Hope

Larissa, here's a late congrats on your birthday! We hope that the new year redefines 'blessed' and we hope you can cope with the level of the originality of this gift...but, then again: 'hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things...and a good thing never dies' - Shawshank
Godspeed,
Johan, Hein, Marguerite, Tinus

This was written on the beautiful envelope given to me last night at my Friends party by four of my South African friends. (I threw this party so I could have a reason to bake cakes and make burritos for the friends I have here in Taiwan and because I wanted to play the Friends board game as most of us here enjoy that show.) In the envelope, the second such gift I've gotten in the past three days, was one of the best gifts anyone could want...a $1000 NT (about $32 US) gift certificate to my favorite mall here in Hsinchu, good for anywhere in the mall. I used my first one in the American food store in the basement of the place and fed the 12 friends that came over last night with my purchases. (Thanks to my roommates for that one.)

I wanted to share this sentiment with you because I'm thankful for a group of people who call me friend in this foreign land...I'm thankful for remembered conversations about movies that I like...and I'm thankful that the friends I enjoy here know that the best hope is found in the blessings we all receive from our relationship with God.

So, tonight before I go to bed I wanted to say I'm thankful that our hope in God never dies. May we nurture that hope and guard it against any kind of illness even. On that, I'm out.

Until next time, LC from the TW

PS...I love you....;) ...and I will share more about yesterday in a post later this week.