Press Release

HONG KONG - Official notice was served to Chinese authorities last week to expect a long-awaited shipment of Van Velzers in August. Following the announcement, spontaneous public celebration echoed throughout major metropolitan areas in mainland China.

"We are thrilled," commented Hu Jintao. "The Van Velzers are hot like Kung Pao Chicken right now, and China welcomes them with open arms."
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I realized it's been a "somewhat slow" two months for the old blog (ironically, they have been my best months yet in terms of unique visitors... maybe people are trying to tell me NOT to blog...). In my defense, however, the last months have been full of at least 10,000 trips out of town, a ridiculously busy work schedule, an unsuccesful attempt to be the first man to circumnavigate the globe on a camel, and probably one of the biggest life decisions my wife and I have had to make yet in our relatively young, married lives- answering the call to move to China this fall. The e-mails have been sent out at work, and it's official - we'll be leaving for Hong Kong the second week of August, and we'll be in Beijing by January after that.

This has been coming for a long time - and after a lot of prayer, fasting, and magic-8 ball consultation, it is finally here. Although it will be bittersweet to lose close physical proximity with our friends, families and coworkers, we couldn't be more convinced that this is the right decision if it came up and bit on the bottom us in a warm, fuzzy kind of way.

It's a bittersweet decision. We really do have almost everything we could want out of life here. We've got friends and family close by. We've got a spiritual community that we love. We have great, fulfililng jobs with coworkers who are associates but also sincere friends. We have an ocean view at work and home every day. Throw in an Xbox, toilets, and showers, and we've got it fully made. But that's just it - although it is our decision, it's clearly what God has for us in this next season of our lives.

What will we be doing, you ask? We'll be staying with Corrie's fam in Hong Kong for the first four months in order to get to know our soon-to-be newly adoped Chinese sister (much more on this in future blogs - but this is the main reason we are going to Hong Kong first, instead of straght to Beijing). We'll be studying Mandarin full-time starting in Hong Kong, and continue in Beijing. After that, we'll do whatever we feel led to do - might be teaching, might be business, might be finally launching our own bourgeoise clothing line of burlap-lingere named "Chaffe" (with a french-ish accent on the end, pronounced chah-fee"). The possibilities are endless... especially in China.

I can't tell you how excited we are - not because we expect it to be an idyllic adventure in a foreign land - but because we know it's exactly where we're being led. It's the excitement of not knowing what is in store other than the fact that we are Known by the One that matters - and as such, we couldn't be in better hands. So feel free to pray with us, especially that we'll make the transition to Chinese toilets quickly and 'without incident.'

I'm back, and I'll be blogging again. Thanks for hanging in there. (And thanks to those of you who have dropped my a line via the mailbox and who I have been too retarded not to take 5 minutes to respond to in the last few months - I'll be e-mailing you soon!)