong and Yunnan provinces from 2006 to the present. I thank God for the opportunity to be a part of this work.

5) I am thankful for an amazing support team!

“And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” -Philippians 1:6

Continued thanks to all of you for walking with me and encouraging me with your words, with your prayers, and with your gifts. The Lord has done great things through you, and I am confident that he is not done yet.

In Him,

-Josh

NEWSLETTER: Spring+Summer 2013

Dear friends,

Acts 17:24-28

“The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place,that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him.”

THE LORD IS NEAR

This letter comes to you from Kiev, Ukraine, where I have just wrapped up the second in-class summer session of my graduate degree in leadership (I started the program last year in Haiti).  I had a free day today before flying back to Shanghai tomorrow, so I took the opportunity to head out and explore the city a bit.  I admit that I knew almost nothing about Ukraine before arriving, and it has been a nice surprise; this place is full of beauty and history. 

One of my stops today was St. Michael’s Cathedral, which was first built in the 12th century and is still a functioning monastery of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. As with all orthodox churches, almost every surface of the interior is covered with icons and images of various disciples, angels, apostles and other saints. Behind all of these colorful frescoes and golden icon screens, I couldn’t help but notice a large shadowy figure dimly painted on the inside of the front dome. I assume this was meant to be Jesus, but it was hard to tell for sure. 

This got me thinking about my walk with the Lord. At times, his presence in my life has been as clear and bright as St. Michael’s majestic golden domes in the noon-day sun.  At times, though, it can feel that he is distant, mysterious, hard to know -- like the shadowy figure painted inside the dome who is hard to see behind all of the noise and clutter and busyness the world produces and which we create for ourselves. 

I take comfort and place my hope in the completion of the above quotation from Acts 17:

“Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, for:

 ‘In him we live and move and have our being’” 

As you walk with him, I pray that his presence might be more and more clear in your lives, and I ask that you pray for the same for me.

WORK UPDATE

I have been traveling quite a lot these three months: to Chiang Mai, Thailand with colleagues to take part in a CHE (Community Health Evangelism) training session; to Phnom Penh, Cambodia and Shenzhen, China to meet with CWEF local staff in those places; here to Kiev for master’s courswork; next week to Kunming, China to take part in the annual summer ‘Training of Trainers’ session for our REACH student development program. It is a busy and exciting time at the moment; we at CWEF are starting a new fiscal year and preparing for a new school year, so plans are now being finalized for all our education and health promotion programs in China and Cambodia. We are also looking forward to an all-staff meeting, which will bring the entire organization together in Hong Kong in August for a time of planning, alignment and relationship-building.

QUICK TRIP TO THE U.S.

Directly following the all-staff meeting in August, I will be heading to the U.S. for a quick three-week trip of reconnecting with some of you. I’m very excited to be able to take part in a special men’s event called Basecamp to be held August 23-24 at Mission Central in Mapleton, IA. It would be great to see some of you men there. Check this web site for more information:bandofbrothersusa.net/basecamp-2013. For the rest of my summer schedule, please checkjoshinasia.com/support.  I look forward to seeing some of you very soon.  As always, thank you for all of your support!

NEWSLETTER: Winter 2013

“...we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us. We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul...”  Hebrews 6:18-19

PEACE

These past two weeks, I have been reading and hearing quite a lot about ‘peace.’  This has not been an intentional decision on my part but the topic of ‘peace’ keeps popping up in my daily readings, the books I’m reading or the podcasts I regularly listen to.  It seems that our Father is trying to implant something into my mind and heart.

The attacks in Boston this week have once again given us reason for pause and mourning on the state of our world.   On our side of the globe, North Korea continues to choose antagonism over reconciliation. The H7N9 bird flu virus is making people nervous about a possible outbreak here in Shanghai.  Personally, life is full of joy but continues to be a whirlwind of job responsibilities, graduate school work, and copious amounts of planning for travel and three weddings (more later!) in the year ahead.

It is easy to become overwhelmed by all the craziness and move toward feelings of worry, anxiety or fear. But this week, He extends the invitation to instead move toward finding rest in him, the only immovable and unchangeable one, in whom we have a “sure and steadfast anchor” for our souls.  He welcomes us to take hold of his “shalom”, restoration, wholeness, peace:

“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.”  John 14:27

WORK UPDATE

Since the last newsletter, my coworkers and I have been busy planning our education and health development projects for next fiscal year.  It is an exciting time for us at CWEF, as we have recently changed our organizational structure in China to make it possible for us to work in more efficient and effective ways.  As director of operations, I am now working very closely with our administrative director Li Ying and our programs director Liu Li (“Dolphin”) to put more focused structures and systems into place that will make it possible for us to partner with more communities and schools, and to improve more lives in these places by building up the capacity of our local partners.  

We have also been blessed in the past few months to deepen relationships with our current donor organizations, and to enter into encouraging relationships with new donors and program partners.  One of these is Air Products, a large gas and chemicals company, whom CWEF was brought into contact with through a connection at Concordia International School Shanghai.  Air Products is funding the Shanghai pilot of our REACH student development program, and we are pleased to also have the chance to take several teams of Air Products staff out to the middle school this semester for some special volunteer activities.

她说了”我愿意”  SHE SAID "YES!"

Of course, the real news in my life is that I am now engaged to marry my girlfriend of 2 years, Coco Yang Wei (杨蔚). Coco is a native of Yangzhou in Jiangsu province, which is a 3-4 hour drive from Shanghai. After college in China, Coco completed a master’s degree in the UK before returning to Shanghai to work at one of the English-language television stations, but is now working with the Shanghai office of Roots & Shoots, an international NGO founded by primatologist Jane Goodall.  She is an amazing woman and I am very grateful to call her my fiance. Please remember us in your prayers as we prepare for three wedding celebrations (Shanghai, Yangzhou, California) later this year.

NEWSLETTER: Summer+Fall 2012

Dear friends,

It’s getting much too late in the year to be sending a newsletter entitled “Summer,” so I’m combining Summer and Fall this year. My apologies for the delay on this installment. Since I last shared news with you, it seems like a year’s worth of activity has passed, rather than the 4 or so months that have passed in reality.

My three months in the States this summer were full of joy and sharing and catching up and a lot of activity: 17 congregations, dozens of meals with friends and supporters, 10 states, 12 flights, 2 14,000-foot mountains, 2 weeks of orientation in St. Louis, 2 weeks of masters coursework in Haiti, and I’m guessing close to 8,000 miles behind the wheel.

I was blessed with the opportunity to meet many new friends this summer, especially in Iowa, Nebraska, and Minnesota, many of whom I’m writing to now for the first time. It’s my hope that it will be the first of many. I’m so thankful that God has opened up this pathway of support and Christian love, not only with those of you I’m writing to for the first time, but for those of you who I’ve been writing to now for four years strong. (!) Thank you for welcoming me into your homes, preparing a meal, letting me do laundry, taking the time for a chat over a coffee or beer, and just generally making me feel welcomed and cared for. You are salt and light. You are a reflection of Grace. Thank you.

To cap off the summer, God made it possible for me to be with the majority of my large immediate family in California for the baptism of my sister and brother-in-law’s baby boy, Ezekiel (“Zeke”). My girlfriend Coco also made the trip to be with my family and I for this last hurrah before we flew back home to Shanghai the first week of September. It was such an awesome time for them to meet and enjoy each other for the first time. God is good.

Upon returning to Shanghai, I was quickly given several reminders that sometimes life is harder than we plan for. And also: that in these setbacks, God continues to be faithful.

The first reminder: In June, I excitedly wrote to you that the principal and teachers at our partner school in the outskirts of Shanghai were showing strong support for expanding Concordia Leadership Academy (CLA), our leadership and life skills training program for teachers and students. In July, we sent four of this school’s teachers to Guangzhou in southern China to join our annual CLA training session. Things were looking great for the coming school year.

In late August, we were informed that the current principal had been replaced with a new principal, Mr. Gu. Sadly, at our meeting with him in mid-September Mr. Gu informed us that the school would no longer be able to partner with us in any way, due to strong pressure from his superiors to improve his school’s test results. Conventional Chinese educational thought on this matter says that extra-curricular activities such as CWEF's enrichment programs do not improve students' test results. This was tough for my colleague Chen Ming and me, but it was also a great learning experience, and I think it will serve to make us more thoughtful in our strategy and planning. We are now evaluating our options and meeting with several potential partners as we seek to continue developing the CLA program with middle school teachers and students in Shanghai. Please join us in asking for God’s guidance in this next stage.

In late September, Chen Ming and I led a service team of 25 students and teachers from Concordia International School Shanghai (CISS) for their annual Interim week. Together, we traveled to tiny Tangzishan in China’s rural southwestern province of Yunnan province, a Miao (same as Hmong) minority group village. There, we worked with the local people to install their village’s new drinking water system, donated by CISS and facilitated by CWEF. The people of Tangzishan are mostly Christian; it was really a joy to share life with our brothers and sisters in this village for a few days.

Unfortunately though, Tangzishan was the site of my second big reminder that life is harder than we plan for: Chen Ming came down with extreme abdominal pain that ended up being gall stones, so the trip was full of trips back and forth to the hospital in the closest town. Chen Ming had to undergo surgery to remove his gall bladder in his hometown the next week. We’re very thankful that he’s recovered and back in Shanghai now.

Last week, I traveled to our office in Phnom Penh, Cambodia for the first time to get to know our staff there and learn more detail about CWEF programs there. Cambodia is a special country with much pain in the recent past, but great hope for the future. I’m looking forward to being more involved in our work there in the next few years.

From Phnom Penh, I headed here to Phuket, Thailand to join our entire LCMS Asia Pacific team, as we are being blessed with a wonderful family retreat facilitated by Grace Place and made possible by a grant from the Lutheran Women’s Missionary League (LWML). We’re so thankful for a few days to slow down to reconnect with each other and our Father. It is my joy to partner with you for His glory in Asia.

NEWSLETTER: Spring 2012

Dear friends,

Since I last wrote in April, quite a lot has happened that I’d like to share:

DPRK

In early May, I joined a group of my LCMS East Asia teammates for a trip to North Korea. The photo above (#1) is overlooking the city we visited: Rason, a special economic zone on the northeast coast of North Korea near the borders with Russia and China. I won’t go into all the details here but if you are curious, please send me a note, and I can share more with you personally.

New CWEF web site

In May, we also launched the new CWEF web site! Please go check it out at www.cwef.org.hk and learn more about our work in China & Cambodia.

Concordia Leadership Academy

At the end of May, we also attended the last Concordia Leadership Academy (CLA) class of the semester at our partner school - Shanghai Jinshan ECNU #3 middle school. We met with the principal and participating teachers afterward and were very pleased with their enthusiasm for the program. The school has agreed to expand CLA to more students beginning next school year, and this summer 5 new teachers at their school will be trained in the CLA curriculum and participatory learning methods with our staff and about 20 other CLA teachers from Yunnan and Guangdong at the summer training in Guangzhou.

We were also thrilled to hear the teachers share with us that they have seen significant positive development in one student in particular this semester. Yang Rui (#2 above), has always been one of the best students in her class, but only this semester has she begun to develop confidence and the ability to express herself, building stronger bonds with her teachers and classmates. The teachers attributed these positive changes to her participation in CLA. It’s just these type of life skills that will give students like Yang Rui the tools they need to live a fuller life after completing their education.

You can see more photos of the May 2012 CLA meeting at Shanghai Jinshan ECNU #3 middle school on our Flickr page here: www.flickr.com/cwef

A prayer request regarding CLA: We are still seeking funding for the CLA program for fiscal year 2012-2013. Please ask Him to lead us to the right financial partner(s).

Claire

In late May, my friend Claire Barco arrived back in Shanghai. Claire was living and working in Shanghai until last summer when she returned to the U.S. to pursue a master’s degree in health informatics at the University of Michigan. This summer, Claire has returned to Shanghai to share her talents with CWEF. She’ll be helping us launch our new online database system, which will allow our staff to more efficiently share information across offices. We are very excited for this and very thankful for Claire’s service.

Office Space & Registration

In early June we signed a contract on CWEF’s first office space in Shanghai. Since the beginning of this year, Chen Ming and I have been sharing office space with another non-profit called Compassion for Migrant Children. A very suitable space opened up in the same building, so we jumped on it. This came at just the right time, as we are also now beginning the process for registering a business in Shanghai. This type of registration is necessary for us to be able to give work visas to foreign staff (like myself), since we are not able to process work visas through our Chinese non-profit registration.

Position change

As of June 1, I am now a ‘career’ worker with LCMS and have transitioned from Shanghai Service Coordinator to Director of Operations for CWEF! Please ask Him to give me the wisdom and ability to serve our staff well in my new role.

Home Service

On June 5, I arrived back on American soil once again (#3 above). It is so good to be home and to spend time with friends, family, and supporters. I will be in the U.S. until early September, but won’t be in one place for too long. I am in Central Missouri now but will soon be traveling to Illinois, St. Louis, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, Colorado, and California. You can see my summer schedule on the Support page of my web site at: http://jwalange.wordpress.com/support. I’m looking forward to seeing many of you in person soon!